Remember Our Song by Emma South Page B

All I wanted to do was go to you.
    Jeremy stood up and approached me until I could see his shiny black shoes on the floor in front of mine through the blur of tears.
    “I wanted to wrap you up in a big hug, tell you it would all be OK, I wouldn’t let anybody hurt you ever again, and then never let go.”
    Suddenly I felt his arms around me in a hug just like the one he was describing and I found myself held against him.  I resisted for as long as I could, but found I was just so damn tired .  I felt like I’d been swimming against the tide ever since I woke up in that hospital bed.  I let my arms wrap around him and my tears make a wet patch on his shirt.  His wasn’t the shoulder I had envisioned crying on, but it was the only one there.
    “Did you do it right there in front of everybody?”
    “No, everybody would have thought I was insane, especially you.  I sat there trying to think of how I could introduce myself to you as you walked over with that tray of about six cups of coffee.”
    Jeremy turned around and led me towards the table, where I could almost see his younger self sitting with the Bloxhamtech people.
    “It was right about here where you tripped,” he said.
    “What?”
    “Yep.  The tray of boiling hot coffee landed right in my lap.  I think the only thing that saved me from more severe burns was the milk.”
    “Oh my God, you’re kidding, right?”
    “Nope.  That guy… what was his name… Rod Stevens, big moustache you could hold with both hands, stands up and yells ‘you bumbling idiot!’ and I jump up, trying to hold the material away from my skin, looking for a glass of water to pour on my crotch, eyes watering from the pain.  Haha!  Oh man.  Then it hit me, I’d get your details for the dry-cleaning bill, then I could ask you to dinner in private instead.”
    “I never heard of a fairy tale like that,” I muttered.
    “What’s that?”
    “Nothing,”
    “Oh… so right here is where I met my Bumble Bea.”
    “That’s an awful nickname.”
    “It’s our story, Bea, do you remember it?”
    “No, Jeremy… I wish I did.”
    Jeremy sighed sadly and looked around, misty-eyed.
    “It’s just one more meeting room out of a million, but it’s a special place.  I can’t believe we haven’t been back here in so long.  When I think of everything that’s happened since that day… wow.”
    “Tell me.  Tell me everything about us.”
    “That’s going to take a while,” he said.
    “Apparently I’m the unemployed housewife of a billionaire, I’ve got some spare time on my hands.”
    *****
    Over the next few weeks I met with Jeremy most days and listened with rapt attention to everything he could tell me about us.  It was fascinating to hear, all the places we’d been and all the things we’d done.  Each night, back at my apartment, I’d look at the pictures on my laptop from the holiday or general time period of whatever story he’d told me that day.
    I tried with all my might, when looking at those photos, to see them from the point of view of the woman I saw there instead of an outsider looking in but I never felt the connection to that person.  She looked a hell of a lot like me, though.  The main difference was that she seemed to smile more.
    Every meeting with him seemed to add as much confusion as it resolved.  He was a rich and powerful man, used to getting his own way, but although he had never known anything like poverty, it was certainly unfair to say he had been born with a silver spoon in his mouth.  Had his money taken him out of touch with reality, did he think he was better than everybody else?  I couldn’t tell.
    I soon found out why the Beatrice in the photos smiled so much.  I couldn’t deny that Jeremy made me laugh those really good belly-laughs that make you double over and beg for it to stop without really meaning it.  I couldn’t remember laughing like that in years, not since I was fifteen.  Not since before I knew how life