"Yeah." I swallowed hard. "Maybe we skip that one for a while."
"Probably wise." He reached up with his good hand and tucked a strand of hair behind my ear. The gesture was so tender, sohim, that fresh tears pricked my eyes. "Charlotte?"
"Yeah?"
"Thank you. For staying. For not giving up on me." His eyes searched mine. "For loving me even when I can't remember why I deserve it."
"You deserve it because you're you." I turned my head and pressed a kiss to his palm. "And I'm going to spend however long it takes proving that to you."
"Is that a threat?"
"It's a promise." I stood, smoothing my shirt, trying to compose myself. "Now. The doctor said you can go home today. Are you ready?"
"Home." He spoke that word for the first time since waking up. "My parents' house?"
"Our home," I corrected gently. "It's been our home for weeks now. Even if you don't remember."
Something flickered in his eyes, not memory, exactly, but recognition of a deeper truth. "Okay. Our home."
I helped him stand, steadied him when he wobbled, and tucked myself under his good arm to support his weight. We moved slowly toward the door, two people beginning a journey neither of us fully understood.
"Charlotte?"
"Hmm?"
"Will you tell me about it? The three months I lost?" His voice was quiet, almost shy. "I want to know everything. Every conversation. Every bad joke. Every moment you remember, even the ones that might not come back to me."
I looked up at him, this man I'd loved twice, this man I was determined to help love me again, and felt something fierce and bright bloom behind all the pain.
"I'll tell you everything," I promised. "Starting with the night of our high school reunion, when I saw you across a crowded gymnasium and forgot how to breathe."
His lips curved. "That sounds like a good story."
"It's the best story." I guided him through the doorway, toward the elevator, toward whatever came next. "And I'm going to tell you all of it. Every chapter. As many times as it takes."
Behind us, the hospital room sat empty, the machines silent, the bed stripped, the chapter closed.
Ahead of us, a familiar house waited. A kitchen full of memories. A story ready to be told.
And somewhere in the spaces between what he'd forgotten and what I remembered, a love that had survived fifteen years of silence was about to prove it could survive forgetting too.
16.Charlotte
Miles almost kissed me at the diner.
I don't think he realized it. We were sitting in our booth, the same cracked red vinyl, the same smell of coffee and bacon grease, and I was telling him about our first coffee date. How awkward it had been at first. How our hands met across the table, and how for one perfect moment, his tremor had stopped.
He reached across the table now, mirroring the gesture he couldn't remember, and his eyes went soft and focused in a way that made my breath catch.
"Like this?" he asked quietly.
"Exactly like this."
His thumb traced across my hand, and I watched something flicker in his expression, not memory, exactly, but joy. Like his body knew the choreography even if his mind had forgotten the music.
"Your coffee," the waitress interrupted, sliding two mugs onto the table. "Black for him, cream and two sugars for you."
I stared at the mug, then at Miles. "How did you?—"
