Chapter 4
four
SIX WEEKS LATER
THE SECOND HALF of February was proving to be miserably cold. We’d had a dusting of snow last week, but now it was nothing but below-normal temps and wind gusts.
That hadn’t stopped me from taking my daily five-mile runs.
As I locked my front door, I thought again about stopping by the hardware store this week for paint.
The door was chipped and faded, no longer the bright red it had been when I bought the house.
Come to think of it, the hunter-green shutters could also use a fresh coat of paint, and shriveled leaves still littered the lawn from fall’s purge months ago.
Unfortunately, my two-bedroom was in need of more love and care than I’d had time for lately, having again taken on more shifts than usual, since we were down a paramedic.
I could’ve used several more hours in a day… or a clone.
It’s fine. I’ll fix it up when spring hits, I thought, heading down the front porch steps, and as I did, one of the bricks came loose, wobbling beneath my foot.
Great. Another thing to add to the list. Not that I had any reason to complain. All in all, it was a cozy home, a nicer one than I should’ve expected on my meager budget.
After shoving the house key inside my sweatshirt pocket, I began a slow jog across the street toward the lake that served as the central point of the neighborhood.
A wide sidewalk lined the entire circumference of the lake, and since it measured almost exactly half a mile around, it made it easy to keep track of my laps.
I started out with an easy pace, letting my muscles warm up to the cold.
Running was a way to clear my mind from everything work-related that threatened to drive me crazy.
Pushing myself was the only way I’d found to let go of what I couldn’t control and put it behind me, so I guess it was a therapy of sorts.
The past week had been unusually rough, the icy conditions in the mornings causing a slew of car accidents, and with every call we responded to, my mind went back to Reid.
I hadn’t seen him since the day he woke up, but…
I thought of him often. My guess was that he was still recovering and hadn’t yet gone back to work, but I didn’t know for sure.
We didn’t have any mutual friends in common, that I knew of, to ask how he was doing, and I wouldn’t even dream of tracking down his address to find out for myself.
Okay, that was a lie. Maybe I’d thought about it, but I’d never actually do it.
At the halfway mark directly across from my house, I upped my pace, enjoying the burn in my muscles as they stretched.
My breath came out in white clouds as I took in the clear, crisp day, and it hadn’t escaped my notice that I’d only passed a small handful of joggers and walkers out this morning.
Usually, it wasn’t surprising to see families feeding the ducks that hung around the lake, or nearly bump into kids on their bikes, but freezing weather in North Georgia didn’t entice people to leave their comfy beds.
Bunch of slackers, I thought with a chuckle.
“Ollie?”
I was so thrown off guard by the voice that had come from behind me that I nearly ate pavement when my knees threatened to go out. I slowed to a stop and then turned around, lifting a hand up as I squinted in the bright sun. When I got a good look at who it was, my jaw dropped.
“Reid?” I said, completely dumbstruck that he could be standing a few feet away, in my neighborhood of all places. It was like thinking about him just then made him materialize.
In a pair of black athletic pants and matching jacket, and wearing a beanie cap, Reid crossed the patch of grass that separated the walking path from the houses that backed up to the lake. His smile was friendly as he walked toward me. “I thought that was you.”
“Wow. You look…” Unbelievably handsome? Surreal? Alive?
“Better?” He chuckled and shoved his hands in his jacket pockets. “Yeah, not hard to be.”
“Definitely better than the last time I saw you.” I tried not to give him a once-over, but it was proving impossible. I’d almost forgotten how gorgeous the man was. “Are, you, uh…doing okay?”
“I am, yeah.” He looked down at himself and then smiled back up at me. “My body’s all healed—just waiting for my mind to catch up.”
Oh no… “What do you mean?” Even though I knew exactly what he meant.
“The doctors told me I might have some short-term memory loss due to the amount of drugs they used to keep me in a coma for a few days. Seems to be a bit more permanent, though.”
Jesus. “I’m sorry to hear that.”
“It’s okay. Frustrating, but…” He shrugged and kicked a small rock on the path into the lake. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to stop your run, it’s just…well, I don’t recognize many people nowadays, so I guess I got excited to see a familiar face.”
Familiar…me? I was familiar? Definitely surreal.
“I also wanted to say thank you,” he went on. “It’s strange that I can’t remember much from before my accident, but I remember what you did for me.” His voice dropped low. “I don’t think I could ever forget.”
