"I love you," Johnny murmured, clutching my wrist to the point I could not pull away no matter how much I tried.
"Stop it," I snapped, "Stop saying that!"
"But I do, I love you, I want you, I need you to remember," He was pleading now.
"Stop, quit pretending-"
"There is no pretending," Johnny said with absolute clarity.
"I love you and I will love you until the day I die. You don't remember now, but you used to love me too Rosey. And I will love you until you love me again, even after I die, and if there is a life after this I will love you then, too."
I stared at him as he poured his heart out; he was moving away, for once he wasn't trying to get me to love him. I was doing it myself.
"Will you ever give up on this?" I asked.
Johnny shrugged, "Someday, I suppose I'll give up, and sit in a rocking chair. But I'll probably be rocking fast, because I don't know what I'll do without you."
-----------
Rosemarie Curtis' story has seemed to come to an end.
Everything is lost. Nobody can forget. Nothing is the same.
Now the gang seems to have to wrestle the past, rebuild on the ruins inside them.
But sometimes life has a twisted way of bringing back something you've lost.
For Rosemarie's story is just beginning.
But there was no way the gang could scrape the earth clean, and keep thinking they could start again. Because even though Rosemarie is alive, her memories of the past are gone.
Her mind had left them; she has now gone wild and wary. She remembers no feeling, no hurt, and no loving.
Johnny must cope with losing his only love, while her thoughts swim between them, hidden under rocks, disappearing in weeds, and he fishes for them, dangling his own memories like bait and lures.
But how can you love someone you don't remember loving?
How can you remember something you don't want to remember?
And how can the gang hold together when everything has fallen apart?
