Page 76 of Until You Found Me

“You’ll be here when I wake up?”

It’s a silly question and for a moment, she assumes he’s joking. Where would she go? Why would she leave? There’s a wariness in his tone that says he’s serious, perhaps expecting that she’s begun to reach her limit and his illness is too much.

She reminds herself that everyone who was supposed to love him left behind emotional scars that’ll never fade.

“I’ll always be here,” she says.

She wonders, as he settles heavily against her and sleep pulls him in, how long it might take before he believes her.

Chapter 17

“Why won’t you let me do this?” Tessa asked when they woke for food before crawling back into bed again.

“Because I love you.”

“That’s why I have to. Because I love you.”

They’re at a stalemate about his kidney situation and no amount of talking will resolve it. So, they settled back into their respective opinions on the matter and let a long nap turn into an even longer sleep. She hopes he’ll cave eventually, that some sense of self-preservation will take over and he’ll accept her offer, but the odds of that are slim to none.

Logan can’t let her give him a literal piece of herself because what if she needs it one day? What if her one remaining kidney starts to struggle and her other one is taking up space in his body instead?

He can’t let her help him because he won’t watch her suffer even more to keep him around. There’s no guarantee he’ll have the money for those drugs three years later to keep such a precious gift working.

He can’t let her help him because what if she remembers who she is one day and doesn’t want anything to do with him? Too late, he’ll have harvested one of her organs like a fucking leech.

He can’t let her help him because he doesn’t deserve that kind of sacrifice.

It’s wrong to take something so important from someone who’s missing large chunks of their memory. All the while he feels guilty for thinking that the Tessa he knows might not be the real one. He’d be devastated if that turned out to be true, but at least she could leave him completely intact if she chose to. He wouldn’t have robbed her of a kidney.

He can’t let her because he loves her, is the simple answer. It’s every bit as true, but there are shades of gray that color his decision too, ones that he has no intention of voicing. All of that and more has been running through his head since he woke before her, moonlight still glinting off her bare skin where the sheet pooled around her hips to reveal her back.

Logan could fix this if he ran. Leave this life, this place, her.

If he’s quiet, he could slip out before she wakes.

He would take the dog so she doesn’t have another mouth to feed. Leave everything else, including the trailer and his broken heart, behind. At least she’d have a place to live for however long she needed it. He could have a will drawn up while he’s on the road that names her the beneficiary of his meager estate.

It would be a shitty thing to do and a selfless thing all rolled into one. He isn’t sure which wins out, only knows that he can’t let her watch him die and if he stays, she’ll be subjected to exactly that. If he leaves now, she can remember him whole instead of wasting away. She can remember the last time they kissed, how he made her laugh with some terrible, dry joke…the way he felt inside her. That’s what he wants to leave her with, he thinks, watching her eyelids move rapidly behind closed lids, her face serene while caught in a dream.

And then he remembers he can’t name her as a beneficiary to anything because she has no last name.

Her murderous ex-husband is lurking loose in society.

She has no one in this world but him and he’s about to betray and abandon her, leaving her alone in the middle of the night as if that would be for her own good.

“Logan?” she mumbles, still half asleep. Her leg searches for his before hooking over his thigh, her naked body warming his skin. “Why are you awake? It’s still dark.”

“Just a bad dream,” he lies, his resolve melting as quickly as she does in his arms.

“Mmm. Me too. Better now, though.”

She’s draped across him, heavy and tired, her breath tickling his neck and breasts pressed to his chest. He brushes a kiss to her hairline and whispers anI love you, not expecting her to hear a thing.

“Love you,” she replies. “I’ll be here when you wake up. Go to sleep.”

The air in his lungs hitches and his eyes water, all his willpower to save her from himself, crumbling faster than he gathered it up. He begged her for reassurance before he fell asleep earlier and now here he is, thinking about betraying her instead. He tries to keep quiet, but his body shivers in a muted sob that he fails at concealing.

Just like that, her head lifts off his chest and that sleep-hazed expression clears. With furrowed brows, she touches his face, causing him to hastily wipe his eyes as if it could hide anything.

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