“There you are,” he says.
It’s his voice. I haven’t heard it with this clarity in so long.
“I’m dreaming.”
He squeezes his eyes shut, his jaw tight.
“Crystal, you’re not dreaming. I’m here.” He lets go of my hand and cups my face.
His palms are warm and familiar.
A wall inside me crumbles. A dam that has held back the worst of it. The worst of the sadness. The fear. It’s kept me alive for more than six years, but it’s also been slowly killing me. I used it to turn all my colors to black and white. And I used it to hide from hope as much as from sadness.
Everything inside me stills.
Then I shake. A few silent tears run down my face and gather where his fingers hold me. I feel the sting of the air against my skin where they fall.
“Steady there. Stay with me.” He slides his hands down my neck to my shoulders. “You’re okay.”
Now I remember Scott telling me something on the porch. He’d warned me that what he was going to say would be shocking. But before he could get the words out, my heart knew. I knew it was Nathan. When I saw the car in the drive, I ran to him.
It’s been over six years. Where could he possibly have been for so long? How can this be real? Am I alive or dead?
“Where were you?” I ask, my voice scraped raw. I’m weirdly detached from my emotions and overwhelmed by them at the same time.
“Miami.” His gaze is intense, like he’s memorizing me.
For years, I thought if I ever saw him again, it would only be remains. A corpse. Fragments of the man I once held and loved.
But fate has given him back to me. Or I’m still dreaming. Or dead.
“How?” I ask.
He shakes his head, frustrated. “I have no memories…”
I take his hand and pull it to my chest. “Just talk to me. Tell me anything. I just want to hear your voice.”
He takes a deep breath. “I woke up in Miami…”
“Wait.” I’m afraid to ask him this, but I need to. I sit up against the headboard and rest my palm on the sheet beside me. “Can you hold me?” I ask, my voice trembling.
Fear crosses his face, but he pushes it away and picks up the glass of water, handing it to me. “Here,” he whispers.
Grateful, I take it and sip—the cool water soothing my dry throat. He moves to the other side of the bed and eases in beside me. When he slides an arm around my shoulders and pulls me back into his chest, I let out a small sound and finally let myself really cry. Gut cry.
He soothes me with low murmurs. He’s crying too.
I clutch his arms, which are wrapped around me tightly, and we sit like that for a while, sharing little things that don’t make that much sense. Then he explains his amnesia and how he restarted his life in Miami. He doesn’t know that’s where we met. Suddenly, I’m filled with an urge to share everything with him. To fix him.
But for now, I listen, desperate for answers, but he has none. He was stolen away from us, and now he’s back with no explanation. He tells me as much as he can about Miami, then asks me about our lives and the people here in the Key.
I don’t care that this doesn’t make sense. He’s here. That’s the only thing that matters. His body, his warmth, his smell. This is really him.
Continuing, he gets to a story he’s reluctant to share.
“What?”
He blushes. “There was one dream I had every night. I really want to know…” He stops and swallows the lump in his throat. “I need to know if it was a memory.” He can’t look at my eyes as he describes our first kiss. His innocence and the loneliness in his voice break my heart.
