System Erased Her From My Memory novel · Chapter 12 of 24
Chapter 12: Memory One
Maia didn't speak in the cab.
She watched the lights of Lake Shore Drive slide over the window and kept her hand folded in her lap.
At the apartment door she waited while I found my keys.
It was past one in the morning.
In the kitchen she set her clutch on the counter and finally turned around.
"Tell me," she said.
"It was the day we met." I rubbed my forehead. "I thought I'd marry her. I was twenty-six."
"You thought that then."
"Yes."
"And now?"
"I remember thinking it. I remember it the way you remember a photograph of somebody else's holiday. I know what's in the picture. I don't feel the sun."
She stared at the floor.
"Did you love her?" she asked.
"I think so. For three years, probably."
"Probably."
"I don't know how to say it any better. I remember loving her the way I remember my high school locker. Something that was mine, and isn't."
Her mouth trembled.
"That's honest," she said.
"It's all I've got."
"Okay." She took a breath. "Then here's mine. I've been waiting for this since the day you came into my clinic. I told myself I wasn't. Every day, I watched you for the moment you'd remember and walk out."
"I'm not walking out."
"It's one in the morning, Wes. The rule was daylight."
"I know what the rule was. I'm standing in the kitchen telling you to your face. I don't see a bag."
She laughed, a short, wet sound.
"Do you want me?" she asked. "Not the idea of staying married. Me."
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