Page 38

ARELLA

The stars are shining by the time I park my car behind Trey’s motorcycle. The entire drive here, I was worried he had left already. I’m thrilled to know he hasn’t.

When I get up to the tree— our tree—he’s not there. His backpack is though. Where did he go?

I lay out our blanket, then set my purse down.

“Trey?” I call, because maybe he’s nearby.

The crickets are the only things that answer me.

I glance around the oak tree toward the woods that always stretch behind us, but there’s no movement.

Since his backpack is here, he’s gotta come back for it, right? With a sigh, I sit on the blanket and wait.

Thankfully, I don’t have to wait long. Barely five minutes later, the sound of footsteps comes from behind the tree.

When Trey rounds the trunk, he stops and jumps back with a hand to his chest. “Fuck. You scared me.”

“Sorry,” I say through a giggle.

“How long have you been here?”

“Only a few minutes.” I pat my blanket and gesture for him to sit. “Where did you go?”

He drops down next to me and crosses his legs together. “My therapist suggested that I go for walks whenever the meditations don’t work. So that’s what I did.”

“How often do you go for walks?”

“I used to almost every day. Sometimes twice a day. I haven’t been on a walk in... seven weeks.”

It takes me a second to understand the significance of seven weeks. Then that same warmth I’ve been feeling lately around Trey eases through me, filling my stomach with little flutters. “Why did you walk tonight?”

He blinks at me, and his eyes tell me his answer: He went for a walk because he thought I wasn’t coming. He waited for me and overthought it so much that even the meditations didn’t calm his mind.

“Did the walk help?”

“Not really, but I’m good now.” He offers me a tender smile that says, I’m good now that you’re here.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t know how to contact you to let you know I wasn’t going to be here. Maybe we should exchange numbers.”

He twirls his thumbs around each other. “I’ve thought about that, and I don’t think it’s a good idea.”

I try not to look disappointed. “Why’s that?”

“Do you want to guess, or do you want me to just say it?”

“Um, is it because you don’t think you should have a married woman’s number?”

“No. It’s because I don’t think I can handle it. If I have the ability to text you, I won’t be able to do anything else. I’ll just stare at my phone all day, waiting for you to text me back. If you don’t right away, I’ll obsess over it, and I don’t think that’s healthy for me.”

I can see where he’s coming from. If I had his number, I’d probably spend all day texting him too. We never seem to run out of things to talk about. I wouldn’t be able to get anything else done.

“So,” he says, “you weren’t planning to be here tonight?”

“Not originally.”

“What changed your mind?”

Nothing really changed my mind. I’ve wanted to be here all week.

Even when Caleb told me he took tonight off, I asked him if there was any other night he could take off instead.

“I took your advice from last week. I talked to Caleb about spending more time together and staying off his phone. Tonight was supposed to be date night. Then Rakesh called. His grandma died, so Caleb ditched me to go be with him.”

“I see.” Trey’s eyes cast down with a somber look.

I hate seeing him like that. “Why do you look so sad?”

He blinks like he’s trying to arrange the right words in his head, then he bails. “It’s nothing.”

“It’s not nothing. It’s probably deep if you’re not openly sharing it with me.”

“It is deep, but it’s also an inappropriate thing to say to you, so I should just keep quiet.”

Now I have to know. I dig my hand into my purse and pull out our questions box. Then I take the lid off and pull out a card. I barely even look at it as I say, “What deep thought crossed your mind just now?”

Trey shakes his head at me, chuckling. “This tactic again, huh?”

I smirk a little. “It worked last time.”

“If I share this deep thought with you, you’re gonna have to fork one out too.”

“Deal. Now spill.”

He focuses on his hands in his lap for a while before finally saying, “The thought that crossed my mind was that the only reason you came here tonight was because your other plan fell through. To you, I’m just a backup plan.

But to me, you’re... well, you’re not a backup plan.

That’s for damn sure. I shouldn’t take it too hard though.

I’d rather be your backup plan than no plan at all. I should just take what I can get.”

