‘I’m sorry. I don’t know what else to say.’
It turned out no other words were necessary. Without saying anything, Elliot took two steps closer, wrapped his arms around me, and held me as I sobbed. It wasn’t long before I realised he was crying, too.
‘You shouldn’t be comforting me,’ I wept. ‘You should hate me.’
‘Never,’ he breathed into the top of my head. ‘There’s nothing you could do to make me hate you.’
‘I ruined your life!’
‘No more than I did, being an idiot trying to impress you. Or the driver, speeding after smoking weed all night. It was a horrible accident. We were kids. The worst thing that could happen is for that to spoil what we have now. Jessie, I really care about you. I know I’m not good at picking up this stuff, but I think you feel the same way about me.’
‘But how can you ever forgive me? You might think you have, or that it doesn’t matter any more, but then you’ll forget something important or lose your temper again, and instead of being angry at yourself, you’ll blame me.’
‘I won’t blame you, Jessie. I promise.’
‘How can you promise? You don’t know!’
‘I do know.’ He pulled away, wiping the matt of hair from my cheek with a trembling hand. ‘I know because I never blamed you. I never hated you. If you had any part to play in what happened, I forgave you for it a long time ago.’
I rubbed a hand over my face, trying to process what he’d said. ‘But you didn’t know. You couldn’t remember.’
‘I already told you. When it comes to you, I remember everything.’
Fearing my legs had turned to water, I crumpled onto a lounger. ‘What?’
‘I didn’t, at first. But it came back, in pieces, over time.’
‘You remember the accident?’
He came to kneel in front of me, forehead resting against mine as our tears mingled together. ‘I remember that whole night.’
Both hands instinctively reached out and clutched his shirt, needing to hold on to something. Tohim.
‘I remember talking to you. Sitting with you on the golf course. My heart thumping harder than the bass of the music behind us.’
As he spoke, he inched his face closer to mine. ‘I remember kissing you.’
With another tiny movement forwards, he softly pressed his lips against mine. ‘Like that.’
I smiled, closing my eyes as I gave a tiny shake of my head, whispering, ‘You remembered it wrong. It wasn’t like that.’
‘Oh?’
Reaching forwards, I resumed the kiss. A little firmer this time. ‘More like this.’
‘I’ve replayed those kisses a million times. They were definitely something more like this.’
This time, the kiss was long and deep. Sweet and strong. Just like I remembered.
‘Are you sure? That memory of yours isn’t confusing me with someone else?’
He laughed. ‘Jessie, there hasn’t been anyone else to confuse you with.’
‘What?’ I sat back, stunned.
‘You may have noticed I’ve got some issues. And then years had gone by, just me, and I hadn’t a clue how to be with anybody apart from my dog and uncivilised housemates. In the end I paid this woman to be my relationship coach. I thought I’d get some clues about what she wanted in a man. So I could be that for her.’
‘When all she ever wanted was you.’
