“Everything!” she yells at me, fists clenched tight at her sides. I’m officially freaked out now. I reach out to grab her arms so I can pull her inside and out of the rain.
“I remembereverything!”
My body jerks. The hands that were reaching for her freeze, mere inches from her skin. My eyes snap to hers. I don’t see it coming. Her hand connects with my cheek in a loud slap.
“I remember everything, Jayson!” She hits me again and again, her face filled with fury and pain. “You threw me out! You hurt me! You broke my heart!” She slaps me and pounds on my chest. I stand there and let her.
“Everything!” she screams in my face, then grabs it, fingers gripping fiercely.
It’s as if time slows down then speeds back up, like one of those movies where the character Neo watches as bullets fly past him in slow motion then everything returns to normal time. I don’t know who moves first. I think we both do. She smashes her mouth to mine and I eat her up, so starved for her I may never have the strength to stop. We come together in the most brutal, desperate, and ugly way. She shoves me back into the apartment, but I grab her forcefully, spinning us around and slamming her against the entryway wall. She cries out then bites my lip, sucking it into her mouth. Her fingernails have become claws as she rakes them down my body and rips my shirt up and off before coming back to attack my mouth. Our tongues slash and tangle, our teeth collide. And it’s not enough.
With swift desperation, we shed the rest of our clothes and fuck each other against the entryway wall like snarling, rabid animals. She screams my name when her orgasm crashes through her. I shout out hers as mine erupts from me. And it’s still not enough. It will never be enough. For the rest of the night, we go at each other until our bodies are sore yet replete, our lips bruised and swollen. We finally exhaust ourselves by the time the morning sun rises. As we fall asleep, Liz and I mold our naked bodies together, her head on my chest and her hand over my heart. I tangle fingers in her long blond hair and cup one breast possessively with my other hand. Our two bodies merge as one. We are two souls finding their way back together.
“I love you, Jayson.”
“I love you, princess.”
I don’t know how long we’ve been asleep, but I’m suddenly wakened by pounding on my front door. I turn over to grab Liz, but she’s not in the bed. The pounding on the door gets louder and I hear Ryder’s voice. Where’s Liz? I hear the front door open. Ryder still has a key and lets himself in.
“Jay, you here?”
My bedroom door is cracked open, and I panic. Liz is probably in the kitchen making coffee or sitting out on the balcony. I rush to pull on some sweatpants.
“Jay?” Ryder shouts again, the sound of his voice closer as he walks down the hallway.
I open my door. “What?”
“Jesus, you scared the crap out of me,” he says.
“Being woken by someone pounding your door down isn’t much better,” I reply.
“Sorry about that. Have you heard from Elizabeth?”
I peek down the hallway, half expecting to see her. I step out and close the door to my bedroom. It smells like sex.
“Why?”
“Fuck!”
“Ryder, what the hell is going on?”
“She wasn’t at home last night when I got back from the track. She never came home. I’ve been driving all over town. She’s not answering her phone. I’ve tried calling Fallon. I don’t know how to get in touch with Meredith or Trevor. I went to campus this morning and searched every place I knew she might be. I even called the police, but they said she had to be gone for twenty-four hours before I could file a report. Jay, where the hell is she?”
I walk around the condo, looking for Liz. Ryder follows me, wondering what I’m doing. Where is she? Did she sneak out?
“Jay, I’m worried.”
“Ry, she’s fine,” I assure him. Liz was with me until a few hours ago.
“How can you be so sure? Weren’t you the one who pointed out what could happen to her if she had another memory blackout? She could be hurt for fuck’s sake!” he yells at me. “Her location tracking is turned off. Why the hell would she do that? She promised to keep it on so we could find her in emergencies.”
That’s a good question. Where the hell are you, Liz? It’s then I see the piece of paper with my name on it sitting on top of the coffee pot. The paper is folded like a tent, my name is written in large block letters. Ryder sees the note the same time I do but gets to it first.
His face morphs into furious anger. I rip the paper from his hand.
“Jayson, I’m sorry. Last night should never have happened. – Elizabeth”
“What happened last night, Jay?” Ry’s voice is hard and threatening. I think he already knows.
