Page 37 of Unearthed Dreams (Sable Point #3)

Chapter Thirty-One

KAI

I hadn’t gone far. Couldn’t. Even though every cell in my body screamed to run, to get drunk, to do something to dull this fucking pain, I stayed. Paced the hallway like some caged animal instead.

Five fucking months of memories, erased in one moment of metal meeting pavement. Our beginning, our middle, and now what felt like our end—all of it existing only in my head.

God, I’m gonna be fucking sick.

My hand brushed against something in my pocket. Billy’s letter. You deserve good things, son.

But maybe this was karma. The universe’s way of telling me I’d been right all along—Charlie deserved better than a bartender carrying too much baggage.

I stopped pacing, planted my elbows against a nearby wall, and pressed my forehead to my crossed wrists.

I needed to breathe, but the air wouldn’t come. The world narrowed to pinpricks of sensation—cold wall against my elbows, rough texture of my shirt collar against my neck, thundering pulse in my ears. Breathe. Just fucking breathe.

But my lungs refused to expand. The hallway’s antiseptic smell mixed with lingering traces of copper, making my stomach roll.

Footsteps approached, light and quick. A gentle hand touched my shoulder.

“Kai? Hey, look at me.”

Elena’s voice cut through the static in my head. I managed to turn, finding her concerned face swimming in my blurred vision.

“Come on.” She gripped my elbow, steering me away from the wall. “Let’s get you somewhere quiet.”

My feet moved on autopilot as she guided me down a side corridor, away from the harsh fluorescent lights and beeping monitors. The sound of my ragged breathing echoed off the empty walls.

“In through your nose, out through your mouth,” Elena instructed, her tone shifting to doctor mode. “Count with me. One...”

She pushed open a door marked Staff Break Room and led me inside. The space was mercifully dark and cool, smelling of coffee and old magazines instead of blood and disinfectant.

“Sit.” She pressed me into a worn sofa. “Head between your knees.”

I complied, feeling the room spin less as blood rushed back to my head. Elena’s hand rubbed slow circles between my shoulder blades.

“That’s it. Just breathe. She’s okay, Kai.”

A choked sound escaped my throat—somewhere between a laugh and a sob. “I can’t—she doesn’t even—” The words fractured, splintering like glass.

“Shhh. One thing at a time.” Elena’s voice remained steady, anchoring. “Right now, just focus on breathing. The rest will come.”

The panic slowly eased its grip on my chest, leaving me slumped against the break room sofa next to Elena. My breathing steadied, though exhaustion settled deep in my bones.

“What happened?” The words scraped raw in my throat. “He seemed like he was doing so well.”

Elena’s fingers drummed against her thigh, a nervous tick I’d noticed during our past encounters at the bar. “This summer has been... difficult. Chase hasn’t been handling things well.”

“No shit.” Bitterness crept into my voice. “A fucking motorcycle? What was he thinking?”

“I wish I knew. We haven’t spoken in weeks.”

My head snapped up. “What?”

Elena’s lips pressed into a thin line, her gaze fixed on some distant point.

“I thought—” The pieces refused to align in my mind. “Weren’t you two together?”

“I have a patient.” Elena hitched a thumb over her shoulder, and I recognized the deflection for what it was. “You good?”

“Yeah. I’m good. Thank you.”

“Of course.” Elena stood and smoothed two hands over her scrub top coving her stomach. She took a few steps toward the door before throwing her next words over her shoulder. “Kai? She’ll remember. ”

I pressed my lips together and nodded. Because what else could I do but hope?

When I pushed to stand, I wobbled a bit on unsteady legs, but quickly got my shit together. There was a bar waiting for me, customers to serve, liquor to inventory. A life to get back to.

The life I’d had before Charlie Everton walked into it and made me believe in second chances.

I couldn’t do this. I couldn’t be in this bar, be in the apartment without her.

Everything reminded me of Charlie. The stairs where I’d caught her that morning after our almost-kiss, her body fitting perfectly against mine.

The barstool where she’d first sat, nervously ordering a beer she didn’t even want.

The storage room where she’d followed me after the festival, demanding I stop fighting what was between us.

