Chapter 12 Jonah #2
"Bullshit. You're hard as a rock right now." I can see the outline of his cock through his boxers, straining against the fabric.
"I can wait."
"You don't have to." I reach for him, but he catches my wrist.
"Later." He brings my hand to his mouth, kisses my palm, my fingertips, each knuckle. "Right now, I just want to look at you."
There's a catch in his voice. It’s soft and aching and almost scared. Like he can't believe I'm real. Like he's afraid I'll disappear if he blinks.
I don't push. Just let him hold my hand, let him look, let him have whatever this moment is giving him.
The light shifts as the sun rises higher. Outside, a bird calls and another answers. I feel warm, safe, more at peace than I've been in years.
And that's when the memory hits.
It comes without warning. One second I'm floating in post-orgasmic bliss, and the next I'm somewhere else.
A kitchen. Yellow curtains. The smell of something baking. A woman standing at the stove, humming a song I almost recognize.
"Jonah? Baby, can you set the table?"
She turns, and I see her face. Dark hair like mine, going gray at the temples. Brown eyes that crinkle when she smiles. A flour smudge on her cheek.
My mother.
"Jonah."
The voice is wrong. Not her voice. I blink, and the kitchen dissolves, and I'm back in the cabin with Jagger's worried face inches from mine.
"You went somewhere," he says. "Your eyes were open, but you weren't here."
"I remembered." My voice cracks. "I remembered my mother."
He goes still. "Tell me."
"She was in a kitchen. Yellow curtains. She was baking something, and she asked me to set the table, and she—" I stop, because my throat is closing up, because tears are spilling down my cheeks and I can't stop them. "She smiled at me. She called me baby."
Jagger doesn't say anything. Just pulls me against his chest, wraps his arms around me, holds me while I fall apart.
I cry for a long time. Not pretty crying, not dignified tears. Ugly, heaving sobs that shake my whole body, that leave me gasping for air. Three years of not knowing who I was. Three years of not having a single memory to hold onto. And now this. A kitchen. Yellow curtains. A mother who loved me.
"Her name," I manage between sobs. "I can't remember her name. Why can't I remember her name?"
"It'll come." Jagger's voice is steady, grounding. "The memories are returning. Her name will come too."
"She's dead." I don't know how I know this, but I do. Feel it in my bones like a bruise. "She died when I was young. Twelve. She died when I was twelve."
"I'm sorry."
"I don't even know how. I don't know if she was sick, or if there was an accident, or—" I break off, another sob tearing through me. "I forgot her. They made me forget her. How could they make me forget my own mother? You… you…"
Jagger holds me tighter. I can feel his heart beating against my cheek, steady and slow, an anchor in the storm.
"You didn't forget," he says quietly. "I didn’t mean to take her from you… Jonah… it doesn’t make it right, but she's still there. She's been there the whole time, waiting for you to find her again."
"How do you know?" My chest aches. I’m so, so angry at him for taking her from me, but I also have come to love him for what he is because he is ruthless when it counts. It’s almost enough to make me forgive him, but that won’t happen until I have a name. Mine… or hers.
"Because that's what love does. It survives. Even when everything else is stripped away." His hand strokes through my hair. "You loved her. That kind of love doesn't disappear. It just hides until it's safe to come back."
I don't know how long we lie there, but eventually, my tears slow to a trickle, then stop altogether. I feel hollowed out. Empty but clean, like a storm has passed through me and washed everything away.
"Thank you," I whisper.
"For what?"
"For being here. For not trying to fix it. For just... holding me. Even if you’re the reason I can’t remember… I… thank you."
"I'll always hold you." He presses a kiss to my forehead, then my temple, then the corner of my eye where the tears are still drying. "As long as you let me."
"Even when I'm a mess?"
"Especially when you're a mess." His hand strokes through my hair, gentle and rhythmic. "You've seen me at my worst. You've seen what I am, what I've done. You stayed anyway. The least I can do is hold you while you remember the people you loved."
"You're getting soft, Harrison."
"Don't tell anyone. I have a reputation to maintain."
I laugh, wet and broken, but a laugh nonetheless. He smiles against my forehead.
We stay in bed longer than the ninety minutes we agreed on. Much longer. Neither of us mentions it. When we finally get up, it's almost noon, and I can smell coffee and something savory drifting from the kitchen.
In the bathroom, I stare at my reflection in the mirror. Red-rimmed eyes. Blotchy cheeks. Hair that's given up all pretense of cooperation. I look like shit.
I also look different. Fuller, somehow. Like a piece of me that was missing has finally clicked back into place.
My mother had dark hair and brown eyes. She baked something that smelled like heaven and she called me baby and smiled at me like I was the best thing she'd ever made.
I still don't know her name. Don't know how she died, or where, or if I was with her when it happened. Don't know if she had other family, if there are people out there who remember her, who miss her the way I should have been missing her for three years.
But I will. I'll remember all of it, eventually. The memories are coming back, piece by piece, and someday I'll have the whole picture. And when I do, I'll find a way to honor her. To make sure her son became someone she'd be proud of.
"You okay?" Jagger appears in the bathroom doorway, already dressed, holding two cups of coffee.
"Getting there." I take the cup he offers, let the warmth seep into my hands. "Did you tell your brother we're awake?"
"Elliot already knows. He has some kind of sixth sense about these things. Said he's making eggs."
"Eggs sound good."
"Most things sound good when someone else is cooking them."
I take a sip of coffee and cringe. It’s even stronger than the stuff we have at home.
"Hey," I say.
"What?"
"I remembered something else. Just now, looking in the mirror." I meet his eyes in the reflection. "My last name. It's Chen. Jonah Chen."
His face does something complicated. Pride and sadness sit heavy in his gaze.
"Jonah Chen," he repeats.
"That's me.” I turn to face him. "I'm going to get the rest of it back. My mother's name. My whole history. Everything the Silent made you take from me.”
"I know you will."
"And when I do..." I step closer, cup his face in my hands. "When I remember everything, when I know exactly who I am and what they did to me, I'm still going to choose you. I need you to know that. Whatever I find, whatever I remember, it won't change this."
He swallows hard. His eyes are bright, and I realize with a start that he's close to tears.
"You can't promise that."
"I just did." I kiss him, soft and sure. "Now come on. Elliot's making eggs, and I'm starving."
I take his hand and lead him out of the bathroom, toward the smell of breakfast and the sound of voices and the fragile, impossible thing we're building together.
My name is Jonah Chen. My mother loved me. I'm falling in love with the man who destroyed me.
None of it makes sense.
All of it is true.