Page 69 of Our Moon
I must have stars in my eyes and a big goofy grin on my face because Alex sighs and rolls his eyes. “This is going to be sooo much fun.” Chase and I laugh as he pulls me back to our table.
Trevor takes my seat by Lucy so I can sit down next to Chase.
“He’s right, you know,” Chase says quietly into my ear. His breath so close makes me shiver.
“About what?” I ask, knowing that Alex is rarely ever right about anything.
“This is going to be sooo much fun,” he smirks.
Looking into his eyes, I say, “It’s going to be everything.”
He smiles, leans in, and gives me a quick kiss. I lean into him, immediately wanting more, but draw back when a breadstick bounces off Chase’s head.
“That’s still my sister,” Alex says. I look at Chase, and we laugh. “Take it down a notch,” he warns, which earns laughs from the rest of the table. “What?”
“You,” Joey says, “acting like a big brother.”
“Iamher big brother,” he argues.
“By like four minutes,” I huff.
“Still older,” he grumbles.
And so it goes, Alex and I participate in our usual banter as I field questions from the rest of the group about suddenly having my memory back. All the while, Chase is holding my hand under the table, giving me his silent strength as I share the more difficult parts about remembering my parents.
I don’t miss the irony of this all coming back to me at the last place my family was all together, and on another graduation night at that. In fact, in later sessions with Dr. Moody, she shares that it was possibly the almost identical recurrence of events that triggered the memories to begin with – the graduation and the dinner. I don’t really care how it happened, just that it did happen and that I can finally start living my life again.
Chase
Six months later.
“Is that the last of it?” Ally asks as I walk into the apartment with two more boxes.
“That’s it,” I tell her, setting them down in the living room. I look around her, actually,our, apartment and smile when I see she has begun to unpack some of my things. Seeingmy things mixed with hers is a little unreal. This moment has been years in the making.
“What’s got you smiling over there?” She tilts her head and smiles as she looks at me.
“This, all of this. I just can’t believe how far we’ve come.”
“I can,” she says confidently. “I knew when I was seventeen that I was going to be with you for the rest of my life.” I smile at her confidence. I was that confident once, too. Then the accident happened and the love of my life was lost to me for four years. “Did you ever doubt it?”
I can’t lie to her, not again. Never again. “There were times over the past few years when I wasn’t sure what was going to happen.”
She pauses her unpacking and steps around the kitchen table to me. Resting her hand on my cheek she says, “I’m so sorry I ever made you doubt us.”
I shake my head. “No, baby girl. You have nothing to apologize for. Neither of us could help what happened. What matters is that we’re together now. That you found your way back to me.” I lean forward and kiss her forehead.
“I love you so much, Chase Baker.”
“I love you so much, future Mrs. Baker the baker.”
She laughs and pats my chest. “Funny.” She returns to the kitchen and finishes unpacking my minimal kitchen supplies.
What she doesn’t know, is that I plan to make her Mrs. Baker the baker sooner rather than later. Her ring has been burning a hole in my pocket for six months now. Yes, the moment she came back to me, I bought the ring. I haven’t decided how I’m going to ask her yet, but I will make it epic. Her brothers would kick my ass if I didn’t give Ally the very best.
Things were different, to say the least, after she regained her memory. She and I were as good as we were before the accident, but her brothers found the situation so incredibly awkward. I couldn’t exactly blame them. I’m sure some part of them was holding out hope that I hallucinated the depth of our relationship or our relationship entirely. But when she all but confirmed it at the restaurant after her memory came back, they couldn’t hide in denial any longer. It might have been easier if they had been eased into the whole thing, but to Ally, she loved me the same as she did the night of her high school graduation. Much to her brothers’ chagrin, she wasn’t about to hold back.
While she was diving in head first, Iwastrying to ease into things. I loved her more and more with each passing day, but I wanted to make sure her new life meshed with her old life. I wanted to make sure her current feelings were equivalent to her recalledfeelings. I didn’t want to pressure her, even though I couldn’t imagine life without her. She never wavered in her love for me though. And eventually her brothers stopped acting weird and accepted it for what it was.