And upstairs... Fuck. Upstairs was worse.

Her manuscript pages were still scattered across my bed where we’d left them Sunday morning, red pen marks bleeding across white paper like wounds. Her coffee mug—the one with the dragon wrapped around it that I’d bought her as a joke—sat on my nightstand, lipstick stains on the rim.

Five weeks I’d kept everything exactly as she’d left it. Like some kind of shrine. Like if I didn’t move anything, she’d wake up and come back and...

And what? Remember me?

The doctors had said the memories might return gradually. Or all at once. Or never. But watching her look at me with those blank eyes, hearing her polite “Kai, right?”—like I was just some guy she’d met once at a wedding...

I grabbed a bottle of Jack from behind the bar. Not to drink. Just to hold. Just to feel the familiar weight of temptation in my hand.

Three years sober. Three years of choosing to face every fucking nightmare stone-cold because I’d promised my unborn child I’d do better. Be better.

But Kelsey was gone. And now Charlie was...

The bottle slammed against the wall before I even realized I’d thrown it. Glass shattered, whiskey running down the wall like tears.

“Shit.” I pressed the heels of my hands against my eyes. “Shit, shit, shit .”

My phone buzzed a few times in my pocket. Probably Elena, checking if I was okay. Or Elliot, wanting to talk about Chase. Or...

I pulled it out, my heart stopping when I saw the name.

MATTHEW

Just finished the second round of edits on Charlie’s manuscript.

This is good stuff, man. Really good.

Hope I get to talk with her about it soon. Keep me posted.

Charlie’s manuscript. Charlie’s dreams. Charlie’s future.

All of it waiting for her.

None of it including me.

Before I had a chance to chuck the phone and shatter it, too, another message came through.

ELLIOT

They’re discharging Charlie tomorrow

Thought you’d wanna know

I managed a dry swallow before typing out a response.

KAI

Thanks for telling me. I have a few of her things she’ll want.

ELLIOT

I can swing by the bar this afternoon

Not an interaction I was particularly looking forward to, but I didn’t have much of a choice.

I took a steadying breath before I moved around the room, gathering up every piece of Charlie she’d left behind. If I could’ve gathered up the pieces of my broken heart and shoved them in her backpack, too, I’d do it.

They belonged to her.

When her laptop, the marked-up pages of her book, and her Kindle were safely secured in the worn-out bag, I slung it over a shoulder and made my way down to the bar to open for the day.

“Kai.”

I startled, cracking the back of my head on the counter when I snapped to standing from where I was restocking one of the beer fridges.

“Son of a bitch.” I rubbed a palm over the spot, wincing when I prodded against the lump that was already forming .

I turned around to see Elliot sliding into a stool at my bar. Before he had to ask, I poured a glass of his favorite whiskey. When I slid it in front of him, he asked, “Care to join me?” He raised his glass in offer.

“No.”

“You sure?” He cocked his head.

“Not throwing away three years of sobriety just so you can have a drinking buddy. Call your brother.”

His face paled, brows pinched.

“Meant Jasper.”

“Yeah.” He lifted his glass again. “Cheers.”

He threw back the entire glass at once, then nodded toward it. I filled it back up, but he’d be cut off after this. It was barely one in the afternoon, and the Everton family didn’t need more trouble than they already had.

Elliot sipped his second glass while I continued puttering around behind the bar. He was my only customer this early in the day on a Tuesday, but Bert would be in soon. I need to get this little visit over before anyone else showed up.

I grabbed Charlie’s backpack from where I’d stowed it behind the bar and set it next to Elliot on the countertop.

“So you and my sister.” He looked up from the bag and locked his eyes on mine. “How long?”

I shrugged. “Few months.”

“Since she came home?”

“Festival.”

He nodded. Didn’t know whether to take it as understand or approval, or maybe a bit of both.

Not that it mattered. I didn’t give two shits what he thought. And even if I did, Charlie had no fucking clue who I was.

“You love ’er?”

I gave him a single nod.

“Then she’ll remember.”

With that, he downed the rest of his glass, grabbed her bag, and walked out of my bar with the last little bits of my girl I had left.