Pure Redemption (Tainted Legacy) (7 page)

After the most long drawn out seconds of her life, he cracked it open an inch. A familiar ice-blue eye peered out at her.

“Are you okay? I mean, are you almost done?” she asked, trying to keep her voice as non-threatening as possible.

His brow furrowed. “Do you need to go to the bathroom?” he asked, pulling the door all the way open. He was dressed in baggy sweatpants and a t-shirt that had seen better days. But he was cleaned up. He’d managed to shave and his damp hair
,
which was longer than he usually wore it
,
was no longer a mess. He looked more like himself.

And he was still there, in the flesh. It took every bit of restraint that she had to keep herself from flying into his arms and quite possibly scaring him away for good.

She fel
t herself blush as she
forced herself to answer his question. “No. It’s just,” she motioned to the kitchen, “I made you something to eat.”
I can’t stand being away from you for another second.
“I didn’t want it to get cold. I was just wondering if you were ready?”
Because I just want to touch you but if I can’t do that, then please, please just be somewhere that I can see you.

“
Oh, o
kay
, yeah
. I’m done in here,” he said.

He followed her into the kitchen and with shaking hands she placed the food on the table. Sitting next to him felt so surreal. Everything seemed brighter, louder and more intense.

He dev
oured the whole frozen pizza she
had prepared and she chided herself
for
not putting in a second. Instead, she offered him a slice of the apple pie her mom had sent home. He ended up eating three. After downing several glasses of milk, he finally seemed to be satiated.

“Can I get you anything else?” Ava asked as she slid her empty pie plate away. She’d had no appetite but it was obvious it made Gabe uncomfortable when she was just sitting there staring at him. She had eaten the pie, completely without tasting a thing, in an effort to help put him at ease.

He shook his head in answer to her question.

“When did you eat last?”

He gave her a guilty look, like a student being asked a simple question by a teacher. A question he knew he
should
know the answer to, but didn’t.

He shrugged. “I’m not sure.”

“Okay. Where have you been staying?”

“Staying?” he echoed.

Ava could almost see the question darting through his mind, looking for a
n answer, something to latch on
to but finding nothing. Panic fl
ashed
across his features.

“It’s okay,” she assured him. She slid closer to him, placing a reassuring hand on his knee. Unlike in the church, he didn’t flinch at her touch. He simply frowned at it instead. “I’m going to help you figure this out.”

He let out a deep breath and seemed to expel some tension along with it. He nodded.

“What
is
the last thing you remember?”

He thought. He didn’t come up with much.

“I remember flashes of things. Walking along a lake. Walking through a town. There are just images
, mostly
. I feel like I can’t really hold on to them. They just…slip away. But then I remember the church. I was walking down the sidewalk and I looked up. I saw the steeple.
Something…I feel like something pulled me there. A church is where people go to be saved, right?”

That was a multi-faceted question so Ava nodded. “Right.”

He looked relieved at her answer. “I went in and that’s when I found you.” He shrugged, indicating he knew it wasn’t much but that she knew the rest. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you.”

“You didn’t scare me. I was surprised, that’s all,” she assured him. Tears were threatening but mostly, she was too deeply entrenched in shock to let them take over.

“So, you know me?” he pressed. At least now he didn’t look so mistrustful. If anything he simply seemed curious.

She nodded and slid her chair back. “Come with me,” she requested.

He followed her into the living room. She sat on the couch, he sat next to her.

“These are yours,” she told him as she placed her hand on the black leather jacket. She had placed it on the coffee table while he was showering. “This,” she said, tapping the jacket, “and this,” she said as she slid his wallet out of the pocket. “You left them here the last time I saw you.”

Whether he
’d
left them because his mind was flooded with other things that day or whether he
’d
left it on purpose, knowing he would no longer need them, she might never know.

“I’ve been here before?” he asked. His brow crinkled as he looked around.

Ava’s eyes scoured his features, searching for even a flicker of recognition. There was none. His gaze returned to her. It was almost apologetic.

“Here,” she said as she handed him the wallet. It was black leather and surprisingly battered.

He opened it, frowning as he realized that it was bulging with money. He flipped through the bills but didn’t remove them as he flicked a questioning glance toward Ava.

She shrugged helplessly
, entirely unsure
how to explain
any of
it
to him
.

There were a handful of credit cards. He plucked them out and flipped through them. What really caught his interest was his driver’s license. He studied the picture. “It looks like me,” he admitted, “but also not.”

Ava rolled her lower lip through her teeth, giving him a few more moments to mull things over. “Picture yourself with your face a little more filled out. It is you,” she quietly assured him.

He slid the credit c
ards back in
to
their slots and placed
the wallet on the table, all the while seemingly unable to tear his gaze from the license. After minutes that felt like hours Ava interrupted his concentration. “There’s one more thing in the wallet.”

He gave her a curious glance as he reached for the wallet once again. He immediately noticed a pocket he hadn’t looked in. His fingers retrieved the photo. Ava’s eyes never left his face. He held it up.

“Us?” he asked, frowning
yet
again.

Ava’s heart squeezed in her chest, causing a deep ache.

