Please Remember

17. Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Sixteen

Jax

T he date was great. A stark comparison to most days. Even though Allie's right in front of me, it's not the same. She's back, but she's not back. I love her, and I always will, but I feel like I'm on eggshells with her. That even though we're together, it's not quite the same because she doesn't know anything about me.

Sometimes, the Old Allie will appear. She'll be right there, in front of me, but just as quickly, she's replaced with New Allie. New Allie doesn't ask questions about me as much as she does about herself, which I get. She's trying to figure out who she is and where she fits in the world, but I miss the woman who'd ask me about my day. About how I'm feeling with everything.

It's selfish of me. I know it is. I'm happy she's home, truly I am. I wouldn't give up a single day with her for anything, but it's hard. It's not what it used to be, and I'm not quite comfortable around her. After she got upset with me because she felt like I was pressuring her, I don't really feel like I know what to do. Is saying what I'm thinking too much? Is kissing her pushing her too far ?

Sometimes, when she looks at me, she looks like she wants me to kiss her. That she wants me to pull her into my arms and treat her like I would the woman who remembers me. But the moment I think to do it, I flashback to that first night when she said coming home with me might have been a mistake. As exhausted as I feel, I can't stand the idea of her being with anyone but me. Especially since the cops still don't seem to know who did this to her.

I feel like I'm in a constant state of uncertainty. I'd be lying if I said it wasn't tiring. Emotionally, I don't always feel like I have all that much to give. Talking to Allie doesn't always get me anywhere because that's where the undercurrent of Old Allie remains. Stubborn as a mule. It gives me hope, but the longer we go without her knowing who I am, the more that hope dwindles. Like a paper blowing in the wind. I keep chasing it, but it keeps drifting further and further away.

Opening my eyes, I immediately sense something isn't right. It only takes a second to realize Allie's not here in bed with me. She sleeps with me every night, something we've become very comfortable with and adjusted to rather quickly. Without wasting a minute, I jump out of bed to go find her.

Light filters from under the door in the office, and I knock lightly before opening it to avoid startling her. "Allie?"

"Did I wake you?" Allie asks from behind the desk, her eyes wide with concern.

When she looks at me this way, it makes me feel guilty for being frustrated and tired with how things are going. I know we're both only trying to adjust.

"I woke up and found you gone," I say. "It's two in the morning. What are you doing?"

"I couldn't sleep. "

I smirk. "You could've just woken me up instead of coming in here to watch porn," I joke.

She smiles and shakes her head. "Would you like that?"

"Having you watch porn?"

"Waking you up if I had the urge to watch it?"

And this is where the line gets blurry, and I tend to back away. "I wouldn't mind in the least. What are you doing?"

She flushes, and for a second, I wonder if maybe she is watching porn. If she is, maybe she's ready to take our relationship a step further. God, I miss sex. Especially sex with her.

"I was looking into... me."

And just like that, all my desire disappears. "What? What do you mean? Like your social media pages and such?"

"Uh, no. I was looking up all of the articles about my disappearance."

"Why?"

Her hands fold in her lap. "Because I have questions."

"You can just ask."

"No, I can't," she says and sighs. "It's one of the off-limit topics with us. And with Sage."

"What are you talking about?"

I lean against the doorframe, crossing my arms over my chest, and watch her. I've never had any off-limits topics with Allie. She's the one who doesn't want me to share memories unless she asks about them. Why would she think she can't ask questions about her disappearance?

Her eyes won't meet mine. "You change the subject when I bring anything up about the day everything happened, and you don't seem comfortable if I talk about the basement. I have a lot of questions, and both you and Sage don't really want to talk about it. I thought maybe the articles could help shed some light on what happened that day. Maybe something will jump out at me."

"Allie, you can ask me anything."

"Anything?"

I nod, concerned I've let my emotions show more than I want them to. "Anything."

"Do you regret calling off your wedding to Laura?"

"Not for a second. I don't think I was going to marry her whether you returned or not. It was an experiment, as terrible as that sounds."

