For the first time in a long while, I let myself loosen my grip on everything for a moment and opened the book. The familiar smell of dust and paper settled around me as I flipped through the pages. For a second, I could’ve sworn the book was about to pull me in, but then a familiar voice cut straight through it, slicing through the flood of memories and dragging me back.
“Rowan?”
I locked up completely. I stood there holding those books like an idiot while the past came back so fast it felt physical. That’s the thing memory can do.
My grip tightened around the books without me noticing, fingers pressing into the covers as if they were the only thing keeping me anchored to something real. No. No, no… don’t turn around. Thoughts hit all at once in collision.
It’s not her.
It can’t be her.
You’re imagining it.
You’ve done that before.
“Rowan?”Everything dropped. That voice… I turned. And there she was.
Krystyna.
Standing a few steps away as if she had every right to be there, as if this wasn’t the kind of moment that should tear something open simply by existing. Her eyes found mine at once. And God… the look on her face. Relief. Real relief.“Rowan…”
She said for the third fucking time, but softer this time, as though saying it too loudly might make me vanish. My body didn’t move. I don’t even think I breathed.
Flash.
Her hands. The way they felt.
Flash.
Her presence at night. The way she closed the door.
Flash.My own body no longer mine. Fuck.
My stomach turned so fast it made me dizzy, something cold moving through me, colliding with the heat climbing my spine. She stepped closer.
“I thought…”Her voice faltered, then steadied.
“I thought I’d never see you again,”I said nothing. I couldn’t, because I didn’t know which version of me she thought she was looking at. Her expression softened, and somehow that made it worse.
“You left,”she said, a small, almost disbelieving smile touching her mouth.
“You just… disappeared.”Her hand lifted a little, as though she might touch me, then hesitated.
“I looked for you,”
Did she? My throat tightened.
“Rowan…”she exhaled, as if my name itself were something she had missed.“Can we… can we sit somewhere? Talk? Please.”
No. No. Not a fucking chance. But it never made it out of me. Because something else moved underneath it.
If I say no, then what happens?
If I walk away, does she follow?
Does she say my name louder?
Does someone else hear it?
