Page 17 of Keeping My Girl

CHAPTER12

Nicholas

THE DOCTOR INFORMED me that she accidentally let the cat out of the bag earlier. Selina knows who I am now; knows where she is. I was worried for her to find out the truth and the consequences thereafter; but to be honest, I feel more relieved now than anything. Yes, I wanted to tell Selina myself, but I kept delaying the inevitable. Selina saw me as some sort of monster that killed a man in front of her, and I didn’t want to confess that the boy she once cared for grew up to be that same monster.

But now that she knows, it makes all of this easier somehow. It feels like a great weight has been lifted from my shoulders. No more pretending. No more hiding.

Selina is in her room when I enter through the open door. The hospital bed she was in when she first arrived here was replaced with a big four-poster bed early this afternoon. And that’s where she’s currently sitting, her legs tucked under her as she quietly reads a book. She’s still wearing a gown, however, but that’s why I stopped by — to remedy that.

Upon catching a glimpse of me, she gently sets the book down and gives me a tentative smile. I could practically cut the tension in the room with a knife, and I hate that. I hate that we’ve become like this. I wish I could rewind ten years and get a do-over. But the truth is what happened, happened. There’s no going back, and there’s no changing it. The only thing we can do now is try to push forward and look towards the future, whatever that may be for her, for me, for us. Fuck, I hope there’s an us.

“The doctor gave you the all-clear,” I tell her, setting down a bag of clothes on the edge of the bed. The clothes are plain, most of them gently used donations that we give to all the women who temporarily stay here. “It’s not much, but I’m sure you can go shopping soon,” I explain.

She opens the bag and sorts through some of the clothes before a small grin graces her pretty face. “Thank you.”

“And I brought you dessert,” I explain before setting the bowl of mint chocolate chip ice cream down on the nightstand beside her.

Selina stares at it for a while before she whispers in astonishment, “You remembered.”

When her unique eyes meet mine in a stare, I quickly clear my throat. “I might have remembered you eating mint chocolate chip ice cream by the gallon back then,” I muse, my lips tilting up in a smile.

“I haven’t had it since I lived here,” she says, staring down at the bowl like it’s so much more than just ice cream.

The sadness in her voice imbeds itself deep in my bones. If she couldn’t even indulge in her favorite ice cream over the years, I wonder what else she missed out on. But before I even let myself go there and start thinking about that shit, I throw those thoughts right out the window. I can’t dwell on that now, or I’ll ruin this moment by getting angry. I’m barely holding it together as it is. I don’t need to have a major outburst in front of Selina and scare her more than I have already.

“Well, there’s a huge container of it in the freezer. So anytime you want it, it’s yours,” I offer.

She gently grips the bowl in her delicate hands and scoops a little bit of ice cream into her mouth. She closes her eyes as she sucks on the spoon, savoring the taste before letting out a long moan of satisfaction.

Fuck.My cock twitches inside of my pants from the sound coming from her throat. Down boy, I internally tell my dick as I cross the room and sit down in a chair by the window.

As soon as I’m seated, I hear Selina say, “I can’t believe I didn’t recognize you before. It’s just…you look so different. So much older. Grown up.”

“I don’t know if I would have recognized you at that party either except for —.”

“My eyes,” she guesses.

“Yep.”

“So you weren’t a hundred-percent sure who I was when you saved me from Gino?”

I shake my head. “I knew he was hurting a woman. That’s all that mattered in the moment, and that bastard deserved what he got,” I explain, my voice dangerously low.

She flinches at my harsh words, perhaps recalling that night and what I did in order to protect her. I’m not the innocent, little boy she knew back then. I’ve changed a lot over the years. I just hope we can find a kinship again like before. And I hope she can overcome her obvious fear of me.

I work my jaw from side to side before continuing with, “I was hoping it was you after I bumped into you in the hallway, but I wasn’t totally sure until I saw the birthmark on your neck after all was said and done.”

She absently reaches up to touch her fingertips to the heart-shaped mark. “You remembered that too, huh?” she whispers.

“I remember everything about you, Lina.”

My use of her nickname has her eyes growing wide with surprise. I’m sure she hasn’t been called that since she lived here, and it feels so damn good to be able to call her that once again.

“I tried so hard to forget you,” she confesses in a rush. “Remembering you was like the sweetest torture. You were the only good thing in my life at one point, and it was hard to relive those moments in my mind, because I knew I would probably never see you again. But sometimes you were just the saving grace I needed, the only thing that got me through some of the most horrible times in my life.”

I want to ask her where she’s been, but I know she needs to do it on her own. She doesn’t need me pressuring her to tell her story. And so I sit quietly in the chair, watching her slowly eat the ice cream and just enjoying being in the same room as her with everything out on the table and her actually sober and coherent for the first time since she arrived.

“Nico,” she says softly, and I swear my heart stops beating. I haven’t heard her say my name in ten fucking years, and it’s like a distant memory unlocks deep inside of my mind. “How did you find me?” she questions.

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