"Yeah."
"I want to do that again."
"Please."
He kissed me again, softer this time, lingering. When he pulled back, his eyes were bright.
"Charlotte?"
"Hmm?"
"I want to remember everything." His voice was rough, wondering. "Not because the doctors say I should. Because I want to know every moment that led to this. Every time I made you laugh or made you cry or made you look at me the way you're looking at me right now."
My heart was so full it hurt.
"Then come inside," I said. "I have something to show you."
"What kind of something?"
I stood, brushing grass from my jeans, and held out my hand. He took it, letting me help him to his feet.
"Something I've been saving," I said. "Something I hoped might help."
I led him inside, through the kitchen where we'd made a mess of pasta and each other, down the hall to the room that had been his father's study. On the desk sat a box I'd put together over the past few days, photographs, ticket stubs, the menu from the diner, and a dried rose from the first bouquet he'd left on my doorstep.
"What is this?"
"Our story." I opened the box and spread the contents across the desk. "Every piece of it I could find. Every moment I could document."
He stared at the collection, the tangible proof of three months neither of us wanted to lose.
"You kept all this?"
"I keep everything." I picked up a photograph, the two of us at the diner, taken by Beth, both of us laughing at something I couldn't remember. "This is who we were. Who we are. And I thought maybe, if you saw it…"
I didn't finish the sentence. Because Miles had gone very still, his eyes fixed on something in the box.
A single photograph. Us on the bleachers at the reunion, captured without our knowledge, his hand reaching for mine in the dim gymnasium light.
"Charlotte." His voice was sweet, filled with warmth.
"What is it?"
He picked up the photograph with trembling fingers. Stared at it like he found a treasure.
“You looked so beautiful in that green dress.”
My heart stopped. But I forced it to start again so I could speak.
"You remember?"
"I wish I did, but I’m glad we met that day." His eyes lifted to meet mine, and they were teary, filled with emotion. "I’m sorry, Charlotte, I wish I could remember. I really want to.”
I couldn’t stand seeing him like that, and walked up to kiss him. Our lips met slowly. I didn’t part away from him until he calmed down.
“I’m glad too, I still am. Always will be.” I said those words with an aching heart, but I really meant them.
I would forever thank meeting him again, even if he never remembered it.
