Always Remember (Memories) (21 page)

“Sure, Daddy. Thank you.” She stretches up on tiptoes and kisses his cheek.

“Cheers, Mick.” I nod at him gratefully as he waves over his shoulder, disappearing into the crowd.

Saph
twirls some hair between her fingers, grinning smugly. “Well, that was a shame, wasn’t it?”

Mitch shakes his head. “You can be a real bitch,
Saph.”

She shrugs, and I put my arm around her shoulders, squeezing slightly.

“She’s only a bitch when it benefits her friends, and that was her best move yet.” I grin and release her.

“What Sam
said.” She shoots a look at Mitch. “And, Samuel, we have to make a plan to get Miss Jennifer back to you.”

“I wish it was that easy,
Saph. I really do.”

Her eyes twinkle slightly, her lips curving up on one side. “Maybe it is – and maybe you
’re just too dense to think about, and do, the obvious.”

“
Why do I get a feeling I know exactly what you’re about to say?”

She grins. “Follow me.”

~

“So, ideally,
what we need to do is hire a hit-man to dispose of Barbie?” Hannah summarises as I pour milk over my Cookie Crunch cereal.

I chuckle a little. “Well, if you have the money for that, I
’m not going against it.” I sit at the table opposite her. Daisy is sitting on her knee, her chubby hand opening and closing as she tries to grab the spoon my sister is so deftly keeping out of her reach.

“Maybe we should kidnap her, who-” Hannah
’s eyes flick to Daisy. “Um,
share
her out, then use the money she makes from that to hire the hit-man?”

I snort into my breakfast. “She already gives it for free. Besides, we probably wouldn
’t get much for her anyway.” I sigh, letting my spoon clatter against the side of the bowl. “I dunno, Han. What am I meant to do? I don’t wanna be without him, but as long as she’s sticking her bitc- Um, tiger claws in, I don’t know if I can be with him, either.”

“If he
’s a real man, he’ll kick her right to the curb and then he’ll come running over here like his butt is on fire with extreme declarations of love.”

“Butt! Butt!” Daisy giggles. Hannah sighs. I smile a little.

“I’m not sayin’ he ain’t a man…” I trail off as Hannah’s amused eyes meet mine and I laugh silently. “But, I don’t see him giving “extreme declarations of love” anytime soon. I mean, hello, he used to wear his trousers halfway down his ass before I started pulling them up every time I saw him.”

My sister smirks. “Why am I not surprised at that?” She shakes her head. “The point is
that if he really wants you as much as he says he does – and Lexy – then he’ll be waiting when you least expect it to surprise you.”

“And drop to his knees, proceeding to declare his undying, unrelenting, unconditional love for me, while a string quartet plays in the background and candles flicker romantically around us. Right?” I challenge. “Because he
’s more likely to turn up with a dominos and say “Jen, you’re my girlfriend, and that’s that. Let’s go to bed, pronto.””

She snorts. “But you
’d go, right?” She wipes Daisy’s face and puts her on the floor.

“Damn straight I would.” I grin. “I
’d be official doolally if I didn’t.”

“So why let the Queen of Crayola get between you?” Hannah
’s eyebrows shoot up.

“Because,” I begin in a quieter voice. “I respect myself too much to constantly fight against her.”

“I’m proud of you for that, Jen, I really am.” She puts her hand on top of mine. “But now you have to ask yourself if you respect you and Sam as a couple, and if you respect you enough to fight for it against all odds. That’s what love is. It’s fighting for each other no matter what’s thrown at you. It’s holding on tight to the thing that makes your heart race and your breath hitch. And love is the pain I see every time I look in your eyes – the pain that’s there because he isn’t.”

Tears prick the back of my eyes, one slowly making it
s way to the corner of my eye, dripping out slowly. Hannah gets up and walks around the table, wrapping her arms around my shoulders. I let myself sag in her embrace, more tears falling.

“I miss him, Han.”

Her hand strokes down my hair slowly, and I hear her sigh softly. “I know, sis. I know.”

If I have to listen to this chirpy little fucker next to me hum for another five minutes, I might just stick my pastels up his ass.

Of course, it
’s not bad enough I’ve spent six hours at university when I haven’t yet completed the given seventy-two hour mourning period for a relationship, and had my sister’s words buzzing around my head like an annoying fly – my final class is all on expression of emotion.

I
’ll tell you emotion. Emotion is the growing want to impale Mr. Hummingbird here with not just my pastels, but quite possibly the sharpest object in my art kit.

I clear my throat, and he glances at me. I give him a meaningful look. He carries on his humming.

“Ahem!” I cough out. He turns his face towards me and stops humming.

“Can I help you?”

“In fact, you can. Please stop that dreadful noise, or my project for today will leave my canvas and move onto a live object.” I smile sweetly.

He grunts and turns back to his work. Silently. Oh, thank the Lord of witty comments.

The rest of the class passes without incident – or humming – and I breathe deeply when I step outside. I finish before Lexy today, so I head straight to the bus stop situated outside of the campus. I’m distracted by a familiar red car and my steps falter. No. A weekend is not long enough.

Samuel steps out of the car and walks around it, opening the passenger side door. He raises his head, his eyes clashing with mine.

“In,” he orders. I shake my head silently. I can’t. “Jen, there’s no point you going home on the bus when I’m here. Just get in the damn car.”

I glance at the timetable. It is a fifteen minute wait – but looking at him is like seeing my heart walking around outside my body. It
’s like seeing my future dangled in front of me, and it’s having everything I want and need in touching distance.

