"You were trying to protect me."
"From what? From you?" He shook his head. "That's the dumbest thing I've ever heard, and I apparently can't even remember saying it."
"I told you I didn't want safe." I stepped closer, close enough to feel the warmth of him despite the cold air. "I told you I wanted you."
"And what did I say?"
"Nothing. You just looked at me like—" I stopped, the memory tightening my throat.
"Like what?"
"Like I was the answer to a question you'd been asking your whole life."
He was looking at me that way now. The same expression, the same intensity, as if fifteen years and three lost months and all the trauma in between had changed nothing fundamental about the way we both saw each other.
"I'm looking at you like that right now," he said quietly. "In case you were wondering."
I was definitely not crying. The wind was just making my eyes water.
"We should go to the bleachers," I managed. "One more stop."
"After this, can I take you somewhere?"
I blinked. "You want to take me somewhere?"
"I have a plan." That stubborn glint was back in his eyes. "Beth helped."
"Should I be worried that you and Beth are conspiring?"
"Probably."
The bleachers were freezing. We huddled together on the metal seats, my shoulder pressed against his good arm, sharing warmth against the late afternoon chill.
"This is where I saw you again," I said. "At the reunion. You were standing by the punch table, looking like you wanted the floor to swallow you whole."
"Sounds about right."
"I couldn't breathe." I stared out at the empty football field. "Fifteen years, and the second I saw you, it was like no time had passed at all. My heart just… stopped. And then started again, beating only for you."
He was quiet for a long moment. Then: "I wish I remembered that."
"I know."
"Not because I need the memory." He turned to look at me, his expression serious. "Because I want to know what it felt like. To see you again after all that time. To realize I'd been given a second chance I didn't deserve."
"You deserved it."
"I really didn't." His good hand found mine, fingers intertwining. "But I'm grateful anyway."
We sat in silence, letting the cold and the quiet settle around us. His thumb traced patterns on my palm, absent, unconscious, achingly familiar.
"Okay," he said finally. "Your turn is over. Now it's mine."
He led me back to the house, his parents' house, our house, the place that had become home to both of us in ways neither had expected. But instead of going inside, he guided me around to the backyard, where a thick blanket had been spread under the bare branches of the old maple tree.
"Beth dropped off supplies while we were gone," he explained, looking almost nervous. "I wanted to… I mean, I know I can't do much right now, with the arm and the..." He gestured vaguely at his head. "Everything. But I wanted to do something. For you."
On the blanket sat a wicker basket, a bottle of sparkling cider, and my breath caught, a single white rose in a glass vase.