Nodding, she finally meets my eyes. "Why do you shy away from physical contact outside of my head resting on your chest? Do you see me... differently?"

"Differently how?"

"Like I'm not the real Allie."

"What?"

Tears fill her eyes. "Sometimes, when you look at me, I see the love shining through for the woman you knew. And then I see the pain and longing when I don't quite match up to the expectations of her. You hold me, and I know you care, but you don't seem to want to take it further."

"Do you want to take things further?"

She shrugs. "I don't know, but I feel we're in a weird place. I don't want to compete with a version of myself I don't remember, but I also don't want you to force yourself to find a way to connect to me because you hope Old Allie will return. I don't want to hold you back in life."

"You could never hold me back."

"Can I be honest?"

"Always. "

Swallowing, Allie closes her eyes and lets out a sigh as though preparing herself for something terrible. "Sometimes... sometimes I'm scared it won't come back. That I'll be this version of myself forever, and I won’t be able to give you or anyone else what you really want. That I'll be a disappointment to everyone who’s waiting for the real me to come back."

I walk over to her and sit on the desk. "You are not a disappointment."

"I see the pain you feel when I don't know what you're talking about. When it's clear that I'm not the woman who was in love with you. I think I can fall in love with you again because I feel strong feelings for you, but it's hard because I know I'm not who you really want."

Closing the distance between us, I cup her face with my hand, and she leans her cheek into my palm like she used to. "I want you."

"Are you sure? I'm not saying I want to strip down naked and let you have your way with me on the desk right now, but any chance you have to initiate intimacy, you back away from. Like you don't really want that with me."

"I love you. Any version of you."

"I'm starting to develop feelings for you, Jax. Real feelings. But I also feel like I may need to protect myself a little bit because you may love me, but I'm not sure you're in love with New Allie. I imagine this is what it must feel like when someone competes with an ex-girlfriend. Except, I am the ex-girlfriend, and that’s where my thoughts become this really complicated merry-go-round that I get stuck on."

She's developing feelings for me. It's not quite love, but it's more than she had when she showed up that first night. "I'm not going to lie and say I don't struggle sometimes. It is very strange to have the woman I love with every ounce of my being not remember or know me. And I hold back a little. I'll admit that. But it's because I'm scared of pushing too far and making you think this was a mistake again."

Allie nods. "I can understand that. It's really overwhelming for me. All these new and old things coming together. And I seem to be, from what I've read, an overthinker. The kind of person who might read more into things than there are."

"Yeah, you've always been that way," I say with a smile. "But it's what I've always loved about you."

Lowering my face to hers, I press my lips against her lips, and it feels like I'm almost home again. Her hand reaches up to hold mine against her face as she opens up, deepening the kiss. Everything in me screams to strip her naked and take her right here on the desk, and my growing arousal is hard to ignore, but I know she's not ready. She told me so.

Pulling away, I look down into her eyes, and she slowly opens them back up. "Wow," she whispers.

"Wow," I whisper back.

"Was it always like that?"

"Pretty much."

"You totally should've kissed me sooner."

I laugh, trying to discretely hide the erection a simple kiss caused. Since the first time we had sex, Allie and I hadn't gone more than a day and a half without getting naked unless there were extraordinary circumstances or illness.

"You could've kissed me, too," I say.

"I wasn't certain you wanted me to," she admits. "Sorry."

Her gaze gravitates to my poorly hidden manhood, and I laugh. "Never be sorry for that."

"I'm sorry you can't take care of it like you're probably used to. How you seem to want to. "

"Do you believe I want you now?"

The smile on Allie's face lifts a weight from my chest. "Yes."

"Can I kiss you whenever I want?"

"Yes."

"Good," I say and look at the computer. "So, what do you have questions about?"

She releases a shaky breath and looks at the screen. "I was at work before whatever happened?"

"As far as I know, yes. I'm going to be honest, Al, I don't know if I have many answers for you. I saw you that morning, and we texted while we were at work, but I never saw you again until you showed up outside the house."

"But I was going to meet you?"

I nod, trying to recall if they printed what we were doing. "Yeah, you were meeting me and our friends at the bar."