She nodded. It was a shot of the two of them from some distance. From what Gabe had admitted to her, she could only assume that it had been taken as some sort of surveillance shot. Despite that, or maybe because of it, there was something very genuine about the picture. She and Gabe were strolling down the boardwalk, hand in hand. His head was cocked to the side. He was le
aning down slightly as if he were
saying something. She was smiling up at him, listening intently.

“Okay, so you do know me,” Gabe finally relented.

“You still don’t know me?” Ava quietly wondered.
She couldn’t decide if he sounded relieved or simply indifferent that she was someone from his past.
She had hoped the picture, if nothing else, would trigger something. “Does any of this look familiar?”

He’d slid the license back into place and was now gazing at the photo. He finally looked back up at her, hesitated, and then shook his head as he looked around again. “No. Nothing,” he said sounding, for the first time, very frustrated.

Ava glanced at the clock. It wasn’t all that late but never in her life had she seen someone who looked so utterly exhausted. After she’d suffered through so many sleepless nights, plagued with nightmares and heartache she herself was familiar with intense exhaustion. It could be debilitating. She knew.

Just ask Julia.

Furthermore, if he didn’t remember, she did not know how she was ever going to go about explaining it to him. What if he didn’t believe her? What if he thought she was out of her mind? What if he
left
because he didn’t believe her? She couldn’t deal with that yet.
Probably not ever.

“I think you need to get some rest,” she suggested. “You look exhausted.”

He didn’t disagree.

“Maybe sleep will help clear your head. Maybe in the morning…” she faded off.

Gabe no
dded and slowly stood. “Okay
.” H
is eyes darted to the door.

“No,” Ava said firmly as she latched her hand around his. “You’re not going anywhere.” Her eyes were wide, fearful. What was she going to do if he refused to stay? She couldn’t physically stop him.

She would have to follow him.

“Oh. No,” he shook his head. “Thanks for dinner. And everything else. But I couldn’t—”

“You
are
,” she firmly informed him, trying to keep the panic out of her voice. “I lost you once. There is no way I’m going to lose you again.”

He hesitated, studying her face. “We were friends?”

Ava hadn’t realized he still held the picture in his free hand.

She squeezed the one she was holding as he held the picture up in his other, searching yet again for some answers.

“More than friends.”

He simply nodded.

“The bedroom is this way,” she said as she tugged him forward.

Even though he followed he began to shake his head.

“I’ll sleep on the couch,” Ava told him. “It makes more sense. You’d never fit on it.”

“No,” he said adamantly. “You’re not giving up your bed. I’ll sleep on the couch.” He gave her a sardonic, familiar smile, the first one she’d seen. “It’s got to be better than wherever I’ve been sleeping, right?”

Ava forced a smile in return. “Probably. But that’s not the point. If you can’t remember where you slept last and you’re still losing pieces of time, I’m worried that you’re going to wake up and just walk out. At least if you sleep in the bedroom I’ll hear you walk past me. Please,” she coaxed, “letting me sleep on the couch would be a huge favor to me.”

Besides, she was sure she wouldn’t be sleeping much, if at all.

“You’re serious?”
he asked, not looking entirely convinced.

“Completely,” she assured him.

He gave her a dub
ious look but finally relented
.

“Gabe?” Ava called out as he disappeared into her bedroom. He stepped back out at the sound of her voice, a questioning look on his face. “Can I just…” she didn’t finish. Instead, she crashed into his chest, holding him so tightly his bones felt as though they may burst through his skin.

“I love you,” she whispered. “I just thought you should know.”

After a few awkward
, silent,
moments, he held her back.

Ava wondered how something could possibly feel so familiar and yet so alien at the same time.

***

Hours later, she
was still awake. She was not a heavy sleeper but that didn’t stop her from being terrified that she’d drift off long enough and deep enough for Gabe to slip
by her
. She h
ad dozed a few times and had awakened
with such a start her teeth had clattered. Convinced he had wandered out the front door in those few moments of dozing, she got up to check on him each time this happened.

The fourth
time she tiptoed into th
e darkened room she listened to
the sound of his breathing for several minutes
. It calmed her to hear him, even if she couldn’t see him. She turned to tiptoe
back out.

“Ava?” His voice floated through the darkness, causing her to jump. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you.” She was turning to come back to the bed when he flipped the bedside lamp on. “You can’t sleep.”

“No,” she agreed. She wondered if he was aware of each time she’d checked on him. “I keep thinking if I do, you’ll sneak
by
me.”

“I keep thinking that
,
too,” he admitted. Noting Ava’s concerned look he hurried on. “Not on purpose. But what you said earlier, about me losing pieces of time? I don’t know what I’ve been thinking, or
if
I’ve been thinking when that happens. What if I’m just on autopilot? What if
I leave here and I end up not knowing where I am again? I feel like if I just stay awake, I won’t forget this stretch of time.”

“So you’re not sleeping either?”

He shook his head. “Not really.”

“Okay,”
she
said de
cisively, before she could over
think the situation. “Scoot over.”

“What?”
he asked, not budging but looking at her with wide, surprised eyes.

“Scoot over,” she repeated as she lifted the covers. He did as she instructed
this time
and she slid in beside him. “If we’re both worried you might be able to
slip by
me I can assure you I will wake up if you have to crawl over me. Oh, don’t look at me like that,” she said with a smirk. “This is not the first time we’ve slept in this bed together.”