Free Thought I Knew You by Kate Moretti Page A

opposite ends of the couch. I curled my feet underneath me and rested my head on the back of the sofa, feeling flattened by the day, the past few weeks. Drew laughed, coughing into his glass of wine when I relayed the preschool incident.
    “I have no control over my mouth anymore,” I said. “I feel horrible, that poor girl.”
    “That poor girl was a bit insensitive.” He shrugged. “But then, isn’t everyone at that age? Hmm, on second thought, how cute did you say she was?”
    I hit him with a pillow. “Not funny.”
    “Look, seriously. I think genuinely kind-hearted people will forgive your occasional outbursts and overlook any inappropriate behavior for the moment.”
    I put my head in my hands. I felt tears pricking my eyelids. “This is how it is now. I’m laughing and normal, then I’m swearing and yelling, then I’m crying. I have the emotional range and self-control of Leah.”
    Drew reached over and put his hand on my back.
    The wine made my head spin. “I really don’t know what we’d be doing without you, Drew.”
    When I lifted my head, his face was inches from mine. His blue eyes, framed in dark lashes, held a love and intensity that I wanted to wrap myself in. I studied his face, olive skin and dark hair. He gently rubbed his thumb along my jaw. I closed my eyes, reveling in the touch of another person. Missing Greg. Loving Drew. I laid my head on his shoulder. He rubbed my back, his touch warm through the cotton of my shirt, that of an old friend. Or an old lover.
    A shiver went through me, and I fought the desire to turn my head and kiss the tender spot between his collarbone and shoulder, where I’d kissed once before, years ago, and been crushingly rejected. A person isn’t meant to live without the touch of another person. Before Greg left, how long had it been since we’d made love? Two months? Maybe.
    A wave of longing went through me, and I brought his hand up to my lips and kissed his palm.
    He let out a small gasp. “Claire.” His voice was raspy. I’d heard it before, and I knew what he would say next. We can’t.
    Drew and I always had missed opportunities, blown chances. Fear, ego, and good common sense, those were our enemies.
    Slowly, he withdrew his hand. His eyes were dark with desire, clouded with conflict, as he searched mine.
    I closed my eyes, inhaling the scent of freshly washed laundry and something else distinctly male, distinctly Drew, like musk and sandalwood.
    “Drew,” I said, clutching his wrist as he gently rubbed his thumb over my lips, which naturally parted, the longing low in my belly.
    He closed his eyes, his breathing ragged. “I know. Me, too.” He leaned forward, touching his forehead to mine. “But you know we can’t. Not now, not like this.”
    His words echoed back to me from fifteen years earlier, a memory of the prom, the sensation of his collarbone under my mouth, the humiliation that had followed then. Deep down, I knew using Drew to physically exorcise my pain and grief would damage beyond repair the one relationship keeping me from falling apart.

    Greg had been missing for one month. All the women in the Mommy circles knew what had happened. Most people were kind and offered words of comfort, but when I ran into Nicole Lambert in Super Fresh, instead of her usual bubbly, “Hi, how are ya,” she cast her eyes down and pretended not to see me.
    I tried to understand. If Greg had died, then people could say, “I’m sorry for your loss,” and move on. There would be a viewing or a funeral, closure not just for me, but for the community. The women could offer condolences, then go home and kiss their husbands, make love, and reaffirm that it couldn’t happen to them. But the uncertainty, not to mention lack of an appropriate Hallmark card, made women question themselves. Did Greg leave us? And if he did, because we had seemed so happy, could their husbands leave them? But my problem was not their problem and since there was no way to