Lost In Me (Here and Now 1)

I let out a long breath and study the ceiling. This is all so weird. Some days it doesn’t even feel like I missed a year of my life. It feels like I was dropped into someone else’s.

“I just assumed you two had had sex.”

“That makes two of us.”

“You and Mom have gotten closer lately,” she says. “Maybe she brought you over to the devout side?”

“I’m not buying that.”

“Yeah. Me neither. But hey, at least that means you didn’t have sex with Nate Crane either, right?”

“But what if I did?” I whisper.

“Oh.” She plops down on the bed. “That would be really bad, wouldn’t it? Max thinking you’re a virgin and you actually already gave that up to someone else?”

“I have to tell Max what I know.”

“Why?”

“Lizzy, I’m marrying him.”

“Exactly.”

“I need to be honest. I need him to know what I’ve done.”

“If you had your memories, I might agree, but the truth is, until they come back, you don’t know the whole story. The only thing you’re going to accomplish by telling Max is hurting him.”

“So you’re saying I shouldn’t tell the man I’m marrying that I was seeing someone else? Possibly sleeping with someone else? I shouldn’t explain to him why I wouldn’t wear his ring all those months?”

“That’s exactly what I’m saying.”

“My memories are starting to come back.”

“More since last time?”

I nod. “It’s weird, you know. I get these snippets, and a lot of them are insignificant. I remember jogging with Max in the mornings. I remember going into his gym and asking him to train me. I remember the first time he kissed me at the winter gallery opening.”

“Anything about Nate?”

I shake my head. “And nothing to make me think I would have had a reason to cheat on Max.” Except for my profound insecurity.

What if I never got over that feeling that I wasn’t good enough for Max? What if those feelings made me do something really stupid? And what about Valentine’s Day, when he left me alone to take care of Meredith? Is that just the price of dating a good guy? Or was something going on there?

She taps her knee thoughtfully. “None of this makes sense. Cheating? That’s just not in character for you. Maybe you didn’t realize things with Max were going anywhere. Maybe you didn’t think he was serious about you.”

“You forget that he proposed three months ago.”

“Crap. That’s right.”

“Girls!” Mom calls from downstairs. “What are you doing up there? Come down to the party!”

“Coming!” I call back.

Lizzy’s staring at me. “Are you sure you’re okay with this? Not all the memory loss and bad crap, but marrying Max? Is this what you want?”

“Of course.” But in that moment, with everyone waiting downstairs to congratulate me and ask questions about how many babies we plan to have, I’m not sure if this is really what I want or what I should want.

MAX PROPS his bare feet on my coffee table and sips a beer. I had no idea a man’s bare feet could be so damn sexy.