I take a deep breath in and walk towards the car, pausing before I get in.

“Thank you,” I say quietly.

He takes a bit of my hair between his fingers and runs it through them. I can feel it tingling through my scalp.

“Don’t thank me, Jen. Don’t ever thank me for caring about you.”

I close my eyes and sit down, settling my bag by my feet.

This is what the break-up with Carl should have been. Instead of a mutual parting, it should have been forced. Like this one. Except this doesn’t feel like the parting of a relationship. It feels like the parting of my heart from my body, because my love for Carl and my love for Sam are two completely different things.

My love for Carl was a first love, a teen thing never destined to last.

My love for Sam is like a roaring bush fire, swallowing up and taking out everything in its path without rational thought. It’s unpredictable, burning furiously without an end in sight. It’s once in a lifetime and near impossible to put out, a constant raging flame.

“Shouldn
’t you be at work?” I ask softly.

“Dad gave me time off to work with Mitch on the upstairs of Red this week,” he replies. “He said it this morning. Hence the dust.”

I nod slightly. “They’re still working up there? Saph said they’d be done for this weekend last we spoke.”

“She was right. They should have been done, but the small company Mick hired to work under Mitch went bust. They couldn
’t finish the job, so Mitch has called in all the help he can get.”

“Right. Makes sense.” I look out the window to avoid staring at him. It
’s bad enough being in the car with him – his distinct scent is everywhere, that indescribable yumminess that makes me bury my face in his neck every time I smell it. This time is no different.

I want to lean over the gearstick and hook my arm through his. I want to rest my head against his shoulder and dig my nose into the soft spot just below his ear.

I shift in the seat and run my fingers through my hair instead, brushing it away from my face. I catch his gaze flicker to me a few times as he drives. How did I notice that if I’m looking out the window?

Oh, because I
’m not looking out the fucking window, am I? Nope. I’m looking at him. Why would I look out the window, huh? I drop my eyes.

He pulls into the car park outside my block of flats, and I yank the seatbelt out. I need to get away from him. My need for him is suffocating me, and I need to breathe. I push the door open, grab my bag, and half-fall from the car. I hear his door open and shut before I feel his hands grip the top of my arms.

He pulls me into his body, and my bag drops from my fingers. One of his hands spreads across my back and the other holds the back of my neck. I wrap my arms around his neck and press my face into his skin, hot tears forming in my eyes.

Now… This is the moment I know. With his body against mine, him holding me so tightly, my knees buckling, and him keeping me upright, I know there
’ll never be anyone else for me. But that doesn’t make it any easier.

I just have to ask myself if it
’s worth the fight. If, like Hannah said, I respect us as a couple enough to keep fighting to hold on.

I feel her shoulders shudder and bury my face in her hair. It tickles but I don’t care, ‘cause all I can feel is the desperate way she’s holding on to me, and the hot wet tears against my neck.

“Shit, Jen, don
’t cry,” I whisper, pulling her even closer to me. “Don’t cry.”

She shakes her head a little and sniffs. I squeeze my own eyes shut, because I still feel the anger. I haven
’t felt the pain yet, but there’s so much damn anger inside me I know if I did feel the pain, I’d probably be crying right along with her.

I sigh, and reach up and untangle her arms from my neck. I tuck her into my side instead kick the car door shut. I let us into the block, ride with her up the lift, and grab her keys from her coat pocket, all without letting her go.

She pulls herself from my side once we’re in, and she shrugs her coat off angrily. Her fingers swipe under her eyes, wiping away that wetness.

“We need to talk,” I say, pulling my coat off.

She storms into the front room. “There’s nothing to talk about,” she says wearily. “I can’t deal with your psycho bitch ex, and that’s it. All there is to it.”

“Nah, nah there isn
’t. There’s a hell of a lot more to it than that, or you wouldn’t have just broken down into tears outside and clung to me like your life depended on it.”

“Bi – Sam… Just leave it, okay? Just go. I have nothing to say right now,” she whispers.

I chuck my coat on the table and storm towards her. “Yeah, well I do. I’m not done with this, babe, not by a long fucking shot, so we are gonna talk about this!”

She shakes her head and moves away from me, holding her hand up. “I said I
’m done!”

“As long as I
’m in love with you, we’ll never be done!”

She freezes, her head turning slightly. “What?”

I walk to her, stopping right behind her. I push her hair from the back of her neck with my hand, pushing it over her shoulder. “I said, I’m in love with you,” I repeat softly, my mouth close to her ear. I trail my fingertips down her arm until they reach her hand. “I don’t know why, and I don’t know when it happened. I just know that it did, and I hit every damn soppy bastard branch as I fell.”

“Not so much the bastard part,” she mutters. I smile a little, lacing my fingers between hers. I wrap our arms around her stomach, pulling her back right against me.

“Bastard or not, Jen, I love you. And that’s why I can’t let you go. I believe in us. I have ever since that night at Dad’s party. If I wanted you a year and a half ago, then I need you now.” I ghost my lips over her shoulder. “You were hurting before, and we all say stupid things we mean when we’re hurting, but please, please don’t walk away now. I don’t know if I can let you.”

“I don
’t think I can fight her, Sam. I told you that.” She turns her face into mine a little.

“
You
don’t have to do anything. We’ll do it all together, ‘cause that’s what this is. It’s me and you, babe. Nothing more, nothing less. Just us.”

Her cheek rubs against mine, and I turn my head, pressing my lips against the smooth skin there. She wraps her other arm around herself, sliding her hand up my arm that
’s stretched across her.

“I can
’t believe you just told me you love me.”