Chapter 13

Back to the present:

It was rather weird seeing our pictures on every wall of the mansion. I felt that Bartholomew was taking things too far but when I tried confronting him about it, it didn’t go as planned:

“Bartholomew?

-You mean Honey.

-No, I meant Bartholomew.”

He immediately put down his phone and turned to me before pulling me closer by the waist.

“Oh no. Using full names I see. Have I done something wrong? I am so sorry.

-Why are you apologizing? You don’t even know what happened.

-I am sure you deserve an apology.

-I wasn’t going to reprimand you.”

Bartholomew sighed before hiding his face against my stomach.

“I got scared for a second… Don’t do this kitten.

-You are getting way too touchy lately.”

He looked up to me and smirked:

“Do you like it?”

I did actually. It felt good in his arms but I wasn’t going to admit it. That was way too early and way too easy:

“No.”

Bartholomew started pouting but I didn’t forget what I came for:

“Do we have to hang all the pictures that we took? I feel like there are way too many of them.

-What do you mean? There are still a lot of empty spaces on the walls. We could take more photos to fill them.

-But… Isn’t that too much? I see them no matter where I go.

-On the contrary. It’s never enough. I want our home to be filled with our memories.

-But there are more than a thousand pictures of the same day! Isn’t that boring? We should choose our favorite ones and hang those.

-How could you choose? I love all of them just the same. I wouldn’t know which one to take down.”

I sighed feeling that I wasn’t going to win against him so I just rubbed his head:

“Anyway, won’t you lose your job if you continue staying at home the whole day? You are just taking care of me 24/7.”

Bartholomew laughed:

“Who would fire me? I am the boss.

-You are too obnoxious. But I don’t need you to look after me anymore. I feel perfectly fine now.

-The doctor said you should be resting for at least a month.

-That’s impossible. People usually rest only for a few days. Stop lying to me.

-Why does my kitten want me to leave that badly? Am I not good company?

-Don’t change the subject.”

Bartholomew went back to pouting and I pushed his face away:

“I am bored of laying around. Thank you for taking care of me but maybe I would remember something if I left the mansion. I could look around the city, go to my favorite places.”

Bartholomew looked away:

“Do you want to remember that badly?

-Yes. It feels weird not remembering anything.

-I see.

-Why do you look so down? I am not saying that I want to run away.

-I am just worried about you.

-If there is one thing I learned about you in those few days I’ve been here, it’s that you are a very extreme person. And an overthinker at that.”

He didn’t deny it.

“But I thought you would be happy at the idea of going on a date.”

Just as I thought, Bartholomew’s eyes immediately lighted up:

“A date?

-Yes. A date just the two of us. We could go to my favorite places together. Where did I like to go?

-I am not saying this to force you to stay, but you didn’t go out a lot.

-Oh…

-But what you did love was restaurants. If you went out you would always find yourself in a good restaurant.

-Then let’s try all the restaurant’s in town.

-And I am the excessive one?

-I am learning from the best.”

Bartholomew smirked:

“You are flirting right now.”

I immediately straightened up and walked away:

“I am not.

-You are! I thought I was the one who needed to seduce you, not the other way around.

-I would never try to seduce you.

-Are you sure? Because it is working.

-Leave me alone I’ll get dressed.

-Don’t you need help?

-If you open that door, I’m going to rip your tongue out.

-It would be worth seeing you naked.”

My cheeks went bright red and I ran away as fast as I could while hearing Bartholomew laughing behind me:

“Don’t be so shy, kitten. It’s not as if I had never seen it all already.”

I had a hard time calming down and needed to put cold water on my cheeks. Bartholomew looked like the perfect boyfriend. He was handsome, attentive, caring… He was sometimes more like a worried mom than a boyfriend but his whole being irradiated love towards me. How could I not fall for him? I didn’t like him yet but I felt that it was only a question of days. He had been taking care of me for almost two weeks and being with him 24/7 made me care about him. There was nothing bad with falling in love with him. Bartholomew was just perfect and we had been the love of my life once. But I still felt shy. Did he know that I had a hard time accepting love? Was that why he was being so patient with me? Bartholomew knew me by heart and I really wanted to remember him.

Judging by what he told me about our lives, I didn’t want to remember anyone else. Why remember a family I cut ties with? I didn’t care about them. But not remembering Bartholomew felt unfair. I felt robbed of our three years together and that was the reason why I wanted to get out so bad. Bartholomew didn’t seem to care at all about my memories on the other hand. Maybe it was because he didn’t want to put pressure on me but his fiance not remembering him would still be sad, right? I had to try harder.

I quickly got dressed and hurried down but just as I was walking down the stairs I heard Bartholomew talk to someone. I guessed it was Peridot but just as I was walking down the stairs, I saw a woman. She had light auburn hair and was very tall. She was standing very close to Bartholomew and I didn’t like seeing the two of them together. Who was she? Did I know her? Should I be worried? Was she his ex? It was frustrating not knowing! Maybe she was just his best friend or maybe she was my past rival. No matter what she was, Bartholomew was mine now.

“You can’t keep lying to him.”

I frowned. Who were they talking about?

“Gardenia, leave while I’m being nice.

-He deserves better than this! You should tell him the truth!”

Bartholomew whispered something to the stranger’s ear. She wanted to say something back but suddenly saw me and exclaimed:

“Aed! I am relieved to see that you are fine. How is your head? Does it still hurt?”

Bartholomew turned around and rushed to help me come down the stairs.

“I am sorry but, who are you?

-Oh… I’m sorry. I heard about your condition. My name is Gardenia. We are… Friends.

-You hesitated there.”

She had an awkward laugh:

“Because we weren’t exactly friends in the past but I really want us to be.”

Bartholomew pulled me towards his chest before pointing to the door:

“Now that you have said what you wanted, you should leave.”

But I put my hand on his shoulder to stop him:

“Don’t throw her out, yet. I have a few questions.

-As you wish.

-Gardenia, would you like to come with us to the restaurant?”

Gardenia looked behind me and seemed to hesitated but accepted:

“It would be my pleasure.”