But my brain has apparently gone offline, because all I can focus on is the weight of his hand on my skin and the way he’s looking at me like I’m something unexpected.
“You’re really warm,” I say finally, because I’m not wired for awkward silences.
His hand twitches but doesn’t move away. “I run… hot.”
“That’s not normal.”
“No.” He says it simply, without defensiveness. As if he’s just stating a fact.
“Are you sick? Feverish?”
“I do not believe so.”
“Do you believe, or do you know?”
His jaw works. “I do not know.”
There’s something in the way he says it—a hesitation, a searching—that makes me look at him more closely. At the careful way he forms words. The way he doesn’t just answer questions but seems to test each response before offering it.
“K.” I keep my voice gentle. “How long have you been up here? In these mountains?”
He’s quiet for so long that I think he won’t answer. His hand is still on my stomach, radiating that impossible warmth.
“I do not know,” he finally says.
“Like… a few weeks? Months?”
His jaw works. “I do not know.”
Something cold slides down my spine. Not fear. Recognition.
“You don’t just mean you’ve lost track of time,” I say slowly. “Do you?”
He pulls his hand back, and I immediately feel the absence of that heat. He sits back on his heels, putting distance between us.
“K.” I push myself up to sitting, ignoring the way my body protests. “Do you remember anything? Before finding me?”
The firelight catches his eyes, and I see it. The struggle. The reaching for something that isn’t there.
“Fragments,” he finally says. His voice is careful, controlled. “Pieces that do not connect.”
Oh.
Oh.
“You don’t remember,” I say softly. Not a question.
“No.”
I stare at him. “Who you are? Where you’re from?”
K shakes his head.
I think about what that means. Waking up with no past, no context, no idea who you are or where you came from. Just… existing in the present with nothing to anchor you.
I’ve done that all my life, if I’m honest with myself. Moved from one moment to the next, putting the past behind me as if it hadn’t happened. Mom’s boyfriends cycling through like rental cars. Homes that weren’t homes. The constant feeling of being temporary in your own life.
I know what it’s like, not having roots. Not knowing where you fit.
