“Wow!” I breathed and blinked. To my shock another image suddenly came to me. It was like dropping a stone into a lake and watching the ripples spread.
I was seated in a bus and I was hugging a backpack tightly to my chest. There were other people sitting around me, but I was all by myself, and I was heading somewhere. I couldn’t tell where.
On my little wrist was the pink watch I was now holding in my hand.
The memory went as quickly as it had come, but that flash of the past came with feelings. The little me was sad. She was very, very sad. The crushing emptiness and loss inside her was so all-encompassing I could feel it even now in my bones. The inexplicable sadness was so stunningly real I suddenly found I couldn’t breathe properly. I took short gasping breaths.
I shut my eyes and urged more memories to appear, but it seemed there were no more. I didn’t know how long I stayed there, waiting, hoping and praying for more, but tight fog was letting no more out. I looked up when my senses picked up on the sound of footsteps on the hardwood floor. He burst into the room and stopped when he saw me sitting on the floor.
He froze and I was able to make out the terror on his face. It was almost as jarring as the memories had been. I felt as if I was in a dream. Why was he so terrified? I tried to rise, but it seemed every iota of strength in my body was gone. I felt as weak as jelly.
“I’m okay,” I wanted to say but the words would not form in my mouth.
He rushed to me, and pulled me into his arms. “What’s wrong, baby? What’s wrong?”
I opened my hand and showed the watch to him. “What is this?”
33
Caleb
Fuck, fuck, fuck.
I had screwed up. Royally! Without a thought, I’d told her to come to the room to get the charger, but when she had not returned after a few minutes, I knew instinctively what had happened. She’d found the watch. I’d fucked up.
My heart felt as if it had fallen out of my chest then.
I had dashed up the stairs and froze. It was my handiwork. I’d brought the past back into her life. My carelessness had hurt my baby. Her eyes were filled with tears. Her mouth was open but no words were coming out. She was trying to rise to her feet, but she couldn’t.
She was in shock.
I’d done the one thing I’d sworn to myself I’d never do. Trigger her memories. I wanted to fix it. I wanted to go back to the time before I told her to go look for the charger in my bedroom, but fate had never cared what I wanted. Even as I ran to hold her in my arms I already knew I couldn’t fix this. Nothing would be the same again.
I wrapped my arms around her. I wanted to rock her to sleep, back to before she found the watch. Instead, she grabbed onto me in desperation. “What is this?” she asked.
I bought myself time and shifted my gaze towards the pink watch she held in her trembling hand. What was I going to say? How much did she know?
“Caleb,” she whispered breathlessly, “I used to have a watch like this when I was young. Why do you have this?”
Her eyes showed her hope and fear at the same time. That perhaps I was someone from her past that she didn’t recognize.
I felt sick to my stomach.
I longed to tell her the truth. I wanted it so much, I had to bite back the words, but it was clear from her question that she had not remembered her uncle and what he had done to her.
Tears rolled down her cheeks. “I remembered sitting in a bus. I felt grief… terrible, terrible grief. I never… I never have before. It was horrible. This is the memory of the grief I forgot. And a balloon fight. I remember playing with a boy.”
I couldn’t look into her pained eyes anymore. I knew what she was asking. Was I the boy?
Yes, Willow. I was that boy. I threw the balloon at you.
I crushed her to my chest and ran my hands softly down her back to soothe her the best way I could, then I lied to her. I lied to my baby. As I lied tears burned my eyes. I blinked them away fiercely. This much and more I will do for you, my little Willow.
“This watch used to belong to a close friend of mine when I was younger. It’s not you. It’s not yours,” I lied.
My words made her body go limp. She was disappointed. She wanted it to be me. She didn’t know it, but she had been waiting for me. Waiting to fulfill the promise we had made to each other that night of the fire.