Page 17 of Help Me Remember
“That’s fine too,” I said, pleased I’d managed to get him to calm down and agree with what I wanted. Apparently, I was more manipulative than I thought. Still, if being manipulative meant I could at least pretend to be a deterrent for any trouble that might come his way, then I’d take it.
A few minutes later, as I was finishing the last of the meal off my plate, the bathroom door slammed open. Tensing, I spun around to find Eric standing in the doorway, glaring at me.
“You asshole,” he growled at me.
I spared a moment to realize that, apparently, being insulted and hearing a full-grown man growl at me was a turn-on before I cocked my head in confusion. “What?”
“You played me,” he said, jabbing an accusing finger my way. “You took advantage of the fact that I’d feel bad for you and manipulated me into going along with your demand.”
“Oh,” I said, easing my shoulders out of their tense position. “Well, yeah.”
“You’re a dick.”
“Maybe we can talk about my dick some other time, like when I’m not eating?”
I glanced at Eric and saw him freeze before rolling his eyes and closing the door once more, leaving me to chuckle over my victory.
CHAPTER FOUR
After a few days, I found myself more or less adjusted to my circumstances. People often say the human mind is adaptable, and I was experiencing it firsthand. I wasn’t quite sure who those people were, but the thought bubbled into my head after realizing I’d stopped constantly fretting over who I was before and what my life had been like.
It didn’t hurt that I was quickly able to find a routine once a few things were sorted out. Eric had insisted I sleep in his bed while he took the couch, which I personally thought was ridiculous. Despite our sizes, there was still enough room to share the space and be comfortable. He had been adamant that wasn’t going to happen, however, and refused to get off the couch.
So I slept in his bed but always managed to wake up when he did in the morning. It turned out I was a light sleeper when I wasn’t sleeping eighteen hours trying to recover. The first day we’d gone shopping, I’d point blank refused to let him use his money to buy me clothing. His clothes were a little too snug on me, so buying a few simple outfits made sense.
Though I had insisted on trying to stay active, Eric quickly pointed out that even if I felt stronger, there was no need to push myself. That hadn’t stopped me wanting to, and he relented, allowing me some light stretching and a walk through the neighborhood as my cardio. Lifting a few of his unused dumbbells and going for a leisurely stroll didn’t exactly feel like real exercise, but it beat sitting around his apartment all day.
We shared meals, and while he wasn’t the most skilled chef, it turned out he was better than me. I could cook basic things, so long as they were just hot dogs, came with instructions, or could be cooked in the microwave. It was easier for Eric to cook, and I stuck to making the occasional sandwich.
I’d grown used to having him around, so the first day he had to work and leave me alone, I found myself a little lost. Much to my amusement and annoyance, I stuck to his requests. I wasn’t sure if it was some embedded tendency to obey authority, even if that authority came from a man I barely knew, or if I didn’t want to worry him.
Whatever the reason, I didn’t exert myself too much while unsupervised. I also made sure to drink water and heat the leftovers Eric kept in the fridge, so I had a constant source of fuel for my body. It didn’t take long to figure out that my existence of eating, sleeping, barely exercising, and getting plenty of rest was exceptionally boring.
After a while, I started combing through the books he had strewn about the apartment. I was amused to find that, apparently, Eric enjoyed reading romance as much as he liked reading horror and sometimes—if I was reading the synopsis correctly on the backs of a couple of them—books that blended the two genres. I wasn’t sure how that would work or how disturbing it would end up being, and I decided to pass on the mixed-genre books. I didn’t need to tempt fate and somehow manage to mess with my psyche even further.
Not that my attempts to read the single-genre books were any better. I didn’t know if it was because I simply wasn’t a reader or if the head injury was still affecting me, but my mind always felt foggy whenever I tried to sit down and read for more than a few minutes. It wasn’t long before I found myself having to reread sentences or whole paragraphs and the words quickly lost their meaning.
With that eliminated as a way to fill the time, I decided to start cleaning. That proved far more effective, and because it involved scrubbing and moving things around, I found it more gratifying than leisurely strolls through the neighborhood or lifting a pitiful set of dumbbells. Though with Eric gone for hours at a time, it only took until the end of the second day before the apartment was practically spotless, much to Eric’s confusion and appreciation.
“It looks…and smells great,” he said as he dropped his things onto the couch to peer around.
“Idle hands,” I said with a shrug, taking a second to remember it was a common phrase rather than the edge of some forgotten memory.
His gaze went from appreciative to suspicious, and he eyed me. “You weren’t moving things around unnecessarily, were you?”
“Nope,” I said, lying easily. Of course, his couch and bed had weighed far more than expected, but that hadn’t stopped me moving both of them to continue cleaning. Admittedly both had winded me more than I would have liked, but I hadn’t felt too bad by the time I finished cleaning and moved everything back.
“Uh-huh, and if I were to move the couch and take a look, I wouldn’t find it pristine?” he asked, arching a brow.
“Well, I would offer to help you move the heavy-looking thing, but I have orders not to do too much heavy lifting,” I told him, shrugging.
He rolled his eyes at that and began walking toward the kitchen. “Just tell me you took breaks while you were doing it.”
“Hypothetically, if I had performed strenuous physical labor, I would have made sure to take a break whenever necessary,” I called out to him, not mentioning the extra load of laundry I’d been forced to do to clean my sweat-soaked clothes.
“Uh-huh. And, hypothetically, of course, would there have been any dizziness, sharp shooting pains, nausea, or confusion?”
“In the hypothetical, I’d like to think I would be adult enough to mention that.”