I sat there, stunned. The words had come out of my mouth without thinking. I hadn’t planned them, hadn’t consciously retrieved them from anywhere. They’d just... appeared. Because I knew them. Because I remembered them.
“Oh my god,” I breathed. “I remember that book.”
“WHAT?” Vivi shrieked.
“The first memory that comes back is triggered by a tentacle monster and my need to defend my honor as a reader?” I laughed, half disbelief and half joy. “Really? That’s what my brain decides to hold onto?”
Mika burst out laughing. “That is the most Lina thing I’ve ever heard.”
“It really is,” Vivi agreed, wiping tears of laughter from her eyes. “Of course your brain would prioritize defending your problematic book choices over everything else.”
I closed my eyes, focusing on the memory. It was fuzzy, unclear around the edges, but it was there. A window seat. Warm sunlight on my skin. Turning the pages of a book with a ridiculous cover. Giggling to myself. Getting up and putting it on a shelf.
“I was at the shop,” I said slowly, piecing it together. “I was reading it at the shop. By a window. And then I put it away on a shelf.”
Mika and Vivi nodded frantically.
“The window seat near the romance section,” Mika confirmed. “That was your favorite reading spot.”
Happiness bubbled up in my chest, warm and overwhelming. I remembered. It was just one tiny moment, one insignificant memory, but it was MINE. My brain had held onto it. My brain could still access the past.
I grabbed another book from the pile, then another. I didn’t get any specific memories from them, but there was recognitionthere. Familiarity. A sense that yes, I had held these books before, had turned these pages, had lived inside these stories.
“I don’t remember reading them,” I admitted. “But I know them. I feel like I know them.”
“That’s a start,” Vivi said encouragingly. “Your memories are still in there. They’re just locked up tight. We just have to find more keys.”
I smiled at her optimism. At both of them, actually. These women who had dropped everything to help me, who had gathered boxes of memories, who were now celebrating a tentacle monster book with me.
“I need to ask you about Knox,” I said, setting the book down. “And the...” I hesitated, the word feeling strange on my tongue. “The wolves,” I finished in a whisper.
Mika and Vivi exchanged a look. Then they both snorted.
“You can say it normally,” Vivi said. “We know everything.”
“We were there for most of it,” Mika added. “Well, not the wolf stuff specifically. But the Knox stuff? Yeah. We were front row for that disaster.”
I pulled my legs up onto the couch, getting comfortable. “Tell me everything.”
They did.
They told me how Knox had first shown up at my coffee shop years ago. How he’d been mysterious and brooding and ridiculously handsome. How I’d been drawn to him despite mybetter judgment. How we’d spent one night together and then he’d rejected me cruelly the next morning.
“He said you were just a warm body,” Mika said, her voice hard. “I wanted to kill him for that.”
“We both did,” Vivi agreed. “You were devastated.”
They told me how I’d discovered I was pregnant. How I’d raised the twins alone for five years, never telling anyone who their father was. How the kids had started showing signs of being different, of being wolves, and I’d had no idea what was happening.
They told me how Knox had come back. How he’d saved my life from rogues. How Noah had brought me to Ravenshollow. How Knox had groveled and begged and proved himself over and over until I finally forgave him.
“He’s different now,” Mika said, and there was grudging respect in her voice. “I wasn’t sure at first. After what he did to you, I wanted to hate him forever. But he really loves you, Lina. Obsessively, disgustingly loves you.”
“He looks at you the way you hung the moon,” Vivi agreed. “It’s actually kind of nauseating. In a cute way.”
“He’s a great partner,” Mika continued. “A great father. He would do anything for you and those kids. He proved that over and over.”
I sat there, processing everything they’d told me. The rejection, the years alone, the pain. The reconciliation, the love, the family we’d built together.