"A couple of articles mention that you were setting up a… surprise proposal."

And there goes any future surprise. "Yes."

"Why did Parsons still focus so much on you if you obviously were at the bar with witnesses? I mean, it's printed in the articles. Did you disappear for a bit where no one saw you?"

"No." I bark out a sardonic laugh. "Parsons wanted to believe you’d just left me. He didn't treat you as a missing person until weeks after you were gone and there was no activity on your cards or bank account, and no one spotted your Jeep. He was forced to admit that the chances of you taking off without anyone seeing you and not using any money was very unlikely. Then he wanted the easiest answer, which was me."

She rolls her eyes and sighs, leaning back. "I told him he screwed up the investigation by focusing too narrowly on what he wanted rather than broadening his horizons a bit. He said at one point he still thought you had something to do with it, but I really disagree. When I look at you, when you watch me when you don't think I'm paying attention, I know there's no way you could have had anything to do with it. Unless I was also involved, which, he also thought at one point."

"I still can't believe he thought that."

"I laid into him pretty good," she says with a smirk. "But it still doesn't make any sense."

"What doesn’t?" I ask.

Allie blows out a breath of air. "Why not just kill me?"

The thought makes me want to throw up. "Don't—"

"I'm not saying I wish they had, but I think that's what's been bothering me. Why didn't they kill me? What did they gain from keeping me alive? Especially when I didn't remember. Is it really harming me to keep me from a life I don't even know exists? And they never spoke to me. Never told me who they were or who I was. What did they get out of it?"

"I don't know," I say. "That could be why Parsons wants it to be me. There are only a few of us who wouldn't have been able to kill you, but I don't know why you'd be taken in the first place."

Shaking her head, she sighs. "Did they have any other suspects?"

"Only two. One was obviously me, and the other was cleared quickly. I don't even know who it was."

"These articles haven't helped much besides ruining a surprise. You would've been diabolical if you harmed me on the day you were going to propose."

"Parsons had a theory on that. He thought we weren't as happy as we made everyone believe, and I'd planned the proposal because it would be the perfect cover. Why would a happy man about to propose to his girlfriend murder her? Oh, he also thought I killed you."

"I'm sorry?"

Clenching my jaw, I let out a long breath. "He was convinced you were dead. That I'd killed you and buried your body somewhere. Had me followed for weeks because he was certain I'd go and visit your grave. Even though you were caught on security cameras at work, as was I, he was sure there was a way I'd gotten around it because I work with computers. That something was doctored."

"He's an annoying man," she says and stands. "There were no cameras outside the building that saw me?"

"They were broken. Had been for a couple of weeks, I guess. The bank just didn't have it as a priority to replace them because there is almost no crime in this town. Your parents tried to sue them, by the way. Negligence."

"Oh? Did they win?"

I laugh. "No."

"Good," she says. "It was probably my mom. I can't believe she left a note on the door like we were best friends. Doesn't she realize I'm going to talk to people? I mean, Sage has told me how terrible of a relationship we have."

"I think she thought you might be suspicious of everyone and could weasel her way in."

"Joke’s on her," she says and cups my face. "I'm glad we talked."

"Me, too."

She presses her lips on mine, and I wrap my arms around her, pulling her tightly against me. My cock responds like it did before, but I need her to know there's no regret. No settling. It's been difficult for us both, but as she slides her tongue into my mouth, I know we're finally moving to a better place.

"I don't mean this the way it sounds," she says as she pulls back, her fingers touching her lips, "but I think we should go to bed."

I smirk at her. "I have to take care of this before I can fall asleep," I say, gesturing to my groin before giving her a quick peck. "I'll only be a couple of minutes."

Her cheeks flush, and she nods before leaving the office. I walk over and shut the door before pulling up a video we'd taken of us during one of our experimental days. Even though the cops took my computer, they never got these videos. I made sure of it.

Opening one, I free myself and take matters into my own hands watching the two of us rather than just imagining it. Maybe, when she's ready, I'll show her these videos. Until then, they'll just be for me.