Page 126 of I Dreamt That You Loved Me

I paced the sidewalk.

What would you say if you could do it all over again?

I ran my hands through my hair.

What would you say? What would you say?

Cleo set the two coffees on the table and sat down again. Then she wrote something on a paper napkin and pressed it against the window: If you’re a musician, just keep walking.

I laughed as I pushed through the door and stopped next to her table. Guess I’d just wing it.

She raised her brows. “Do I know you?”

“Not yet.” I took a seat across from her and leaned my forearms on the table. “Have you ever felt like you met someone in another life? I know you don’t know me but trust me when I say I would never lie about something like this.”

I crossed my heart. “It’s not a line to try and pick you up. This really happened. I saw you in my dreams and then I was walking past the window and there you were. And I just thought, what are the chances that the girl of my dreams would materialize right before my eyes?”

It was all true. In my dreams, I saw her sitting in the window as I walked past, and I always stopped and reached out my hand, silently pleading with her to take it. Sometimes our eyes would meet. Sometimes she would stare straight ahead and never even notice me. One time she ran out the door and we kissed, and when I woke up, I was shocked to find that I was alone in my bed and she was nowhere to be found.

“And okay...” I held up my hands. “You got me. I am a musician. But a struggling one. This morning, I wrote a song about the girl I saw in my dreams. The girl isyou. So, I just wanted you to know that you were the inspiration for my music. If you want me to leave, just say the word and I won’t bother you again. But if you think maybe you might want to get to know me, I have all day.” I reached for her hand and clasped it in mine. “I have all the time in the world for you.”

She released a ragged breath. “Why are you doing this to me?”

“I’m not ready to let you go. Not when I’ve finally found you again.”

“You’ve hadthree years, Gabriel.” She yanked her hand away. “And I know it’s not your fault that you don’t remember me. I never blamed you for anything that happened in the months after your surgery. None of that was your fault. But youchoseto leave. Youchoseto stay away. And I do blame you for that. Wasn’t I even worth a phone call?” She swallowed hard, her voice quavering. “Did I mean so little to you?”

Fuck. What could I say to that? I should have stayed. I should have tried harder. I should have done a lot of things differently.

But I also knew that if I’d stayed, it never would have worked. At the time, I wasn’t capable of loving her the way she deserved to be loved.

I rubbed my hand over my chest. There was that ache again. “I’m sorry?—”

“I don’t want your apologies.” She stood up from the table. I stood too. “I just…this was…a lot.” She blew out a breath. “I need to get going.”

I grabbed my backpack and held the door for her. “I’ll walk you home.”

We walked in silence. A weighted silence filled with hurt and resentment and unanswered questions, and on my end, regrets. Her shoulders were rigid, and she looked straight ahead, chin lifted.

Stubborn. Fierce. Worth the fight.

When we stopped in front of her building, I wiped the sweat off my forehead with the back of my arm and looked up. “Does the apartment still look the same?”

Invite me in.

Invite me in.

Invite me in.

Cleo shook her head. “No. It’s a co-op now so they renovated all the apartments in this building. They took out the bathtub.”

“Those fuckers.”

She laughed but then her face fell. I don’t know what she was remembering but I remember her sitting in that bathtub drinking wine on the day I left.

If you jump, I jump.

That was the kind of love we had once upon a time. The kind of love that saved lives. That pushed us to become better versions of ourselves.