The Opportunist

“I remember waking up after it happened. Nothing before that.”

“Not even your name?”

He shakes his head.

“The good news is the doctors say I’ll remember. It’s just a matter of time and being patient.”

The good news for me is that he doesn’t remember. We wouldn’t be talking if he did.

“I found an engagement ring in my sock drawer.” His confession is so sudden, I choke on my coffee.

“Sorry.” He pats me on the back and I clear my throat, eyes watering. “I really needed to tell someone that. I was getting ready to ask her to marry me, and now I don’t even know who she is.”

Wow…wow! I feel like someone just plugged me in and threw me in the bathtub. I knew that he had moved on with his life, I spied on him enough to know that, but marriage? It made me itch just to think about it.

“What do your parents think about your condition?” I ask, steering the conversation in a more palatable direction. The thought of Leah in a white dress made me want to laugh. She was better suited for slutty lingerie and a stripper pole.

“My mother looks at me like I’ve betrayed her in some way, and my father keeps patting me on the back, saying, “You’ll get it back soon, buddy, everything’s going to be fine, Caleb.” He imitates his parents to a “t” and I smile.

“I know it sounds selfish, but I just want to be left alone to figure things

out—you know?”

I didn’t, but I nod anyway.

“I keep wondering why I can’t remember. If my life was as great as everyone keeps telling me it was, why doesn’t any of it feel familiar?”

I don’t know what to say. The Caleb I knew was always in control. I always thought Jewel had him pegged, he was fashionably sensitive, but too cool to care. This Caleb is confused and broken and spilling his guts to someone he thinks is a perfect stranger. I want to kiss his face and smooth out the furrows in his brow. Instead, I sit frozen in my chair, fighting the urge to tell him everything that tore us apart in the first place.

“So what about you, Olivia Kaspen? What’s your story?”

“I…uhh…I don’t have one.” I am so thrown off guard by his question, my hands started shaking.

“Come on…I’ve told you everything,” he pleads.

“Everything that you remember,” I point out. “How long have you had amnesia?’

“Three months.”

“Well, for three months of my life I’ve done nothing but work and read. There’s your answer.”

“Somehow, I think there’s quite a bit more to you than that,” he scans my face and I get the impression he is generating a history from what he sees there.

I wish he wasn’t doing that—trying to see past my walls. I was never skilled at pretending with him.

“Look, when you get your memory back and can divulge all your secrets from the past, we’ll have a sleepover and I’ll tell you everything; but, as far as I’m concerned, until that day arrives, we both have amnesia.” He laughs a full-bodied laugh and I hide my contented smile behind the rim of my coffee cup.

“Well, that doesn’t sound so bad for me then,” he teases.

“Oh? Why is that?”

“Well, because you’ve just given me permission to see you again and now I have a sleepover to look forward to.”

I blush and decide that I can never tell him. He will remember eventually and this whole charade will come crashing down around me like a bad game of Jenga. Until then, I have him back and I am going to hold onto that for as long as I can.

Chapter Three

The Past

The day I met Caleb Drake the sun shone a little brighter on my world. It was during that insufferable time of year when finals loomed, and the entire student body was starting to look bruised around the eyes. I had just left a study session in the library and found the sky besieged by grumpy looking rain clouds. Groaning, I walked quickly toward my dorm, cursing myself for not bringing an umbrella. I was halfway there when it started to drizzle. I took shelter underneath a willow tree and glared up into its branches like I blamed it for the rain. That's when he swaggered over like he was drunk on his own good looks.

“Why are you angry with the tree?”

I grimaced when I saw who it was. He laughed and held up his hands in mock surrender.

“Just a question Sunshine, don’t attack.”

I glared at him. “Can I help you with something?”

For a moment, I thought I saw a swatch of uncertainty cross his face, but then it was gone, and he was smiling at me again.

“I was interested in finding out why this tree made you frown,” he said, repeating his lame starter line.

I looked beyond his shoulder and spotted a cluster of basketball idiots leering at us. He followed my gaze and must have shot his rat pack a fierce look, because seconds later the gathering dispersed. He turned his attention back to me.

Ah yes… I was supposed to answer his question.

I looked at the trunk of the tree, which resembled badly braided dough, and realized how intensely I must have been staring at it.

“Are you trying to flirt with me?” I sighed.

He let out a sort of strangled choke. “Caleb Drake.”

“I’m sorry, what?”

“My name,” he said, offering me his hand. Caleb Drake was a notorious name on campus and I had no intention of joining his fan club. I shook his hand firmly to make sure he knew I wasn't hypnotized by him.

“Yes, I was trying to flirt with you, until you shot me down, that is.”

I raised my eyebrows and forced a smile. Okay, I had to do this fast. Jocks had a painfully short attention span.

“Listen, I’d love to stand around and feed into your ego with chit-chattery, but I have to go.”

I moved passed him relieved to be heading toward the pint of heavy whipping cream and ice cream in my fridge. I was going to add chocolate sauce and make a bad-ass milk shake.

His laugh caught up to me as I neared the curb. I stiffened, but kept walking.

“If you were born an animal—you’d be a Llama,” he called after me.

That stopped me. Was this douche seriously comparing me to a hairy mammal?

“And why is that?” I kept my back to him, but my eye was twitching.

“Google them.”