Forgotten First Kiss

Chapter 8

An hour later, my stomach growled. My hip and side were getting frostbite. Well, not exactly. The peas had thawed and turned mushy, but my skin was cold. I set down my historical novel and repositioned, turning to lie on my back. I pushed all the little bags of peas up against my side, but several fell off onto the floor—plunk, thunk.

Ouch. I needed some painkillers, more of that spray. I reached for the aerosol can Jeremy had left on the table. Slowly, I peeled back the sheet covering my side. Ouch. Some of its fabric had stuck to the wounded areas. Ouch, ouch, ouch. The higher the thread count, the more threads that could stick to an owie.

When I tried to spray the stuff, I missed, turned the nozzle around and aimed it toward my face. A few droplets got in my eye.

Geez! Ouch! It smelled like antiseptic, and heepie jeepie that hurt! Using a corner of the sheet, I swiped some out, and clearly—clearly—I was not up to the task of caring for myself during this convalescence tonight.

Tomorrow, perhaps. But for now, I was a living, breathing bruise.

What choice did I have? I texted Jeremy.

I’m taking you up on your offer, if you have time. How about those little ham sandwiches from the hot cocoa shop, say, in an hour?

The next text took courage to send: I’ll start reading the texts now.

And then, I scrolled upward, to the top of a very long history of texts. It would be better to look through them chronologically, to maybe get an idea of how things had evolved.

Whoa. It was almost an infinite scroll. How many times could two people text each other in a few weeks? Hundreds, apparently. Possibly over a thousand. The sheer volume!

Even more unbelievable, most of them were from me, not the other way around.

What was the term the older gymnastics students used for girls who overdid their attention for a guy to the point of ridiculousness? Simp? Whatever. I’d been that slang girl if ever anyone had.

I must have hit my head harder than I thought.

Jeremy! I’m dying for another chapter in the book. If I don’t find out what happens next, I’ll just expire.

Seriously? And what book was it? The only book I’d ever felt like I’d die if I didn’t hear what happened next was Jane Eyre. My Between Episode self wouldn’t have known that.

Jeremy, can you come again for a chapter? It’s so boring here, and they keep turning on my television. I’m about to wring their necks from my sick bed.

Hi. What are you doing right now?

Finally, one from Jeremy: Chopping wood at Aunt June’s house.

Oh, merciful heavens. I did not need an image of Jeremy Hotston as a lumberjack chain-sawing a trail through the forest of my brain right now. I was having a hard enough time keeping my physical reactions to him wholesome.

Can you come see me when you finish up?

I’ll have to shower first. It’s Indian summer temperatures out here today.

Nope. The only thing I needed less than mental pictures of a sweaty, exercising Jeremy Hotston, was images of a showering Jeremy Hotston.

I skipped a few texts—just to keep everything G-rated.

There were some things about whatever book it was again, and then a huge clue—a reference to Sinjin and Mr. Rochester. What? No. Jeremy had read me Jane Eyre?

Um, okay. I shifted on the sofa, my skin and ears buzzing.

Then another level of this miracle whacked me with a two-by-four.

The guy had discovered my favorite book and read it aloud to me while I was sick and bored in the hospital and probably had something like double vision from the head injury and couldn’t read to myself? While I didn’t even know Grandma Constance’s name? My favorite novel was not one of those well-known facts, not something I told every passing stranger.

Could Jeremy read my very soul? My inner, deepest soul? The one even I hadn’t known?

Tears pricked at the corners of my eyes for the second time today, but this time not from pain but from something far deeper inside me. Something I wasn’t ready to acknowledge.