Each of his words is laced with a brokenness I can feel in the depths of my heart. I’m sure his thoughts run deeper than what he was willing to share. I’m grateful that he shared something , though, because I need to correct him.

I place a tender hand over his knee so he can feel how much I mean my next words. “Trey, you are not a backup plan. I wanted to be here tonight, but this was the only night Caleb could get off. The entire time I had dinner with him, I was thinking of you.”

“You were?”

“Yeah. I didn’t like the idea of you sitting here, waiting for me. That’s why the second he left, I came straight here.”

Trey places his hand over mine on his knee. His warmth sends a tingle up my arm. “I would wait forever for you, even when I don’t know if you’re coming. The possibility that you might is enough for me.”

My heart melts into a little puddle. That’s the most endearing thing anyone has ever said to me.

My eyes lock with his. I recognize that intense look between all the chaos and misery in his blue-grays.

It’s the way he looks at me in my dreams—right before he kisses me.

My breath hitches at the idea. His gaze drops to my eager lips and lingers there.

I can practically see all the wild thoughts racing through his head as he battles with himself.

Eventually, he leans back, clears his throat, and takes his hand off mine.

My skin feels cold where his hand used to be. I retract my palm from his knee as my throat goes dry. Maybe it’s for the best.

To lighten things up, I say, “Does confessing that I was thinking of you during dinner count as forking out a deep thought?”

“Hell no. I’m gonna need something more than that.”

“What would you like to know?”

He takes a moment to think. “Tell me a secret of yours. Something no one else knows.”

I try to think of something I haven’t told anyone else, not even Javina.

She knows almost everything about me. The only thing she doesn’t know is anything that’s happened here with Trey.

Lately, it’s been getting harder to keep this from her.

“A secret just came to mind, but it’s not really a secret.

It’s just something I’d like to clear up with you. ”

“I’m listening.”

“I don’t have any food allergies. Nor do I have a birthmark. I’ve never had a dog either.”

“But . . . you . . . when I came to your apartment?—”

I offer him an apologetic shrug. “They were trick questions.”

“I feel bamboozled.”

I giggle at his funny word choice. “I’m sorry. At least you know now.”

“You know, I drove myself insane trying to remember if you had ever mentioned having a dog.”

He didn’t say if Alterella had ever mentioned having a dog.

He’s talking about me . Usually, when he brings up the past, he’s pretty good about keeping Alterella and me separated.

I do the same. That way, we can continue living in our own little world where alternate universes explain why I don’t remember him.

A world where we don’t have to talk about this unexplainable and unbreakable connection we have.

It’s easier that way. I like being able to pretend like he’s just an old friend I’m reconnecting with—a friend who appears in my dreams all the time.

Because of those dreams, I feel like I know him.

I don’t know many facts about him, but I know his mannerisms, his tells, and the many thoughts he doesn’t say aloud—things that people only know about each other after spending enough time together.

Technically, I haven’t spent that much time with Trey, but I have in my mind.

Despite that we’ve barely touched each other, I know his body too.

I know what it feels like to have his muscular arms wrapped around me after a hot make-out session that leaves us panting.

I know what it feels like to run my fingertips up and down the ridges of his abs.

I even know what it feels like to wrap my palms around his thick shaft.

These aren’t things I remember doing in real life.

They’re things I’ve done only in my dreams, which I suppose could have been real life. I’m not sure anymore.

Trey said he can’t tell me how I lost my memories because the government would throw him back in prison. If I guess it right, would he tell me? I have theories. Some are plausible; others are downright insane.

My craziest theory is that Trey is from the future—a future where they visit the past like it’s a fun recreational activity, as if it’s the same as taking a little vacation or going on a road trip—and on one of Trey’s visits to the past, we met and fell madly in love.

Since people from the future are forbidden from getting personally involved with people from the past, the future government wiped my memories using a memory-zapping device like the one from Men in Black .

Then the future government banished Trey from returning to the future and said if he ever told me what happened, they’d imprison him.

Their memory zapper must not be that powerful if my memories have been returning in my dreams. Trey must know it’s possible to beat it, because he once said, “Whatever they did to you, you can fight it. Look into my eyes. Try to remember me.”