PHENOMENAL GIRL 5 (17 page)

“I kept an eye on your career after that day because I knew you would be good for the team. That you had the makings of a real hero. And I was right.”

I shook my head. “So weird that was you. You were what inspired me to work hard to
become
a hero. Only, I forgot it was you. Or I didn’t know.”

He managed a rueful smile. “That is a nice change of pace—someone forgetting me instead of the other way around.”

“What are you talking about?”

He sighed. “Even if I do come back, I will be someone else.” His dark eyes bored into mine. “Someone who will likely not remember you.”

My heart hurt again. “Well, try.”

“I do not want to forget you,” he said, tone adamant. “You have been a good friend and an exceptional partner. Had this not happened, I would like to think you would have been more. But I cannot help what I remember or forget in my next life. It is an involuntary reflex, what gets stored away and what gets deleted. And in all of these centuries, I have never woken from one life to the next with the knowledge of a girlfriend or wife or children. I have never remembered them, and it was too painful for them to know I forgot. Most probably left without me knowing it. The ones that stuck around suffered. I have a son who hated me for a long time because I replaced his father and did not know him. I do not want to see you suffer like that.”

I swallowed hard. “How long do we have?”

He sighed, closing his eyes. “It is coming soon. Maybe an hour at most.”

“It’ll have to do.” I leaned forward, wrapped my arms around his waist, and kissed him as if the world was going to end—because for us, it was.

The kiss deepened, our tongues coming together, and I felt my breath quicken. I slid my hand up to his barrel chest. I began to work the buttons of his shirt.

His hand came up to catch mine. “God, Lainey, as much as I want to, we should not do this.” He trapped my hand against him and I could feel his heart beating so fast, the quickened rise and fall of his breathing. He might protest, but he wanted me as badly as I wanted him.

“No, this is what you meant in your poem. This is our last chance to seize the moment.”

“It will make it worse for you after I am gone,
cara
.”

I shook my head, tears burning in my eyes. “It would be worse to never be with you at all. This time, I’m not letting the moment pass by.” I spoke softer. “I’m in love with you.”

His brown eyes burned with heat. “Lainey…”

“And I heard you say you loved me when you thought I was dead.”

He stared at me in shock, and then nodded. “Yes, I did.”

“Will you say it again?”

A tender look settled on his face. “I love you, Lainey.”

Our lips met passionately, and in that moment, I finally knew how it felt to be loved.

We lay facing each other, not needing to fill up the silence with words. He traced invisible patterns on my bare skin, moving from my arm to my back, eyes on mine. I smiled, reaching out to brush the line from his jaw to his lips with my fingertips. I tried to memorize every feature of his face: the way his mouth quirked at the corners when he smiled, his warm brown eyes that held such emotion. It was the face of the man I loved, who had shown me, with such sweet and tender passion, just how much he loved me. I leaned forward to give him the barest of kisses, a light brush on the lips. He wrapped his arms around me, returning my kiss. I inhaled his scent, trying to commit it to memory, and how it felt when he held me.

Because soon he would be gone.

I took the moment to cling to him, sadness creeping in. He had made me forget, if only for a short time, what was coming next. We had to have burned up an hour by now.

He must have sensed the mood shift, because he pulled back to catch my expression. “Do not look sad now,” he said, brushing a strand of hair away from my face. “You will
give me a complex.” He smiled, falling back into the old pattern of teasing me, trying to lighten the bittersweet atmosphere that had descended.

“You won’t remember getting one,” I said, sorrow in my voice as cold reality sank in. “You won’t remember any of this.”

He looked pained. “It is not guaranteed I will forget. It is just…”

“Likely,” I finished.

“Yes.” He cupped my cheek, meeting my eyes. “I am afraid this was a selfish move on my part.”

“Don’t say that. No matter what happens, I wouldn’t have traded this moment for anything.”

“I just do not want to hurt you,
cara
.”

“You won’t,” I said, only knowing that I did not want to ruin this last bit of time with him. “I’ll remember for the both of us. So even if you do forget, I’ll make you remember.”

His smile was wan. “The only thing I want is to remember this. Lainey, try to recall, if things get bad, the man who loves you will still be inside that new person. I will still be there, somewhere. And if I do not come back…”

“You will.”

