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He opened his eyes and caught her staring.

His smile was open and honest. She wanted to believe it.

“You brought me as your plus one to Roy and Alannah’s wedding,” he said, mischief heavy in his tone. “It was quite the statement of a first date, and I doubt anyone at the time could have predicted that an event at your ex-boyfriend’s family home would be one of the best nights of my life. But here we are. We danced for hours. It was perfect.”

He pushed himself to his feet suddenly, vibrant energy almost overwhelming. “Let me show you something,” he said, and it looked like he barely resisted offering her his hand.

Molly rose, unsure of what else to do with the hot slosh of emotion gurgling in her throat. She followed as Aster walked them into a winding, overgrown flower garden. Butterfly bushes, sunflowers, and a riot of colors and pollinators secluded them from the rest of the Clay’s sprawling property.

It had once been one of Molly’s favorite places to spend a summer afternoon with a book.

“I kissed you in here,” Aster said with an edge of wistfulness, standing beside a massive hydrangea bush. “It wasn’t our first kiss. But it was . . .” He didn’t finish his thought, and Molly was grateful for it. His words made her ache.

His brows furrowed when he looked at her, the spell of his reverie broken.

“Are you alright?”

“I’m fine.” Molly knew he’d see through her.

He reached out, his hand pausing as it hovered over her left shoulder, perhaps considering the consequences of touch. She shifted away.

“You seem upset,” he said. His fingers curled inward, and the hand fell.

“I’m—” Her voice failed. Aster took a step closer, halting when Molly took her own corresponding step back. She needed time to think; years’ worth. Maybe six of them.

Aster retreated, anchoring himself with one hand on the stone rim of an old birdbath. The look he sent her asked dozens of questions all at once. The loudest of which being: what went so wrong on this beautiful day?

The chirping birds and fluttering butterflies and buzzing bees composed a lovely backing track as Molly’s thoughts churned.

She pulled her phone from her dress pocket, unlocked it, and opened her calendar app. She scrolled to her missing time, to her stay at the hospital, and then to the week after. Still there, the word sex screamed at her in bright-red text. She could have kicked herself for not recognizing it for what it was the first time she’d seen it. But after everything else she’d been through that day, it only registered as another drop in the proverbial bucket. And her brain, one without six years of memories, only really knew scheduling sex as a practicality to avoid one’s roommates and maximize privacy. That was her context, now entirely different.

Aster stiffened when Molly looked up at him, a careful expression on his face as she approached. She needed him to see it, to explain it. His gaze flickered down to the phone in her hand.

“What’s wrong?” he asked, vulnerability fraying him out at the edges.

She turned her phone to him.

“Is this . . . what I think it is?” Molly asked, finding her voice low, quiet.

She watched the recognition latch onto his vertebrae, ratcheting him straighter.

Aster’s gaze wandered toward the sound of children playing in the field somewhere beyond the gardens. When he finally looked back at her, there was something broken in his expression. “Yes,” he said. “It is.”

Molly couldn’t tell if she was more frustrated or disappointed or exhausted. With him, herself, all of it. “Why didn’t you tell me? That we were ready to start a family? It’s kind of—it’s huge.” She hadn’t even decided if she wanted kids yet. That had been a future decision. One she’d clearly already made at some point. Her frustration took center stage. “How many other enormous things have you edited out of my life?”

He released a breath and steadied himself, hand gripping the basin even tighter. His fingers flexed against stone.

“I’m not editing things out, not permanently. I—I’m just—you needed time.” Molly scoffed, but he kept talking. “And what would you have had me say? You would barely even speak to me.” His words bit, teeth bared.

Molly had no answer, only an ache inside her marrow trying to make sense out of emotional slurry.

“What the fuck was I supposed to say?” he repeated, composure abandoning him. A flush of red crept up his neck and cheeks. “How was I supposed to tell my wife, who couldn’t even stand to look at me, that we wanted to have a family? How would you propose I go about that, Molly?” He wielded her name like a weapon.

“Anything would have been better than nothing—”

“And risk the meager scraps you gave me?” He raked a hand through his hair, already blown wild by the wind from their afternoon spent outdoors.

“It’s not your job to decide what information about my own life I am and am not capable of knowing,” she nearly shouted, indignant at his outrage.