ALoveSoDeep by Lili Valente

life.
    “Tell me, please,” I urge. “This is helping me remember.”
    She sighs and glances down at her hands. “This isn’t about our history together, but you should probably know…” She looks back up and I feel her watching me as I take a left toward my father’s office. “I’ve been pulling jobs on the island, helping people in impossible situations.”
    The phrase sparks something in my brain. “Impossible situations?”
    “That’s what you said to me on my birthday last year,” she says. “That none of us know what we’re capable of until we find ourselves in an impossible situation. A situation that makes us think about the best way to use the time we’ve been given.” She pauses, adding in a softer voice as I pull into the parking lot behind my father’s office, “I remember the first night we came here. It seems like so much more than a year ago.”
    I guide the Beamer into my father’s reserved space and shut off the car, but I don’t unbuckle my belt or move to get out. “So you’ve been stealing from people?”
    She nods, but she doesn’t look at me. Her eyes are on the red door that leads up to my father’s second story office. “Just a few people so far. One man owed years of back child support, and another was blackmailing a woman into continuing their affair. The people they were hurting were in impossible situations and I guess…” She shifts her gaze, a naked look in her eyes that makes me want to pull her into my arms and kiss the furrow from between her brows. “I guess I was in an impossible situation, too.”
    I thread my fingers through hers, waiting for her to continue.
    “Trying to move on with my life without you was…so hard,” she says, a catch in her voice. “So much has happened. Awful things I should tell you, but I just…can’t right now. I’m not ready.”
    “We agreed we don’t like the word should.” I lift her hand to my lips and press a kiss to her soft skin. “Tell me when you’re ready. But I want you to know that I realize I was an asshole this afternoon. I’m in no place to judge anyone or anything. I’m stuck between who I was, who I thought I was, and who I want to be. I don’t know how everything is going to shake out, but I know I want to be with you when it does.”
    “Me too,” she says, eyes shimmering with emotion. “I want that more than anything.”
    “But I’m going to be honest with you,” I say. “I fucked about half of the town this summer. Any blonde between the ages of eighteen and twenty-eight who would let me follow her home from the bar.”
    Caitlin’s lips curve on one side in an unexpected smile. “Well, that’s very…you. Old you. Before me.” She narrows her eyes. “I hope you were careful.”
    “Wrapped up tighter than a Cuban cigar every time,” I say with a grin that fades quickly. “But none of them meant anything to me. Only one was even a friend, and it never got more serious than that. I called her this afternoon to tell her it was over.”
    “So you’re fresh from a breakup,” she says, brows drifting higher on her forehead.
    “It wasn’t like that. She was a place to hide, not a place to find the things I’ve been missing.”
    Caitlin nods, the tenderness in her expression making it clear she understands. But then, she seems to understand me better than anyone, maybe even better than I understand myself.
    “I was with someone, too,” she says. “Isaac and I were living together until a few days ago.”
    The way she says the name makes it clear I should remember this person, but I don’t. “Isaac is…an old boyfriend? Before us?”
    Caitlin blinks before she shakes her head. “Sorry, I forget. No, Isaac is an old friend from Giffney. You two met once. Big guy, very protective of me?” I shake my head, indicating the description still isn’t ringing a bell, and she continues with a shrug. “It doesn’t matter, but I think you liked him. Anyway…Isaac followed me to Maui a