Page 8 of Here We Go Again

Right up until he wasn’t anymore.

There aren’t many people who know the whole story. It was a dark time in my life, and I don’t like to talk about it. Mia only knows because in our third year of nursing school, we celebrated passing our pharmacology class with just enough tequila to dislodge the entire saga.

The basic gist: once upon a time, I fell in love with a boy destined for greatness. Then his dad died in an unthinkable tragedy, a car accident with Theo behind the wheel, and somehow, our relationship became collateral damage.

Right from the start, Theo’s grief made him push everyone away, but I held on, trusting he would come around, trusting that eventually, he would let me in. But he only retreated farther into himself. Weeks went by, and he wouldn’t even speak to me, let alone let me see him.

Carter tried to explain I hadn’t done anything wrong, but that did little to lessen the pain of losing a relationship that had felt like a living, breathing thing, like something vital to my very existence.

It was horrible to watch someone I loved lose someone he loved. But it was doubly hard because I watched from the outside. Because I wanted to help, and he never gave me the chance.

“Is that true?” Mia asks, sliding my phone back to me when the video ends. “Carter was the romantic one?”

I stand and lift my bag onto my shoulder, then pocket my phone and tug my soda out of Mia’s hands. “Not even a little,” I say. “Theo was a total romantic. Poems, flowers, perfect dates. He did all of it.” I shake the mostly empty cup, hearing the nugget ice rattle. “Did you seriously drink all of this?”

“I’ll buy your dinner as a thank you,” Mia says. “Smash burgers? I’m craving sweet potato fries.”

“It’s either that or leftover stir-fry.”

“Ohhh. Leftovers tomorrow? Smash burgers tonight?”

“Deal,” I say.

We keep chatting as we ride the elevator down to the parking garage and step into the humid Georgia air. I pause long enough to dig through my bag for my keys. When I finally pull them out, I look up to see Mia facing me, eyes wide.

“What? What is it?” I say.

She reaches out and squeezes my shoulders with both hands. “Just keep breathing,” she says. Then she steps to the side to reveal Theo Williamson leaning against the trunk of my car.

3

BECCA

I can blame the billboard for making me think of Theo a little more than normal.

But seeing him right in front of me feels like fate playing a practical joke.

I am not prepared for this.

For him. Here. In front of me after all this time.

“Breathe,” Mia repeats from beside me, and I take a deep breath. The rush of oxygen feels good enough that I must not have been breathing, so I force myself to focus on the rhythm of it, air in through my nose, out through my mouth.

“Do you want me to get rid of him?” Mia whispers. “I can. I might be little, but I’m scrappy.”

The thought of Mia, who’s barely five feet tall, trying to take down an enormous professional hockey player is enough to make me chuckle and break out of the paralyzed stupor Theo’s presence has put me in, and I give my head a little shake.

“I can handle him,” I say, holding her gaze. “But stay close, yeah?”

She nods, her dark brown eyes earnest as she says, “You know I’ve got you.”

She stays back as I slowly move toward my car. Theo is watching me closely, his expression clearly hopeful, but there’s also a wariness there, like he’s not quite sure how I’m going to respond.

That makes two of us. I’m not sure how I’m going to respond either.

Theo stands fully upright as I approach.

Even though I technically saw him when he was in for surgery and I just watched him in a video not fifteen minutes ago, seeing him in person, healthy and whole, is a different matter entirely.