Page 53 of Echoes
“I wasscaryto you?” Felicity smiled at her, making Rosie feel a little bit better.
“You were the unknown, and you were so important to me. God, you’d become so important to me, and I hadn’t even realized it until that moment. I remember being on the ship, thinking abouthow I wanted to be home, and for the most part, that wasn’t like me. I loved being out there on the water, doing my work. I didn’t have anything to come home to at that time, or so I thought, but it was you. I’d missed you. I’d been missing you on the ship, and I wanted to come home because I knew I’d get to see you. You were so important to me that I worried that if it didn’t work out because you were further along than me or for some other reason, it would ruin everything. Ami wasn’t scary to me. She was just Ami. I believed her when she said that she was okay with my career, and I shouldn’t have, but it was easier to believe her and give in, than it was to evaluate my actual feelings or try to understand this device that kept staring at me from the closet.”
“You still have it?”
“You believe me?” Rosie tossed back.
“Why would you lie about this?” Felicity asked. “You don’t even like toreadfiction, really, let alone make things up. You’re a scientist. You like facts and evidence.”
“That’s true.”
“And you’ve never lied to me; that I know of, at least.”
“I haven’t. Unless you count the lie of omission about this thing in the first place.”
“Rosie, I…” Felicity began, and Rosie worried that she was about to say something that would terrify her.
“Yeah?” Rosie asked, needing to know if Felicity was about to tell her that they shouldn’t be together anymore.
“You saw me telling you how I felt, and you felt the same way?”
“In the vision or whatever it was, yes. But in reality, I didn’t know how I felt about you then. It’s confusing to me, too,” she revealed. “It was like that vision showed me how I felt about you, but that scientific brain of mine couldn’t process that it had even happened, let alone that I could feel that way about you when I hadn’t known it at all. I couldn’t understand how I could just hear you tell me that you were in love with me and ask you out right after when I’d never thought about you that way before.”
“Okay. Ouch,” Felicity said with a little chuckle.
“I think you would’ve understood if you were in my shoes. Then… Ami was there, and I knew how I’d felt about her before. I knew that I’d loved her once. Or, at least,partof me had loved her before. I don’t think thatallof me ever did.”
“No?”
“I feel like a fool. I married a woman I wasn’t even in love with because the thought of actually being in love with you and not realizing it for that long had been too much for me to handle.” She looked into Felicity’s eyes. “But you believe that it happened? I’m not crazy? You really believe me?”
“I don’t think you’re crazy, Rosie. Although, it doesn’t really make sense to me completely. I guess I’d need to see it for myself to understand what you mean entirely.”
“It didn’t make sense tomethat day, either.”
“I won’t lie to you: it hurts, knowing that you chose her over me. I remember that day very well. It’s seared into my brain; me being there, us talking, and then Ami just walking into the room like she still lived in that house. I remembered seeing her at the grocery store and me being on the phone, so I knew it before you did, I think, that she wanted you back and was probably there to make that happen. It hurt, knowing that it had worked, but before this, I kind of thought you justchoseher. That was hard enough because I’d finally been about to tell you how I felt and was willing to risk it all. But now, I know that you knew how I felt. You–”
“No, I didn’t. That’s the thing, Felicity.” Rosie took her hand and moved it with hers into her own lap. “Do you remember the car ride that morning? I was asking you questions.”
“A little. I was in a bit of a daze from what had just happened.”
“I tried to figure out what had just happened to me. I asked if you had plans that night because, in the vision, we’d planned a date. I didn’t press too hard because I didn’t know what was going on, but I tried to find out if what I’d just seen had been reality; if you maybe did feel something for me.”
“But I knew that Ami had just been in your house and that she’d probably told you how she felt. I froze up.” Felicity nodded.
“I guess so,” Rosie said.
“In my mind, you were with her, so I had to give up. I left not long after that, and we never talked about my feelings for you until long after you were married.”
“How is that? We weren’t married all that long,” she joked.
Felicity smiled a little and said, “But I understand it.”
“Does it help that I’m here now? I was wrong, and I know what I want now.”
Felicity seemed to consider for a moment, but then she smiled a little.
“What’s that? Remind me.” She wiggled her eyebrows at Rosie.