the hell away from me!”
But this was Cassidy, whose wordless emotions were always written all over her face. Eric flinched as if she had actually spoken.
He also flinched from the strength of his memory. Those three memories he never let himself remember?
Well, the first one smashed into him now. Hard.
Cassidy, glowing with new beauty at her Sweet Sixteen party. She coaxed him into the hall, away from her giggly girlfriends and clearly hopeful male friends. “It’s my birthday,” she said. “But I have a present for you. Happy birthday to me.” Then she kissed him. An immature, inexperienced kiss. She looped her arms around his shoulders, touched his neck, and he felt her fingers trembling.
Their first kiss. And their last kiss.
Until now. His mouth still felt hers.
“Cassidy,” Eric said. “I—”
She turned to walk away from him.
“Cassidy, please,” Eric said. “I didn’t come here for that. I didn’t mean for that to happen. It just—I saw you and it just—it did. I’m sorry.”
She looked at her arm where he grasped it. He let go and she looked into his face.
“I didn’t even come here for me,” Eric said.
Cassidy raised one thin, arched brow. He remembered when she learned how to do that in fifth grade. She’d given raised-brow questioning looks to people for three days, thrilled at her new form of expression.
“I came here for Professor Gilbert Harrison.”
Cassidy did look genuinely confused then. She probably hadn’t heard the teacher’s name in ten years, Eric thought. She’d not only left him behind, she’d left everyone.
“I know you’re at work,” Eric said. “And I’m sorry to track you down here. I didn’t know where you live and I needed to find you. Will you talk to me later? There’s things I have to fill you in on.”
Cassidy appeared to really want to shake her head no.
“Please,” Eric said. “I came all this way. Gilbert really needs your help. He called a bunch of your old friends, and they want you to help, too.”
“He didn’t call me.”
“No,” Eric conceded. He had wondered why Gilbert hadn’t called Cassidy, his former work-study student, who’d spent so much time with him and admired him so much. But Gilbert had said on the phone that he didn’t want Cassidy to have to make the long journey back to the United States. On the other hand, a bunch of Saunders grads—particularly Ella Gardner, were positive Cassidy would drop everything and run back. Eric had run into Ella recently in Boston. She was the one who told him about Gilbert’s predicament, and suggested Eric fetch Cassidy. She also asked him about the “crush” she’d suspected he’d had on Cassidy at Saunders. Eric would have laughed at the gross understatement if it hadn’t been his own tragedy.
“No,” Eric repeated. “But your friends insisted you should be found. And I guess I really had to agree.”
Cassidy glanced behind her at the main door, either concerned she should be working—or searching for a place to flee.
“What time do you finish for the day?”
Cassidy glanced behind again.
“What time, Cassidy? I’ll meet you here.”
He wasn’t going to let her leave without responding. She figured that out, because she said, “Seven.”
“Seven?”
“Usually—but tonight, I have—”
“I’ll meet you right here at seven.”
She nodded.
A part of him longed to just stand in awe of her, gaping at the beauty she’d matured into. The girl he’d remembered wasn’t even as beautiful.
But the other part of him, the part that had kept him awake for days and weeks and months on end, that distrustful part of him, made him say, “You won’t be here at seven, will you? You’re going to make me chase you, which is the only thing my pride has managed to stop me from doing.”
Cassidy blinked very slowly, translucent lids covering and uncovering two golden lights.
Then she turned on her heel, yanked on the main door and disappeared into the building.
Eric stared at the spot she’d just vacated. A whiff of unfamiliar perfume lingered in her wake, a scent he’d already begun to miss.
His heart ached with emptiness. “That went well,” he said to the wall.
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