For Her (The Girl I Loved Duet 1)

I move beside her and lean against the car so that I can be closer.

“Just like you thought, my mother did take me to the doctor. And it wasn’t just exhaustion.”

Pure and real fear runs through me. “What?”

“I have an arrhythmia. My heart doesn’t beat correctly, and that’s when it started fucking up. It wasn’t regulating, and between my trying to get everything off the ground and running myself ragged, I made it worse. So I was sick, and I didn’t know it.

“I still graduated, but I didn’t come back to school because I was going for second opinions and tests and every doctor my parents could think of to make sure that there was only one solution.”

“What was it?”

Amber shivers, and I take my suit jacket off and wrap it around her shoulders. She smiles a little. “That summer I had a pacemaker put in. My parents asked all the colleges I had applied to to hold my application for medical reasons, and I spent the year taking very limited courses at a community college while I was monitored and adjusted to living with it. Learning the things I could and couldn’t do.”

There’s no breath in my chest, and Amber keeps looking out at the city even though I can’t stop looking at her.

“So even though I was furious at you and wanted to hurt you in every way possible, you did what you set out to do. You made it so that I was okay, even though you never knew.” When she looks over at me now there are tears in her eyes. “You saved my life, Peter.”

I have no idea what to say. This is the last thing that I expected. “Are you all right?” It seems such an inadequate question.

“Yeah,” she says, clearing her throat. “I’m good. Now. I have to be careful sometimes, but it’s working perfectly.” She touches her hand to her chest.

“I know it’s stupid that I didn’t realize that you did it because you cared. At the time, it was so painful that I couldn’t see it. And even when I realized that might be the case, it was still such a wound that I didn’t want it to be true. I wanted a reason to hate you. But now you’re here…” she says, “and I can’t.”

I’m leaning in to kiss her before I can stop myself, and she tilts her face up to meet mine. It feels like something new, both of us searching for the past but finding the future. I reach out and pull her closer, savoring the feeling of her in my arms. I need more, and now that this wall has finally cracked, I might be able to. “Amber.”

“Peter.”

“Let me take you home,” I say. “Please.”

“Okay.”

21

Amber

Present

“Okay,” I tell him. I’m almost surprised that I say it, but this drive that we took, everything that he said and everything that I said, that part of me won. I can’t deny it anymore. I need to be with him. We have too much unfinished business between us, and now that the air is cleared, I finally feel like I can breathe again.

Peter scoops me up off the hood of the car and carries me to the passenger seat. “My ankle isn’t so bad that I can’t walk,” I tell him.

“I know.” There’s a small smile. “I’m just making sure that you don’t run away from me again.”

“I won’t.”

He kisses me, soft and slow, and I start to feel a familiar heat in my blood. I never thought this would happen again. I was too angry and too hurt. But seeing the way Peter looks at me, the truth in his eyes and voice, I believe him. And if I’m being really honest with myself, I’ve known the truth for a long time.

I think my anger at Peter was the only way that I could hold onto him. It was the only thing that I had left. But now, being able to let it go is like releasing tension that I hadn’t even noticed that I was carrying. It’s so relieving that I think I could fall asleep as Peter drives us to his house. Except for the fact that I know where this is going, and I’m as nervous as I am excited.

Peter reaches across the seat and takes my hand, threading our fingers together. We’re quiet, but it doesn’t feel uncomfortable. There’s just not much to say. We’re both processing our confessions, and what it might mean. I can’t speak for Peter, but I’m suddenly re-evaluating a lot of things that I thought weren’t possible anymore.

There was a time when I dreamed of Peter and me taking on the world together. Now I wonder if that could be the case again, both professionally and personally.

We pull into a shady drive, and Peter parks the car. I wait for him to come around to my side of the car, but I don’t let him carry me. Taking my shoes from his hands, I let him take the other and pull me gently up the walk to his front door.