Never Wake (37 page)

Troy was searching her face with such intensity that Emma had to fight not to look away. “Raife told me that you came to sit with me every day when I was in a coma. He said you told him that we were friends, but I think we were more than that. Weren’t we?”

“Yes, we were more than that,” Emma said. She was afraid of where the conversation was going, but she was also ecstatic that they were having it. Even if Troy was still having trouble with Patricia’s death, even if she didn’t believe any of what Emma had to say, it was time to put it out there.

“So what do we do now?” Emma asked.

“I think we were going for coffee.”

“We can go another time if you think Raife will need you,” Emma said, and she could have kicked herself in the ass for suggesting it. She had waited a year for this very moment and now she was offering to postpone?

“He won’t.” Emma recognized the determination in Troy’s voice. “I asked him to call you. There’s a coffee place down the street.” Troy swung her bag over her head and started pushing Dite down the sidewalk.

Emma watched after her grinning like the village idiot and then had to hurry to catch up to her.
Calm down, girl. She asked you to coffee. She isn’t going anywhere. Now, you just have to make sure you don’t mess this up.

“Want me to carry that while you push the bike?” Emma asked in order to cover her growing excitement.

Troy smiled. “I wouldn’t do that to you. I have a ton of stuff in here.” Emma smiled and wanted to say she knew that, but she couldn’t. Not yet, maybe not ever.

“The coffee shop is a few blocks up. Are you okay with the walk? We could take the MAX if it starts to rain.”

“No, I’m fine. I like the rain.”

They continued their walk in silence. Troy seemed to be at war with herself about something, but Emma couldn’t get a clue as to what it was. The skin over her knuckles was lighter as she gripped the handlebars of her bike. Emma’s eyes went back to the tattoo again as the muscle beneath it bulged. She remembered seeing those arms poised above her, while those brown eyes—eyes so far off from her now—had watched her every move, even when she had succumbed to an orgasm.

Troy caught her looking, and Emma tried to cover. “You said you were going to get it removed. Why?”

“I don’t need it to remind me anymore,” Troy said as she looked up at the sky and then over at Emma as soft mist began to fall on them. “Do you want to wear my jacket?”

Emma glanced at Troy in surprise. “It’s not raining that much.”

Troy looked embarrassed and continued to stare straight ahead. The rain began to peck at the rain jacket laid over Troy’s bike and they kept walking. Emma felt a sense of deja vu as people walked around them as they made their way toward the café to get that coffee.

“A few days after I woke up, I started to have these—dreams,” Troy blurted out.

“About what?” The two words felt heavy on her tongue.

“About you. About us…about a strange time. I didn’t know what to make of it. I knew I had seen you the one time, but I was dreaming of whole conversations, and they seemed so real.” Troy’s words were carefully selected and she wouldn’t look at Emma. But Emma could sense that she was confused.

Oh, thank goodness!
She had decided from the beginning that she would never tell anyone what she believed happened to her and Troy, in part because she couldn’t be one hundred percent sure what was imagined and what wasn’t. Emma couldn’t help think how easy it would be to blurt everything out now that Troy admitted to having dreams. All she had to do was ask her what she dreamed and fill in the blanks for her. She would just be completing the picture.
No, I can’t do that. I can’t put my memories in Troy’s mouth. Either she has to remember on her own or not at all.

The thought that Troy might never remember hurt so much that Emma stumbled. Troy reached out to steady her, almost dropping her bike in the process. Emma looked up into Troy’s concerned eyes. With her braids tied back she should have looked younger; instead Emma thought she looked exhausted—as if she hadn’t slept through the night in some time. But worst of all, she looked sad.

“I just remember being with you.” Emma couldn’t leash a sharp barking laugh that escaped her mouth as she realized what Troy was trying to tell her.
She’s remembering! She may not remember all of it, but her soul remembers what we shared.
A fleeting look of hurt flashed over Troy’s face before it was replaced with a smile so fast that Emma had just registered the change.

