My face in his neck.
His hands on my back.
His voice in my ear whispering the same words.
I’ve got you, sunshine.Always.
I gasp sharply.
He pulls back just enough to see my face.“What is it?”
“A memory,” I breathe.“I—I remember you holding me.Like this.And saying something.”
His eyes soften.“Yeah?”
“You said you’d keep me safe,” I whisper.“I didn’t hear the whole sentence but the feeling?—”
Emotion cracks across his face not relief, not joy, but something deeper.
Hope.
Fear.
Regret.
And buried under all of it…
Love.
He doesn’t say it.
I don’t remember it.
But I feel it in him.
“You’re remembering the right things,” he says quietly.
I swallow hard.“Why, why does it hurt so much?”
“Because we weren’t done,” he answers.“And now we gotta start from scratch.”
My heart lurches.
He lifts a hand and brushes a thumb across my cheek.Not a kiss.Not a claim.
A promise.
Thunder rolls outside, distant but echoing.
The storm’s coming.Why does the rain have to come now?
Inside me, another storm brews softer but just as destructive.
“Riot,” I whisper, “if I remember everything what then?”
His breath shudders.
“Then we finish what we should’ve started,” he says.