Despite the cold, heat crept up my neck. My first instinct was always to downplay my role, but with Reid, I found myself saying, “I’m just glad to see you’re doing better.”
We stood there awkwardly, neither of us really seeming to know what to say, but then again, we didn’t actually know each other, did we?
“Did you… Were you going for a walk?” I asked finally.
“Oh, yeah, I’ve been trying to get some fresh air. Slowly get myself back up to speed, you know?”
Screw my run. I wasn’t about to pass up the chance smacking me in the face. “Would you like to join me? I don’t really feel much like running this morning anyway.”
Reid’s face lit up. “Sure.”
I moved to the outside of the path so he could take the shorter inside and then let him set the pace, not wanting him to overdo it.
“Is this too slow?” he asked as we settled into a casual stride. Not speed-walking, but not a leisurely stroll either.
“Not at all. This is great.”
“I’ve been trying to work up to sprints. I’m just not quite there yet.”
“Oh yeah? Do you run?” Shit, how would he remember that? “I mean, uh…”
Reid laughed. “I know what you mean. And I don’t think so. From what I’ve been told, I wasn’t really into sports all that much. Or any cardiovascular activity, for that matter. I just saw people out here jogging and figured it seemed like a healthy thing to do.”
I chuckled at that. I didn’t need to look him up and down again to see that he was probably wrong about not breaking a sweat.
He was much leaner than he’d been before the accident, but prior to that, Reid had had an athletic build that I’d taken notice of—and thought about often—so he had to be spending some time in a gym.
As we passed by my house, I said, “Do you mind if I ask you a personal question?”
“I might not know the answer,” he joked.
“Maybe not,” I said, my lips quirking up. “But… What exactly do you remember?”
He fell silent beside me and looked out at the ducks passing by in the water.
“It’s weird. I remember pieces from the day of the accident.
Like stopping at a gas station for a drink, but they didn’t have what I wanted.
” His cheeks tinged the slightest shade of pink as he said, “I remember your face. I know we spoke, but I have no clue what was said. I know I was dressed up to go somewhere, to work, I think, but I can’t tell you where that is or what I did.
And before that? I guess that’s where it gets tricky.
” He pulled his beanie down and blew out a puff of air.
“When I woke up in the hospital and saw my parents, I thought I was dreaming. They look so much older than the last time I saw them. And Anna, my sister? She’s not even in middle school yet, but they tell me she’s getting ready to graduate high school.
And, sure, she looks it. But my brain doesn’t really comprehend that I seem to be missing a ten-year chunk of my life. ”
I let out a low whistle. “Damn. Ten years? So that’d make you, what?”
“Seventeen,” he said. “Almost eighteen. But my driver’s license says twenty-seven.”
Oh my God. Seventeen? He thought he was still seventeen? I wasn’t sure what I was supposed to do with that information besides stroke out.
“It’s not all cut and dry,” he continued. “I have flashes of things that seem to have come after high school, but nothing makes sense.”
“Like watching a movie of your life, only you don’t recognize the characters.”
He squinted at me, the sun in his eyes. “Exactly.”
We were coming back up to the house he’d come down from, and I inclined my head toward it. “Is that your house?”
“What?” He followed my gaze. “Oh. No, it’s my parents’ place. I’ve been staying with them since…” He shrugged. “The house they say is mine doesn’t feel like mine.”
“I can’t imagine.” What would it be like to lose all that time, all those memories?
The people you knew, the places you went.
Your job. Your whole life as you knew it, bam, gone in a flash.
And would he ever get them back, or would he have to basically start over from scratch?
How did you push a reset button on your life?
“Enough about all that,” Reid said, breaking through my thoughts. “Tell me about you.”
“What about me?”
“Well, considering the only thing I know about you is that your job is to keep people from dying, I’d say tell me everything.”
I laughed. “You don’t want to know everything.”
“Sure I do. We’ll start easy. How old are you?”
“Thirty-two.”
“And are you married? Have a girlfriend?”
I almost choked out a laugh. “No. And no.” And then, to state what would become obvious soon enough, I said, “No boyfriend, either.”
Reid did a double take. “Oh,” he said, not seeming too bothered by it, but rather like he hadn’t thought about it. “Why not?”