“I remember your laugh. You didn’t do it enough, but I remember.” Troy’s words were spoken so low that Emma wondered if she had sensed the words rather than heard her speak them.

Emma felt as if a door had opened to her. All of the things Troy felt inside began to tumble out for Emma to see, like a cupful of wishes folded into little triangles for her to unfold and read.

A bead of water fell from a curl of hair at Troy’s temple and was held captive on her eyebrow. Emma reached up to capture the drop with the tip of her thumb. Her thumb moved as if of its own accord and brushed along Troy’s eyebrow until she was cupping Troy’s cheek. The back of her hand looked so pale against the dark gold of Troy’s skin. Emma met Troy’s eyes.

Everything around them seemed to pause, as if waiting. And then Troy’s palm was covering Emma’s hand, pressing it against her own cheek. Her long lashes swept down, and she sighed. Emma heard the murmur of conversations and felt the fleeting curiosity of strangers. Bagels, coffee, and wet asphalt—the scent of downtown Portland—hung in the air and Emma felt something inside of herself exhale, stretch, and unfold itself.

Troy released her hand, and Emma’s heart plummeted when she felt Troy’s confusion and discomfort. “I’m sorry if I make you uncomfortable.”

“You don’t,” Troy said, but her emotions betrayed her. “I don’t know how to tell you this, but I dream about your touch.” Troy looked up at the sky letting the rain hit her face. “My dreams are…pretty vivid.” Troy met Emma’s eyes again and Emma felt her fear seep away. “We should go get that coffee.”

Troy strode away so quickly that Emma had to work hard to keep up with her. Neither of them spoke until Troy stopped in front of a nondescript blue building and busied herself locking up her bike. Emma stood above her, wanting to run her hands across the back of her wet shoulders, wanting to take the bag, which she knew would be filled with books from the library, from Troy’s back.

Troy stood up and Emma swayed forward as if pulled by an invisible force. All of the pain and longing of the months without Troy crowded into Emma’s heart until she felt as though she wouldn’t be able to think. Now that she had Troy in front of her—where she could touch her, smell her, feel her presence—the thought of having to live without her was unbearable.

Unable to help herself, Emma risked doing something she had thought about doing since she had first realized it was Troy standing in front of her at the courthouse. She reached up, hesitated, and then removed the tie that held Troy’s braids back. She pulled a few of the braids in front of Troy’s shoulders. Her fingers lingered as she admired the neat plats. “Who did these for you?”

“I did them myself.”

Surprise made Emma speak without thinking. “You told me you didn’t know how to braid your own hair.”

Troy’s lips parted in surprise; she took a deep breath and leaned closer, as if afraid someone would overhear her confess a secret. “It was all real?” she whispered, no, begged.

She wants it to be true.
And even as she thought it, Emma felt all the pain and fear of rejection, all the pain of being alone disappear.

“I don’t know. Maybe it was, but I remember, too.” Emma was shocked to realize that the words came out as a half sob. “It’s been so hard to let you remember on your own, but I had to. I wasn’t sure if it was all just me…wanting you. I didn’t know if what we had there was because there was no one else.”

“I lied.” Troy’s face looked as if it had been dipped in a plaster cast.

“You lied?” Emma repeated.

“I wanted to be close to you. So I lied and said I didn’t know how to braid my own hair. I remember sitting between your legs. And I remember—I think I remember—other stuff, too.”

“Other stuff?”

“I remember making love to you, Emma. I remember how stupid I was the first time.”

“You weren’t stupid.”

Troy continued as if Emma hadn’t spoken. “I don’t remember everything about it, but I remember being afraid. Not of you, someone else.”

Emma felt almost dizzy with relief at having Troy share the onslaught of emotion that she had been dealing with for the last year without her.

“I remember enough to miss you, and I spent a long time feeling guilty.”

“Because of Patricia?”

