“Billie, you’re the only person I’ll ever love, and you know that.”
Xander’s words recycle in my mind like a cyclone, spinning over and over, ripping through my heart.
What was I thinking? I knew he still had feelings for her. Playing with fire, that’s what I was doing, and I knew it. I allowed myselfto pretend it was okay. That Xander would realize that was then, and this is now, and love me again.
But he still loves her.
He doesn’t remember loving me. Pancakes and dreams of fucking me are all he remembers. Text messages reveal our past, but that doesn’t help him remember he loved me.
And he did. He told me he did. And then everything changed.
“You should come to New York and surprise me,” he texted me the night before I did exactly that.
We had only met twice. One night at Club D, once in Columbus. He fed me pancakes, and we screwed so many times in those two short encounters ,I lost track.
After that, we spent a few months communicating every way possible; texting, talking on the phone, emailing, Facetiming each other.
Every single day we communicated any chance we got.
When Piper was in New York and asked if I wanted to bid on him in a charity date auction, I didn’t think twice and was willing to drop up to ten grand to make sure no other woman won. Piper had an old lady bid secretly on him, and she sent me a photo of the paddle. I texted him the picture with a heart drawn around it and, “I own you.”
When he suggested I fly out and surprise him on his day off, I didn’t think twice. He had to stay in New York to pack for his new job in Chicago. Within two hours, I’d hopped on a red-eye, and the taxi dropped me off at his building at five in the morning.
I rang the buzzer.
“Hello.”
“I’m here to collect my property,” I teased.
He didn’t even respond but ran down twelve flights of stairs, he told me later. He opened the door and wrapped his arms around me, picking me up and kissing me with so much intensity, I was breathless.
“Are you really here?” Xander asked when we paused for breath.
I kissed him more.
He cupped my face. “You’re officially the coolest girl ever.”
“You owe me a date, but I want my dessert first,” I teased him.
He picked me up over his shoulder, carried me into the elevator, and, once we got into his apartment, we didn’t leave the bedroom until after noon.
His apartment had boxes all over it, but he unpacked a box to dress up so he could take me to a fancy dinner I remember little of because we were lip-locked the entire meal.
I had to be back in Chicago the next day for work. I had gotten out of the morning surgeries but couldn’t get out of the one at four o’clock in the afternoon.
Xander insisted on driving me to the airport for my flight at seven in the morning. We were almost to the airport, on the expressway, when Xander clasped my hand, looked at me, and said, “Don’t forget I love you, Charlotte.”
I smiled bigger than I ever had before. “Don’t forget I love you, too,” I said right as a driver entering the highway smashed into us, and the car spun in circles.
After that, everything was bloody, full of glass, and red flashing lights.
When I finally saw him, he looked me in the eyes and told me he was sorry but didn’t remember me and then asked Noah about Billie.
For six months I tried coming to terms with the fact I needed to move on because he was in love with someone else, not me.
Then he came back into my life and reminded me over and over why I love him so much.
But nothing has changed. He still loves Billie, and now he’s dreaming about her, not me.