“If I do not come back this time, if this was my last life, then I am happy to have spent what time I had with you.”

My tears fell as he kissed me, long, lingering, and full of emotion. It expressed everything we couldn’t in those last moments.

When he pulled away, I knew our time was up. “It’s going to happen soon, isn’t it?”

He nodded.

“Does it hurt?” My throat was clogging with emotion.

“If it does, I will be beyond pain by then. It is a strange process,
cara
. I transform into a new person from the cellular level up. Everything in my body resets itself to that of a twenty-year-old. I do not know why.” He got up out of bed. “There are a few last things I need to attend to, before…”

I nodded, wiping away my tears, wanting to be strong for him.

He got dressed, with me silently watching. Turning, he walked over, picked me up off the bed, and kissed me hard. I poured every ounce of feeling I had into that last kiss, feeling tears dampen my cheeks again and not sure if they were mine or his.

“Pretend I am coming right back,” he said, forehead against mine, holding me against him. “Make it easier on the both of us.”

“I love you,” I whispered, clinging tighter.

“I love you too, Lainey,” he said, slowly releasing me. I could tell it was as difficult for him to let go as it was for me. “I will always love you. And that is a promise.” Then he turned and walked out the door, closing it behind him.

I made sure I heard footsteps going downstairs before I gave in to my tears, feeling the loss of him with such brute force that it tore sobs from my throat. I curled up with his pillow, breathing in his scent, shaking with grief.

After a few moments, I took a deep breath and forced myself to calm down.

“He’s coming back. He’s coming back,” I whispered, like a mantra. He had to: he was the Reincarnist. That’s what he did, he always came back. Yes, Robert was gone in a very real sense. But he would be back, just a lot different. And I was going to have to figure out very quickly how to deal with that.

The worst-case scenario was that he wouldn’t remember me. It would be painful, but that was a simple fix: Just remind him.
I’m Lainey. I’m your partner and your girlfriend
. Was I his girlfriend? Was that presumptuous, thinking we had a relationship now that he’d been reincarnated into a new person? Well, what else was I going to say?
I’m Lainey and I’m your lover?
God, that sounded trashy, like it hadn’t meant anything. And making love to Robert
had
meant something.
Girlfriend
sounded much better.

As I thought harder about it, I realized that loss of memory wasn’t the worst-case scenario. The worst-case scenario was that he wouldn’t remember me and then the new him didn’t like me! Who knew how much his personality would change? Or what if he remembered what had happened and didn’t like me? That would be awkward.

On the other hand, what if he came back too different, and
I
just didn’t feel the same way about
him
? As much as I couldn’t fathom that happening, it was as conceivable as any of the other scenarios.

Or maybe he would come back, different but similar, would remember everything, and it would all be okay.

Please, God, let that be the case.

I knew I was driving myself crazy with the possibilities of what was going to happen. I was sure of one thing, though: I didn’t want to face it naked.

My costume still had blood on it, so I did a very girlfriend-like thing—I took one of his button-up shirts to wear as a nightshirt. It still smelled like him, overwhelming me. Tears burned in my eyes again and I wiped them away. I didn’t want to be caught crying by a strange man that used to be my boyfriend.

I was still shaking and my limbs felt like they might collapse, so I slid back under the covers and awaited fate.

Fate was faster than I would have liked. I heard footsteps coming my way and sat up, heart racing. Two people were coming toward the room, talking. It was Mayhew and an unfamiliar voice.

“I should explain…” Mayhew was saying, and then the door opened.

And I came face-to-face with the new Reincarnist.

I am ashamed to admit that my first thought was,
Wow, he’s hot!
Still in the same somewhat understated way, but this version of Robert would turn more than a few heads. He was about six feet tall, with a wiry build that was subtly muscular, and narrow shoulders. He had light brown hair and a sexy five o’clock shadow that turned a boyish face into something rugged and slightly dangerous.

But his most striking feature was his eyes. This time they were a dark blue. Yet they were still soft, and at the same time penetrating. They say eyes are the window to the soul, and I’d have to agree, because when I looked into this stranger’s eyes I saw Robert. It gave me hope that everything would be okay.

We stared at each other in silence for a long moment, and then he spoke.

“Who are you and what are you doing in my bed?”

I hoped my face didn’t betray the hurt I was feeling. It doesn’t matter how much you know something painful is coming, it is still devastating when it happens.

