Unforgettable (12 page)

 
“No. Listen, I would never forgive myself if...”

 
“
Get out
!” I felt the need to yell it this time since he hadn’t felt inclined to listen to me the first time.

 
“No,” he yelled back. “Do you think I wanted to stop? Hell no. I
had
to. You’re fragile right now. I won’t take advantage of this situation. I fucking
love
you. If you don’t know another thing right now, I want you to understand
that
.”

 
I didn’t want to cut him a break, but looking at his face I didn’t have any choice. He was hurting. I was scared and confused but I didn’t remember loving him, so I wasn’t
hurting.

 
I stood there breathing heavily with tears running down my face. He moved closer and pulled me back into his arms.

 
“I love you.” He said the words gently this time and in that moment it was the only thing in the world that I knew for sure.

Chapter Nine

 
We stood there with Ethan clutching me for several minutes. I couldn’t move. It wasn’t that he was holding me captive; it was that my legs refused to carry me away from him.

 
Finally, he loosened his hold and I leaned back slightly so that I could look at him. He looked haggard. He looked how I felt. I knew I needed to step back from everything and go to sleep. Hopefully, tonight my mind would reset and I would wake up tomorrow with everything in my world in its proper place.

 
“I’m going to go to bed now, Ethan.” He looked down at me and I knew he wanted to say something but he remained silent. “Goodnight,” I told him after he made no move to leave.

 
“Goodnight, love.” He pushed a piece of my hair behind my ear but made no move to kiss me again.
Hmph.
He walked over to the bed and pulled off a pillow before going to the chest sitting under the window and taking out a blanket. He didn’t say anything else as he walked from the room, he didn’t even look back at me. I felt bereft.

 
Oh man, I have completely lost my mind. I flopped on the bed with Lucy and moaned. I couldn’t believe that I demanded that he kiss me then yelled at him when he stopped. I grabbed my pillow and covered my head with it. I just seek out ways to humiliate myself. That’s the only explanation. Maybe I do have brain damage. They didn’t say for sure that I didn’t. Maybe the doctor would call tomorrow and insist that I return to the hospital for more testing.

 
I pulled the pillow off of my face. I was still breathing heavily. What a day. I guess I should say what a weekend. It was unreal. “I have amnesia. I have
amnesia.
I
have amnesia.” Nope, saying it a bunch of times in different ways didn’t make it fell any less bizarre.

 
I vowed that from here on I would become someone cool. I would react to situations in a rational and adult manner. Unfortunately, cool is not the first word I would use to describe myself. This was going to take some mental resolve. I had to suppress my internal dork. The next time Ethan saw me, he wouldn’t recognize the composed and together person I know has to be in me somewhere. Plus, I have to be hip for my fans. I am some kind of internet sensation after all. I might have some people who look up to me or something. It’s possible.

 
I wanted to brush my teeth, but too bad. I absolutely refused to leave this room again tonight. Lucy was already back under the covers. Luckily, she didn’t care if I acted idiotically. I didn’t have to pretend with her. I didn’t have to pretend with Carrie either. I wanted to call her but since she just left a few hours ago I decided to suck it up and wait until tomorrow. Anyway, I wanted to talk about what had just happened with Ethan. Regardless of how accepting she was about it, I couldn’t bring myself to speak with her about him. It was too strange. I could still remember the sixteen year old Ethan coming to spend the weekend with us at our apartment and the two of us making fun of his Goth look. It was okay to laugh at him with her, but talking about kissing him was another matter.

 
I tried to superimpose the Goth Ethan onto Super-Hot Ethan but it was almost impossible. Super-Hot Ethan was just too powerful. I could hardly believe they were the same person. That was good I guess. I didn’t feel as dirty if I couldn’t see him as a kid. My mind went back to the new office décor but I quickly shut it down. I couldn’t deal with that tonight.

 
I should go to sleep. Sitting up thinking about things was only making me more uptight. I would most likely be well by morning, sleeping in my own bed and all. I crawled under the covers for the second time tonight, but this time I was going to stay put. I closed my eyes and started counting sheep. After a few seconds of that I became angry. Who came up with that stupid idea? Watching sheep jump doesn’t do anything to help me sleep. I started to count puppies. Aww, they are so cute.

 
There was a warm hand on my hip and hot breath on my neck. I leaned back into the firm body that was spooning me. I could feel the bulge of his cock on my ass. I wiggled closer.

 
“Mmm,” he groaned in my ear while he slid his hand up to my breast. My own hand reached up to cover his.

 
“Well good morning to you, too,” I whispered scratchily as he tightened his arm around me, pulling me closer. His tongue and lips started an assault on my neck and I shivered, pressing myself into him. I don’t know how long we laid there, practically still but for his mouth, before his hand moved back down to my thigh, grasping it and shifting it forward to make space for him. I could feel his peen nudging my entrance which was already wet and eager. He pushed himself into me at an excruciatingly slow pace.

 
“Oh god, Ethan,” I gasped as I arched my back.

 
I bolted upright in bed, my breathing shaky. What the
hell
was that? I could still feel Ethan’s hand holding me and his lips on my neck. Did I just have a sex dream? Holy moly, I never had those. Ever. My heart was beating fast. Like panic attack fast. I was still turned on. Sex dreams are
awesome
.

