Chapter 19 Lina #2
There were ticket stubs from movies I’d apparently loved. Concert tickets from bands I didn’t recognize. Drawings that my kids had made, crayon scribbles that spelled out “I love mommy” in wobbly letters.
And then there were the books.
“Your spicy romance collection,” Mika announced, pulling out a stack of paperbacks with shirtless men on the covers. “You have truly questionable taste.”
“I do not!”
“There’s a book here about a woman who falls in love with a tentacle monster.”
“It’s about connection and overcoming differences!”
“It’s about tentacles, Lina-” Mika’s words stopped abruptly as what I’d said sank in.
I gasped, my hand flying to my mouth.
Everyone went silent. Mika and Vivi stared at me with huge eyes, frozen in place.
“Did you...” Mika started, her voice barely above a whisper. “Did you really remember that?”
I sat there, stunned. The words had come out of my mouth without thinking. I hadn’t planned them, hadn’t consciously retrieved them from anywhere. They’d just... appeared. Because I knew them. Because I remembered them.
“Oh my god,” I breathed. “I remember that book.”
“WHAT?” Vivi shrieked.
“The first memory that comes back is triggered by a tentacle monster and my need to defend my honor as a reader?” I laughed, half disbelief and half joy. “Really? That’s what my brain decides to hold onto?”
Mika burst out laughing. “That is the most Lina thing I’ve ever heard.”
“It really is,” Vivi agreed, wiping tears of laughter from her eyes. “Of course your brain would prioritize defending your problematic book choices over everything else.”
I closed my eyes, focusing on the memory. It was fuzzy, unclear around the edges, but it was there. A window seat. Warm sunlight on my skin. Turning the pages of a book with a ridiculous cover. Giggling to myself. Getting up and putting it on a shelf.
“I was at the shop,” I said slowly, piecing it together. “I was reading it at the shop. By a window. And then I put it away on a shelf.”
Mika and Vivi nodded frantically.
“The window seat near the romance section,” Mika confirmed. “That was your favorite reading spot.”
Happiness bubbled up in my chest, warm and overwhelming. I remembered. It was just one tiny moment, one insignificant memory, but it was MINE. My brain had held onto it. My brain could still access the past.
I grabbed another book from the pile, then another. I didn’t get any specific memories from them, but there was recognition there. Familiarity. A sense that yes, I had held these books before, had turned these pages, had lived inside these stories.
“I don’t remember reading them,” I admitted. “But I know them. I feel like I know them.”
“That’s a start,” Vivi said encouragingly. “Your memories are still in there. They’re just locked up tight. We just have to find more keys.”
I smiled at her optimism. At both of them, actually. These women who had dropped everything to help me, who had gathered boxes of memories, who were now celebrating a tentacle monster book with me.
“I need to ask you about Knox,” I said, setting the book down. “And the...” I hesitated, the word feeling strange on my tongue. “The wolves,” I finished in a whisper.
Mika and Vivi exchanged a look. Then they both snorted.
“You can say it normally,” Vivi said. “We know everything.”
“We were there for most of it,” Mika added. “Well, not the wolf stuff specifically. But the Knox stuff? Yeah. We were front row for that disaster.”
I pulled my legs up onto the couch, getting comfortable. “Tell me everything.”
They did.
They told me how Knox had first shown up at my coffee shop years ago. How he’d been mysterious and brooding and ridiculously handsome. How I’d been drawn to him despite my better judgment. How we’d spent one night together and then he’d rejected me cruelly the next morning.
“He said you were just a warm body,” Mika said, her voice hard. “I wanted to kill him for that.”
“We both did,” Vivi agreed. “You were devastated.”
They told me how I’d discovered I was pregnant. How I’d raised the twins alone for five years, never telling anyone who their father was. How the kids had started showing signs of being different, of being wolves, and I’d had no idea what was happening.
They told me how Knox had come back. How he’d saved my life from rogues. How Noah had brought me to Ravenshollow. How Knox had groveled and begged and proved himself over and over until I finally forgave him.
“He’s different now,” Mika said, and there was grudging respect in her voice. “I wasn’t sure at first. After what he did to you, I wanted to hate him forever. But he really loves you, Lina. Obsessively, disgustingly loves you.”
“He looks at you the way you hung the moon,” Vivi agreed. “It’s actually kind of nauseating. In a cute way.”
“He’s a great partner,” Mika continued. “A great father. He would do anything for you and those kids. He proved that over and over.”
I sat there, processing everything they’d told me. The rejection, the years alone, the pain. The reconciliation, the love, the family we’d built together.
“Do you think I made the right choice?” I asked quietly. “Forgiving him?”
Mika considered the question seriously. “I think you made the choice that was right for you. He hurt you, yeah. Badly. But he never gave up. He never stopped loving you. And you...” she paused, choosing her words carefully.
“You’re not the kind of person who holds onto anger. Even when you probably should.”
“You see the best in people,” Vivi added. “Sometimes it makes us want to strangle you. But it’s also one of the things we love about you.”
We kept talking as the afternoon faded into evening.
They told me about Sarah, who had raised me after my parents died.
About the pack and the politics and the drama I’d apparently navigated.
About Mary, who had tried to steal Knox and was now on the run.
About all the people who loved me and the life I’d built.
Some things sparked vague feelings of familiarity. Some things felt completely foreign. But by the time the sun started to set, warming the room with golden light, I felt like I’d known these women my entire life.
My heart felt lighter than it had since I woke up.
“I should go,” I said finally, standing up from the couch. “Knox is probably wondering if you kidnapped me.”
“He knows better than to rush us,” Mika said, but she stood too and pulled me into one more hug. “Come back soon, okay? We missed you.”
“I will.”
Vivi hugged me next, squeezing tight. “And call us if you need anything. Anything at all. We’re here for you.”
“I know.”
I walked down the stairs slowly, my legs tired but steady. The café was mostly empty now, just a few stragglers finishing their drinks. And there, in a corner booth with a cup of coffee and a book in his hands, sat Knox.
My heart jumped in my chest.
He looked up as I approached, those gray eyes finding mine immediately. He set the book aside and stood, his attention entirely focused on me.
“How did it go?” he asked.
I thought about everything Mika and Vivi had told me. About the man he used to be and the man he’d become. About the love and the pain and the long road to forgiveness.
I wanted to know more. I wanted to know everything.
“I’m ready to go home,” I said.
Knox smiled, warm and relieved, and reached out to take my hand. His fingers intertwined with mine, strong and sure, and I let him lead me out of the café and into the fading light.
We walked to the car in comfortable silence, his thumb tracing circles on the back of my hand. I glanced at him from the corner of my eye, at the sharp line of his jaw, at the way his dark hair fell across his forehead, at the hint of a smile on his lips.
“Knox?”
“Yeah?”
“Thank you. For being patient with me. For giving me space to figure things out.”
He stopped walking and turned to face me, his free hand coming up to cup my cheek. “I would wait forever for you, Lina. I’ve done it before. I’ll do it again if I have to.”
The sincerity in his voice made my chest ache.
“Let’s go home,” I said again.
He opened the car door for me, helped me inside, and climbed into the driver’s seat. As we pulled away from the curb, I took one last look at Winters’ Books & Brews, at the apartment above it, at the life I used to live.
I was starting to believe I could love it again.