He looked so lost and confused, expecting me to fill in the blanks. I found my voice.

“L-Lainey,” I managed, clearing my throat. “I’m Lainey. You were training me to be in the EHJ—that’s the Elite Hands of Justice. I’m…your partner.”

Is that all I am?
I chastised myself.

“Lainey. I’m supposed to remember you,” he said, and I was thrown by the use of a contraction in his speech. “I don’t…” He trailed off, noticing my borrowed clothing, and his face drained of color. “Oh, God, we’re not lovers, are we?” His tone was pure panic.

I felt like I had been kicked in the stomach. Bad enough he didn’t remember me, but to act disgusted at the very thought? That killed me.

I tried to gather up a bit of my pride and come up with a plausible lie. “I was injured—well, dead, actually—and you brought me back. That’s how it is that…you’re here. You brought me here, said I should get some rest.”

A look of relief crossed his face. “Oh. Yes, of course.”

Mayhew was giving me a pointed look. I ignored him, wondering how much he knew and how much he assumed.

“I’ll just get out of your hair,” I said, gathering up my ruined clothes. “My costume was wrecked, and I needed to borrow a shirt. Sorry.”

He waved a hand. “No problem. I’ll have to have them tailored; I don’t think they’ll fit anymore as is. But, if you were…dead, you can stay and I’ll just go to a different room. God knows I have enough to get accustomed to without inconveniencing anyone. You don’t need to be up and about just yet.”

“Oh, I’m fine. And you’ve been dead, too.” The pain that spiked through me at those words brought tears to my eyes. “I-I’m just across the hall, anyway.” I hurried to the door and grasped the handle. “I’ll see you later.”

“Goodnight,” he said, like an afterthought, looking around as if seeing his surroundings for the first time. Which, I guess, he technically was.

I went to my room and shut the door behind me, feeling like my lungs were seizing up. God, this was worse than I’d thought. The Robert who had loved me was gone, replaced by someone who was repulsed by me.

I grabbed my poetry book off the shelf, clasping it to my
chest, my last link to our own “theft of a moment.” I could still smell Robert’s scent on my skin and the shirt I wore.

I curled up in a ball in my bed, alone, and cried myself to sleep.

I awoke in the morning knowing something was wrong, but forgetting in that first moment what it was. Then the pain was fresh again. Puffy-eyed, I stumbled around the room, found clean clothes, and headed for my shower. Hesitating, I stripped off the shirt I had been wearing and tossed it in the back of my closet. He wouldn’t miss it, and I wanted something that still belonged to Robert and not the stranger who had replaced him.

In the shower, I let my tears fall again, feeling the loss gnaw at my heart. It wasn’t fair! Why wasn’t I allowed to keep anyone who loved me? First my parents had been taken before I even got a chance to know them, leaving me to be someone who forever kept people at a distance, making few friends and never connecting with any of the foster families that took me in. I had kept up a wall around my heart just so I wouldn’t be hurt when someone else left, and had buried myself in my career. But I had taken a chance and fallen in love with someone who loved me back. Now that person was gone. Thank God I had thought to take precautions last night. That would have been the cap on an already lousy situation, if I had ended up pregnant. Then I would have lost both my career and my love, and would have been stuck with a responsibility I wasn’t sure I wanted, certainly not by myself.

I stopped those dark thoughts as I turned off the tap and stepped out of the shower. I dressed, catching a glance of my reflection in the mirror. I looked like death, pale and splotchy with puffy red eyes.

I put on light makeup just to compensate, so I didn’t have to face the Reincarnist, version 2.0, asking me if I had been crying.

I took a deep breath and squared my shoulders. I had to do this for my career, which was all I had. I had to numb myself while being around this new guy. We had to work together, and it wouldn’t do to be crying every time I saw him. After it had became apparent that he had absolutely no memory of me and didn’t even want to entertain the thought that we had ever been together, I knew my hopes of picking up where we left off were over. I especially recalled what Robert had told me while I was training with him: to think of his reincarnations as descendants, not as the same person. The man I loved had died saving my life. His progeny was going to be working with me now. We might become friends, but everything Robert and I shared had died with that lifetime. I had to finish up working with this new Reincarnist so I could move on to become a full-time member of the EHJ.