 
I switched on the lamp and looked over at the clock. Six forty two. Way too early for me to be up, I was the proverbial night owl. I had always been lucky that my body preferred the night since that was when I was at the restaurant. I hope I’m not some freakish early riser now. That would totally suck. There was nothing as fabulous as being able to be asleep while the rest of the poor working schmoes were already grinding away at their jobs.

 
I wanted to go back to sleep, but I didn’t want to fall back into the dream. Not that it didn’t make me feel good, though, precisely the opposite. It probably wouldn’t be a very good idea to moon over him while unconscious, I might get carried away or something and force myself on him. Then again, I’d already done that.

 
I might as well get up because I really needed to go to the bathroom. I turned on the lamp and the first thing I saw was the picture of Ethan and me. I tried to remember when it was taken, but I came up blank.
 
My stomach sank as I realized I still had no memory of the recent past.
Well, this bites
. I had pinned my hopes on sleep recharging my mind. It was obviously going to take something else.

 
I crawled out of bed dejectedly. I needed to do something constructive today. Something that would actively engage my brain. I made it to the door and opened it a crack. It was quiet. Great. I raced to the bathroom and took care of the most pressing business. Uhg, my mouth felt gross. I picked up my space-aged toothbrush and squeezed some toothpaste on it before I turned it on and started scrubbing my teeth, only then did I look up to see what I can only describe as hideous. It was my head. My whole head.

 
My eyes were red and puffy from last night’s crying jag. The bruise on the side of my head had morphed into what looked like a bad makeup job from an old monster movie, all green and brown. My hair, however, was the worst of all. What wasn’t sticking to my head in greasy chunks was poking up in a tangled mess. I momentarily stopped brushing my teeth to gaze at myself. I looked like total crap. I hurriedly finished brushing and stripped out of my clothes. A shower was the only prescription for this disease.

 
 
I turned the water on and opened the cabinet to make sure my robe was hanging before stripping down and stepping into the steaming spray.

 
I felt instantly better. I lathered up my hair, the smell of my shampoo familiar and comforting. While I conditioned my hair I pulled the razor off of the shelf and shaved my legs. After I was done and had turned off the water I felt a hundred times better than I had yesterday. I dried off and combed my hair before I pulled on my robe to go get some clothes on.

 
When I opened the door I was confronted by someone who was the opposite of hideous. Geez, even at the butt-crack of dawn he looked good. How unfair. His hair looked messy, but that wasn’t anything out of the ordinary. Everything else looked amazing. I grabbed the lapels of the robe together like some kind of prudish ninny.

 
“Good morning,” I said in my most schoolmarmish voice. “I’m finished; you can have the bathroom now.” Good, I sounded cool and gracious. He didn’t say anything, just looked at me and raised his eyebrows. “Excuse me,” I murmured as I pushed past him. He smelled like sleep. It was a good smell. I had to get out of there.

 
“Morning.” He actually grunted something that sounded like “horny” but I think that was me projecting. I rushed to my bedroom and closed the door harder than I meant to before grabbing some jeans and a pretty black tunic with silver embroidery. I didn’t recognize it, but I was happy to put on something attractive. I needed the confidence boost. Yesterday was a bitch-slap to my mental wellbeing, and I wasn’t sure I was going to be able to handle another day like that one.

 
Today I would be proactive about remembering. I would go through every email and picture I had. There had to be something somewhere that would make everything fall into place. I was an intelligent woman. It shouldn’t be that hard to force my mind to dredge up
something
useful. I went back to my closet and pulled out a pair of ballet flats. Cute. I slipped them on and looked down at myself. Pretty nice if I do say so, myself.

 
I went back to the bathroom to dry my hair and was happy to see it was empty. Ten minutes later, with dry hair and a bit of concealer to cover some of the bruising I felt pretty good, all things considered.

 
I smelled coffee and immediately perked up, faintly amazed that I hadn’t felt the need for any earlier. Usually, I couldn’t function without caffeine first thing. I wasn’t surprised to find Ethan already sitting at the island with a coffee mug in front of him.

 
“I made some coffee.” He looked up from the book he was reading and I walked over to the coffee maker.

 
“Thanks.” There was already a mug next to the coffee pot. It was my favorite mug, the one I had used every morning since I moved into my first apartment.
Ethan knew that this was my special mug.
I had to put that thought away until later. I poured my coffee and dumped in a mound of sugar. After I took my first sip I turned back to Ethan. He was looking at me.

 
“You look nice.” He said it with a smile so I was extra glad I had put on something besides my usual tee shirt.

 
“Thank you.” My voice was all breathy.

 
All I could think about when I looked at him was my dream. I could feel his lips on my neck and his hand on my breast. My nipples sprang to attention before I could help it. This was going to be tough. I knew it would be impossible to actually have sex with him while I was in this state. For one thing, I usually dated a guy for a while before I took it that far, and another, maybe more pertinent to this situation, I didn’t think he would go for it. He stopped kissing me last night because he thought I wasn’t ready, so I’m pretty sure that he wouldn’t be inclined to indulge me in sex.

 
Dang it! I needed to implement my plan to be cool like I had decided last night. Sadly, I had no practice being cool so I didn’t know what to do. I fell back on the only thing I had.