Chapter 371
Summer’s POV
The pages were filled with the thoughts of a younger me–happy moments with Grandpa Jonathan, frustrations about the Taylor household, walking on eggshells around Richard, Victoria, and Elizabeth. But what caught my attention were the frequent mentions of a “tall boy,” “Grandpa’s student,” and “Brandon.”
My breath caught in my throat as I read entry after entry about this boy who made my heart race, who was kind to me when others
weren’t.
I looked up at Brandon, stunned. “This is… this is real? I wrote this?
He nodded, watching me carefully. “Yes. Those are your words, Summer.”
I continued reading, y eyes widening at the detailed descriptions of Brandon–his height, his smile, the way he always seemed to appear when I needed help. I couldn’t help but laugh at one particularly enthusiastic entry where I’d drawn hearts around his name.
“Oh my God,” I said, looking up at him with a mixture of embarrassment and delight. “You’re so handsome. No wonder little me was so obsessed with you!“.
Brandon’s lips quirked into a smile. “So you believe it now?”
It’s my handwriting,” I admitted, still processing everything. “And these details… I couldn’t have made them up.” I looked at him curiously. “Brandon, I forgot you. Does that… does that make you angry?”
His expression softened as he sat beside me. “How could I be angry with you? It wasn’t your fault.”
“But still,” I insisted, “to forget someone who was obviously so important to me… it must have hurt you.”
“I thought you just didn’t care,” he admitted quietly. “When I saw you again after all those years, and you cried for another man… thought perhaps I hadn’t meant as much to you as you had to me.”
My heart ached at his words. “Brandon,” I asked hesitantly, “what if… what if things had been different? What if I had stayed with Alexander? What would you have done?”
His eyes darkened slightly. “That wouldn’t have happened.”
“But what if it had?” I pressed. “What would you have done?”
Brandon was quiet for a moment, his jaw tightening. “The day you almost got hit by a car outside The Plaza Hotel,” he finally said, “I was on my way to find you. I had decided I wasn’t going to let you marry him.”
I blinked in surprise. “You were going to stop the wedding?”
“I was going to force you to accept my pursuit,” he admitted, his voice low and intense. “I wasn’t going to give you a choice.”
“But what if I’d seen you as some kind of stalker? Or a harasser?”
A hint of arrogance flashed in his eyes. “A harasser as good–looking as me?”
I couldn’t help but laugh at his confidence. And then what happened?”
His expression turned serious again. “Then I saw you crying as you left the hotel, and I was consumed with jealousy. I wanted to know who had hurt you so badly.”
1/3
I moved closer to him, wrapping my arms around his neck. “So you would have stopped me from marrying Alexander no matter what?”
“Yes,” he said without hesitatio. Even without Victoria’s interference. I would have found a why.”
“That’s pretty underhanded,” I teased, but my heart was racing at his confession.
‘I never claimed to be a good man, Summer,” he said, his voice low. Not when it comes to you.”
I tightened my arms around him, overwhelmed by the intensity of lifeelings. “I think marrying you is the best, most right decision I’ve ever made in my life,” I whispered.
“Brandon,” I said gently, “I still can’t remember everything from before. But would you like to tell me more about us? About how we
met?”
“Okay,” He nodded eagerly. “We can do that.”
He smiled; brushing atrand of hair from my face. “I’ll tell you everything. But first, I think we have something more important to attend to.”
Before I could ask what he meant, Brandon lifted me into his arms and carried me to our bedroom. He placed me gently on the bed, his eyes dark with desire as he leaned down to kiss me.
As his lips met mine, a flash of memory suddenly burst through the fog in my mind. “Brandon!” I gasped, pulling back.
He looked at me with concern. “What is it?”
“Say my name again,” I whispered, my heart pounding.
A slow smile spread across his face. “Summer,” he murmured, his voice deep and intimate. “My Summer.”
I reached up to touch his face, my eyes filling with tears. “I remember,” I whispered. “September third. I was visiting Grandpa at the university. I climbed a tree to look at a bird’s nest, but I couldn’t get down.”
Brandon’s eyes widened slightly as he realized what was happening.
“There was a boy in a white shirt under the tree,” I continued, the memory becoming clearer with each word. “I stared at him and he stared at me. Oh my, he was cute! The little bird in my hands was chirping, and my heart was pounding so hard!”
“Summer?” Brandon whispered, hope evident in his voice.
I looked into his eyes, feeling a piece of myself, slide back into place Brandon? Is that really what happened?”
He nodded, his hand gently caressing my cheek. “What did you feel that day, when you fell into my arms?”
I smiled through my tears. “Like I’d found something I didn’t know I was looking for. And you? What did you feel that day
Brandon lowered himself beside me, pulling me close against his chest. “That day, when you fell from the tree, landing exactly on my chest, like this,” he murmured, “I knew I was done for. One look at you, and that was it for me. For life.”
As I lay in his arms, I could almost see it–that tree–lined path at the Columbia, the feeling of falling, and then the safety of his arms catching me. It wasn’t everything, not yet, but it was a start. A fragment of our beginning.
And as Brandon held me, I knew that even if I never recovered all my memories, we would create new ones–ones so beautiful that they would overshadow anything we might have lost.