“Yes. I felt like all my heartache should be just for her, but you were there, too.”

“How do you feel now?”

“Confused, hurt, guilty…happy.” Troy struggled with trying to put words to what she was feeling.

Emma reached out and put her thumb over Troy’s lip.

Emma pulled Troy’s neck forward until Troy’s mouth hovered just in front of hers. Her own feelings echoed the fear coming from Troy until their lips met. Her answer was wordless. Troy’s mouth opened and their tongues greeted each other like long-lost friends. Emma heard Troy’s bag drop to the ground then felt Troy wrapping her arms around her, pulling her close, deepening the kiss.

Emma’s legs—the good one and the getting-better one—gave out beneath her. A passerby laughed and Troy loosened her embrace and eased the ferocity of the kiss, but not before returning to Emma’s lips twice, as if promising that their separation was only temporary. When Troy released her, Emma stumbled back. Troy reached out as if to steady her, but didn’t make contact.

Emma blew out air and pushed her damp hair back off her forehead.

“Okay?”

“Mmm hmm.”

Troy dropped her hands to her sides. “I think we blew past the first-date stage a long time ago, but if you want to go in, I’m game.”

Emma bit her bottom lip and looked up at the sky. “I don’t like being inside much anymore. Would you mind getting a little more wet?”

Troy started to speak, paused as if to rethink her answer before saying, “It would be my pleasure.”

Emma had to run the sentence over in her head twice before she figured out the innuendo. A flush darkened Troy’s face.

“What are you thinking?” Emma asked.

“I was thinking that you know so much about me, but I don’t know anything about you. I feel like an amnesia victim.”

“I don’t know as much as I would like to about you either. We weren’t together that long. We were just beginning to learn about each other when we were…”
When we were what?
How should she refer to it?
When we were sleeping, comatose? How could we have been either of those things when I remember so vividly?

Emma was tempted to tell her what she knew, what she had begun to feel before everything was turned on its ear. She gathered her courage and said with careful determination, “I know this is going to be hard for you to understand, but I need to let you remember on your own.”

Troy shook her head. “It’s taken me almost a year to piece together the little bit that I can remember!”

“You have no idea how hard—how unbelievably heartbreaking—it’s been for me not to come to you. I needed to let you remember us, because I wasn’t sure if ‘us’ was just a figment of my imagination.”

“But now you know it wasn’t.”

Emma felt Troy’s frustration mingle with her own. Why was she punishing herself? So what if she told Troy a few things? She wouldn’t be putting her words in Troy’s mouth if what she told her was true.

“I know what I felt was real. I can’t speak for you.”

Can’t I? I know exactly how Troy felt about me because I felt it.
Emma pushed the thoughts away. That was a different time—a fairytale dreamscape where the real world was not around to point out their obvious differences.

“But what if I never remember it all?”

“Then I’d like to start over. Get to know each other all over again, if that’s all right with you.”

The tension left Troy’s face and the smile she gave Emma seemed resigned. “Are you up for a walk down to the waterfront? I don’t know if I feel like being inside right now.”

“A walk sounds great. I’m sure we can find some coffee down there, too, right?” Emma teased. She and Troy would have to re-learn each other. She knew deep within her soul that they would be all right. There would be some bumps, but that would be no different than any other relationship.

“There’s a cart on the way. He has pretty good coffee.”

“Okay, that sounds good, but you have to let me carry your bag.” Troy hesitated before handing Emma the heavy bag and bent to unlock her bike.

Emma, seeking to lighten the mood, asked, “Whatcha reading?”

Troy looked pained as she said, “Jane Austen.”

Emma smiled, but forced herself not to laugh. Troy was acting like she had been caught grinning into the pages of a Barbara Cartland bodice-ripper.

Emma sighed. Troy might not ever remember everything, but she remembered some of it. And the feelings that were coming from her now were strong: curiosity, fear, attraction, and even deeper was a need to reconnect.