Don't You Remember (28 page)

She opened her eyes and frowned, saddened by his negative words. “What do you mean?”

“I mean I have something to tell you. It’s important and I need you to understand.”

“What? What is it?“ she asked anxiously.

“Eliza, do you remember that girl I told you about? The one that I said was the love of my life; the one that I said had died?”

“Yes,” she nodded nervously.

“Well, Eliza, I saw her two nights ago. It’s a long story but it seems I was given a whole lot of false information about her. She never died but my mother had me believing otherwise. Even the school she went to got their wires crossed and told me she had died.”

“OK. But why didn’t she get in contact with you then?”

“She tried. She left a message with my mother and my mother promised her that the message was passed on to me, but it wasn’t. She contacted my management company and left a message and they never gave it to me because they thought she was some kind of groupie.  Given I never got in contact with her she thought success had changed me and I didn’t want her anymore.  Then when she saw my photos in magazines with lots of different girls and then you, she was convinced I had moved on.”

“Why would your mother lie?”

“My mother’s an alcoholic, always intoxicated. She doesn’t know if she’s Arthur or Martha. She probably believed she gave me the letter; she told Jen she had, but I never got it. Instead, my mother looked out the window intoxicated and told me the house next door had burnt down and that people had died. I tried to find out if that were true but everywhere I turned I kept getting the same answer – Jen had died in the fire. I was heart broken, really heart broken, I felt snapped in two, quite unlike myself for a long time, and then I met you. And you have been wonderful, you’ve helped me in so many ways, but you know more than anyone how scarred I am. You’ve helped mend me. But can you imagine when I saw her? Can you imagine what it was like when we both realized for ten years we have been living our lives with false information which tore us apart? We never wanted to be apart, we wanted to be together forever and we made that promise to each other.”

“What are you saying, Johnny?” Eliza asked, as tears started to well up in her eyes.

“Lize, Lize,” he said, taking her in his arms. “Lize, I love you dearly, but you know I have to be with Jen. It wouldn’t be fair on you if I stayed with you always knowing I wanted to be with her. Lize, you’re wonderful, beautiful, talented, funny, smart – you are everything any man could want.”

“Any man but you?” she finished off.

“Oh, Lize, come on,” he said holding her tight. “You understand what I am saying. You must understand I never meant to hurt you.”

“I know,” she sobbed. “I know, Johnny. It’s just that I thought you were going to ask me to marry you. I thought this was it. I believed it was going to be you and me forever.”

“I felt that way too,” he confided. “Until I saw her again.”

“She’s a lucky girl, Johnny. Perhaps one day I could meet her.”

“I’d like that. Perhaps when the dust has settled and we all get used to our new lives.”

“I want to be in your life, Johnny. I will always care about you.”

“Then we will be the very best of friends. I will never let you down, Lize. I know it seems like I’m letting you down now, but in the long run you will be pleased we’re not together.”

She nodded. “Because you were always thinking about her, weren’t you?”

Johnny nodded. “Always. She was always in my heart.”

Eliza stopped crying and kissed Johnny on the lips. “It’s all right, Johnny. I’ll be all right. You can go now.”

He stroked her arm and walked to the door “Lize, I’ll never forget you, please know that.”

She smiled half-heartedly. “I’ll be fine,” she said, as she waved goodbye.

CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

My love returned, he did what he had to do and now he had come back to me. We were free to be together without hurting anyone else. We had been hurt for long enough, we owed it to ourselves to be selfish.

He plonked down on the couch next to me. “Everything in this place is yours. I am yours, I want you to make this your home.”

“I will,” I said. “I’ll arrange for a relocation company to pop around to my place next week and give me a quote. I’ll move in immediately.”

“And I would expect nothing less,” Johnny smiled. “Money is not an issue, you know that. I’ve got more than enough and it’s all yours.”

“I’ve got money too,” I insisted. “But there’s no doubt you have a lot more,” I added, fixing myself into the space under his arm.

“Jen, I want to spend every moment with you.”

“Yes, and I want to spend every moment with you, too.”

“Why don’t we get away, just the two of us? Let’s leave New York for a bit, take a break and travel around Europe.”

“I would love that but what about work?”

“What about it?”

I thought about that. Indeed, what about it? What was I thinking? Jobs come and go. Johnny Cromwell doesn’t. With every fibre of my body I wanted to be with him and there was no better way than the both of us leaving our life behind as we knew it and to be together. We needed time to get to know each other again; we had ten years to recover. I wanted to know everything that Johnny had done since the moment I lost him.

“I’ll hand in my notice,” I smiled.

“And I’ll tell the band I’m taking a year out.”

Johnny downed a beer. It was

“Johnny.”

“Yes, Jen.”

“I love you.”

“I love you, too.”

THE END

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Lana Davison
is married, a mother of two children and a
dog owner. She is Australian and has lived in Australia, Asia, Africa, Europe and now resides in the UK.

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