Generation 3, Chapter 15: Just a kiss on your lips in the moonlight

"Sure, we can talk. Do you need...something?" the confusion in his eyes was clear. I found it almost comical, given what I was about to tell him.

"Kind of," I bit my lip. "More like my entire memory, to be exact."

"...What?"

My gaze fell on the picture on the table as I struggled to find the words to explain everything to him. Honesty was usually the best policy, unless it got you burned, which, in this case, it wouldn't. Unless Richard was some kind of pyromaniac.

"I feel like an empty shell, Ric. I see these photos of my life, a life that I no longer have. Screw that idea, I want it back."

"Lia...," he nearly took a step forward. "Do you know what that means? It not only means your memories, but...your family. Me. It means that you're gonna come live with us again. Are you really ready for that?"

My chin jerked upwards. "One hundred percent."

My answer frightened him in a sense. He was obviously worried, yet I had no way to reassure him that I hadn't gone entirely nuts.

"You're ready, perhaps, but I still don't know how to bring your memories back. Hypnosis, maybe?"

I simply rolled my eyes at his suggestion. All this time he still held on to that silly notion of hypnosis. "I was actually thinking of something else... Could you perhaps take me to a place that was really important to me?"

"Sure" he grabbed his car keys off of the table, motioning me to follow him to the outside.

As Richard quickly zipped his car past many others, a thought struck me. "The beach. That's where you're going, isn't it?"

"Yeah, it is," he frowned, looking over at me. "How did you know?"

"I don't... It just hit me. I feel attracted to it, in a sense."

He smiled as he parked his car a few feet away from the sandy beach. "That's a good sign."

Like all the things in Lucky Palms, even the beach was as perfect as the rest of the town. It carried a peaceful aura with it. Perhaps that was why I liked it so much.

"Too bad I didn't think to bring a swimsuit. The water's really great this time of year," commented Richard as we walked around in search of a sliver of shade to sit under.

"Something tells me I like this place for other reasons than just swimming..."

"What now?" he asked when a half hour had past, and I was still sitting in silence. "Did you really think that if you came to a special place in your memories that you would suddenly remember?"

"I didn't think that," I smirked. "I was kind of waiting for you to tell me our life story."

Maybe my idea was even sillier than hypnosis, but I didn't want to fall in a deep sleep just to see everything of my past. I wanted someone to tell me all about my life. Judging from the way they would tell it, I would know if it had a happy ending or not, and if the person actually cared for me.

Richard fell silent, and I almost feared that there would be another few hours ahead of us that only consisted of silence. "It all started with a nerdy guy that had way too much self confidence and a shy yet fierce girl that had the IQ of Einstein...," he started speaking slowly. "One morning, I had had enough with my roommate being a total ass, and I went to clear my head. Never would I have thought that I would meet someone with a bigger attitude than me."

Hours passed by in a blur, but it wasn't in silence. There were laughs, there were tears, there were smiles, and there were frowns as Richard told me our story. From the first Halloween we spent together, where I dressed up as a princess and he dressed up as a vampire to chase me down, to the time I sat our house on fire. During my wedding, the cake exploded and the rings went missing. He said I nearly fell to my knees in tears, but that my father saved the day, bringing a new cake and having found the rings in the destroyed cake. Some cheeky child had apparently had a lot of fun pulling a prank on all of us by doing that.

Richard delved deeper into the story, bringing up small details like how I sang Daniel to sleep with the song Lips of an Angel by Hinder. In a small voice, he brought up the devastation we faced with the miscarriage, but the happiness we had finding out that we would later have a little girl.

I couldn't expect Richard to speak the entire afternoon, as he was already exhausted from having worked through the night. His head hit the mat with a thud, and almost instantly, snoring followed. I couldn't help but laugh. For all his outward perfection, he actually snored, just like any other person.

The life I had was worth living, it seemed. Though I still didn't have memory back, the things he told me felt familiar. With enough prodding at the buried memories, they would come back. They had to.

Sneakily, as to not arouse Richard from his nap, I crawled off of the mat and stood up, walking down to the water. I had some more thinking to do.

It was almost an hour later before Richard realized I wasn't where I was supposed to be. His feet were crunching over the sand with surprising speed, and I felt the heat given off by his body.

"Amelia?" his hands lingered at my arms. "Are you alright...?"

"No, I'm not," I bit back the tears that wanted to come. "Everything sounds so great about the past, and yet, I still don't remember a thing."

His hand rested lightly on my shoulder, and he twirled me around to face him. I almost fell over my own two feet, had he not caught me.

"As clumsy as always," he chuckled. "It doesn't matter if you remember or not, dear Lia. We can remake those memories, you know. We have the rest of eternity for that. It all depends on whether or not you're willing to be stuck with me for that time."

"I think I can be tolerable of you for that time. You just need to be patient with me. I might mess things up...like, all the time, even."

"I can accept that...," he smiled, holding my hands tightly in his. The way he frowned told me that there was something weighing heavily on his mind. He was dying to tell me something.

"Is there...something you need to get off of your chest?"

"There is. It may seem stupid to you...hell, I find it stupid. But Liam suggested this, and I believe it won't hurt to try..."

The feeling I had when hearing Liam's name was still there. It was that of distrust and dislike. He still spooked me at times. "If you think it can help, then please, start talking!"

He laughed to himself. "Alright, you asked, so don't laugh. He said that I should try doing something like they do in all those fairy tales. You know, kiss the damsel and maybe all her problems will be resolved. What if I kiss you, and maybe, just maybe, all your memories return?"

"Eh..." I couldn't keep the skepticism out of that one sound. It definitely was a stupider idea than the one I had.

"Just forget I mentioned it..." Richard turned his face away from me, laughing to himself.

"Richard?"

"Yeah?"

"Kiss me."

A/N: Yes, I'm actually going to end the generation like this...

And the title is a lyric from the song "Just A Kiss" by Lady Antebellum.