Chapter 7

Chapter 7

Julia pushed the last few piece of bacon and fried toast around her plate with the fork; she didn’t feel like eating it but she didn’t want to leave either.

So she simply sat there with her head bent forward and her long dark hair creating a curtain between her and the rest of the world.

Her small town was rather a tourist destination so there were plenty of small cafes around offering breakfast and she was one of the first few in the door.

The walls were tiled and the chairs were bright yellow but the staff didn’t ask questions and people left her alone.

At least, most people left her alone.

“Hey there,” a man slurred as he rested his hands against the side of her table and leaned in until his putrid whisky breath made her crinkle her nose, “Fancy grabbing a coffee?”

“No,” Julia spoke in a monotone, not even looking at him as she lifted her fork to her mouth and slipping in a small piece of toast.

“Come on,” The man with three days’ worth of stubble and dry eyes grinned, the corner of his mouth tilting up in a smirk, “We could get crazy,” He started to chuckle softly when Julia turned and raised an eyebrow at his audacity.

“We wouldn’t get ‘crazy’, as you call it,” Julia tilted her head to the side so he could exactly how much she hated him, “If we were the last two people on Earth.”

Julia waited for those words to sink into his thick skull before she continued.

“Now beat it before I personally throw your drunken ass through the window,” Julia had been a marine so she guessed she knew some pretty kick ass moves but that didn’t mean she remembered them.

Julia realised she had overstepped the line when the smirk vanished from his lips and his eyes grew dark, his hand reaching out and gripping her upper arm as he dragged her out of the chair and to her feet.

“What did you say, girlie?” He growled in her face; the smell of his halitosis making her want to gag and blinding her for a few seconds.

“You heard me,” Julia struggled to keep up the touch chick persona as his fingers dug into her arm and she was truly afraid he was going to break her arm as he started to pull her towards the door.

“Hey!” Julia growled, trying to get the staff’s attention but no one was doing anything, when Julia remembered she still had the fork in her hand.

Wrapping her fist around the handle she drove it down into the man’s leg, feeling the spokes sink into the muscle of his leg.

He howled in pain before he released her arm and she dropped to the floor, her legs weak beneath her.

The man was letting out small yelps as his hands hovered around his leg, trying to think of what was best to do, when a shadow fell across him and Julia past his shoulder and froze.

It was the man from the park.

Marc.

“She told you to leave her alone,” Marc growled at the man and just as quickly as she had stabbed him had Marc grabbed the man by the wrist and tilted his arm behind his back until he was doubled over in pain.

“Now, what do you say?” Marc growled, pulling the man’s arm tighter across his back when he didn’t answer quick enough.

“I’m- I’m sorry,” he hissed through his teeth before Marc spun him around and threw him to the curb.

Julia was just lying on the floor in shock.

This was Marc. This was the man from the photograph. This was her . . . fiancé.

It was weird for her to think that they had been so close and yet she couldn’t remember a thing about him.

Julia’s breath caught in her throat when he came back to stand beside her, his eyes taking interest at her chest.

Julia was about to hit him when she looked down and saw the dog tags that had escaped from inside her top and were resting on the plane of her chest.

The air was tense between them as he realised she remembered; his eyes clashed with hers.

“Come on,” he held out his hand for her to take, “Up you get Reynolds,”

The use of her surname broke the connection between them until Julia slipped her hand in his and he hoisted her to her feet as if she weighed nothing more than a feather.

Her hand stayed clasped loosely in his and she liked the feel of it; his skin was warm and sent a tingling sensation up her arm.

But his touch soon burnt her arm and she ripped her hand from his.

“Can we talk?” Marc asked her and Julia nodded; she needed to ask him some questions.

Questions her family couldn’t answer but now that she had the opportunity her heart was beating as fast as a racing horse.

“I know a place,” Julia zipped up her hoodie, hiding the dog tags that Marc couldn’t take his eyes off and slipped out of the café before they were arrested for disturbance.

* * *

“It’s just . . . weird,” Julia whispered as she stared at their joined hands on the bench.

“You don’t remember anything, really?” Marc murmured with pain causing Julia to look into his eyes.

It had become easier and easier to stare into those blue spheres which seemed to look right through her but she could also tell that he was grieving; she wasn’t the same person he had fallen in love with.

“It’s like I said,” Julia shrugged a shoulder, “I have dreams of, what I now know, is Afghanistan. And I have all these letters and photographs but no memories. It’s like I can’t connect the dots inside my head . . . there’s a closed safe that I can’t open and if I could just open it then-”

“-Okay, okay,” Marc slipped his hand out of hers and rested back against the bench, staring out at the beach where a young girl and her brother were splashing in the ocean, “Don’t get too stressed.”

“Stressed!?” Julia scoffed, “I just discovered my entire life was a lie and you’re telling me not to be stressed!?”

“I’m sorry,” Marc turned his head and smiled that crooked smile at her that Julia was quickly coming to love being aimed at her, “Your hair’s longer,”

“Do you hate it?” Julia’s eyebrows drew together in fear.

“No!” Marc reached out tentatively and took a long strand between his fingers; the end reached just below her breasts and she was quite proud of her hair. It had always been long and thick.

She couldn’t imagine having it shorter but she guessed in the military it would have to be a certain length.

“It’s just . . . different,” Marc nodded his head slowly as he dropped the strand and pulled back from where their bodies had been pulling closer together, “Everything’s different,” Marc frowned.

“Like what?” Julia frowned, “I don’t remember so I can’t know what’s different,”

“Little things,” Marc shook his head, “It’s nothing important,”

“It’s important to me,” Julia snapped, she needed to be firm if she was going to get the answers she wanted but she was still afraid of losing him even though this Julia never had him, “Please, tell me,”

“Tell you what?” Marc laughed nervously, “I didn’t fall in love with your looks . . . although it did help,”

Julia gave him a sideways glance and saw him smiling as he tried to warm her up to him.

“But you didn’t fall in love with me Julia,” She shook her head as she remembered all the letters he had wrote to her, “You fell in love with the girl named Jules,”

He had called her ‘Jules’ in every single letter. He only called her Julia when she annoyed him and even then he rarely used it.

“Fine,” Marc sighed, “What would you like to know?”

Julia searched her brain for the first question she should ask but now that she had the opportunity her mind was entirely blank.

Her eyes widened with shock as he just sat there waiting for her to ask.

“Tell me . . . tell me how we first met,” Julia couldn’t help but think of a generic question although she was interested.

“That’s a long story,” Marc frowned lightly but Julia saw the small smile that came to his lips when he thought about it.

“I’m not going anywhere,” Julia shrugged her shoulders and waited.

He had waited for her. She could wait for him.