Page 45 of Don't Forget Me
A new song came on. Piece of cake. Nick turned away from her, pretending to strut across the kitchen, before facing her once more. As the beat picked up, he started in on a piece of complicated footwork he was surprised he could still do.
He didn’t look at Liz, didn’t let himself enjoy the shock he imagined was on her face as he executed a perfect turn into a jump before moonwalking back toward her.
He kept going, pulling out every move he could dredge up from the back of his mind, his body remembering what to do.
A burnt smell reached him, curling through his nose, and his feet stopped.
Liz’s eyes widened as she darted toward the oven and yanked it open, pulling out the chicken dish she’d cooked. Black char coated the top, and she slammed it down on the stove. “Crap!”
Moment broken, Nick turned down the music.
“Crap, crap, crap.” Liz pulled out a fork and turned over the chicken. “I screwed it up. Ugh, of course I did.”
Tears welled in her eyes, and Nick wasn’t quite sure what was happening. She’d gone from laughing and dancing to cursing and trying not to cry so fast it gave him whiplash.
As she worried over the chicken, he took the other dish out of the oven to prevent the vegetables from burning and set it on a trivet.
Liz continued picking through the burnt dinner, mumbling to herself. It was so unlike the woman he’d started getting to know that he wasn’t quite sure what to do. So, he walked to the large pantry, pulled out his Lucky Charms cereal and retrieved two bowls.
Liz turned to him as he retrieved the milk. “What are you doing?”
“Cooking you dinner.” He poured milk into each bowl before closing the fridge and getting two spoons out of a drawer. Holding out a bowl, he implored her to take it. “Come on.”
Liz wiped a hand over her eyes and nodded, taking the bowl and following him out onto the deck where they could see the setting sun.
Lowering himself to the edge, he hung his legs over and waited for her to join him.
“I’m sorry.” The words rushed out of her. “I never burn stuff, but I got distracted, and now we’re having cereal for dinner.”
He looked sideways at her. “I happen to like cereal.” Taking a bite, he lifted his eyes to the horizon. “It’s sort of a food group to those of us who can’t cook.”
As if taking pity on him, she took a reluctant bite. “I enjoy cooking. Trying new recipes, experimenting on my own. When I was younger, I thought one day I might want to be a chef.”
“So, why didn’t you become one?”
A sigh pushed past her lips. “I… it’s a long, winding story. Let’s just say when it came time to choose a career path in school, I wanted to help people.”
“And did you?” He imagined she didn’t need a degree to help people. Her very presence was enough.
She looked away, keeping the secrets in her eyes hidden from him. “No, I didn’t.” Her shoulders dropped. “I serve coffee at the hospital you and I are both coma patients in right now.”
His spoon paused halfway to his mouth. “And you think you don’t help people?”
Setting her bowl on the deck beside her, she wrapped her arms over her chest. “Not the way I wanted to. I’m not curing them or making sure they get the care they need.”
“Ah, you wanted to be a doctor. That fits.”
“How does it fit?”
He swallowed a bite and shook his head. “You’re joking, right? You want to take care of people. Even when I was a colossal jerk, you couldn’t help yourself. I thought it was because you’re a mom, but now I know differently. You’re a med student.”
“Was. I was a med student. It’s not important. I couldn’t finish, and now I’m only doctor adjacent.”
His brow furrowed as he tried to understand her. Liz was one of the smartest people he’d met. It was easy to see that much. There had to be more to the story than simply that she couldn’t finish. “Did you really want to get through it?”
“Of course I did.” She hooked her hands under her knees.
“And now? If you could go back?”
