I didn't leave after he said it.
I should have.
But my body felt rooted to the chair, like moving would break something fragile in the air between us.
"You're lying," I said.
But there was no strength behind it.
He didn't argue.
Didn't defend himself.
Just watched me with that quiet patience that was starting to feel dangerously intimate.
"I wish I was," he murmured.
Silence pressed in around us.
The café noise faded into nothing.
It felt like we were the only two people in the world.
"How could I forget loving someone?" I asked.
His jaw tightened slightly.
"Because forgetting was the only way you could survive it."
A chill slid through me.
Survive what?
Before I could ask, a strange sensation crept into my head again.
That dizzy, pulling feeling.
Like something buried was trying to push its way up.
I closed my eyes.And then—
A flash.
Rain against a window.
My voice. Laughing.
His hand holding mine.
Another flash.
My back against a wall.
His face close to mine.
Not threatening.
Protective.
Then—
Darkness.
A loud sound.
Fear.
Gone.
My eyes snapped open.I was breathing too fast.
He had stood up without me noticing.
He moved to my side of the table.
Knelt slightly in front of me.
"Hey," he said softly.
His voice sounded… worried.
Real.
"Look at me."
I did.
And for a split second—
I knew him.
Not as a stranger.
Not as a mystery.
But as someone who had once meant everything to me.
The recognition hit so hard it almosthurt.
Then it slipped away.
Like a dream fading after you wake up.
"I saw something," I whispered.
His eyes searched mine urgently.
"What did you see?"
"I don't know… but you were there."
He closed his eyes briefly, like he had been holding his breath for years and could finally exhale.
"I told you," he said.
My heart pounded.
"What happened?" I asked. "Why would I forget you?"He hesitated.
And that hesitation told me the truth would not be gentle.
"You don't forget people for no reason," I said.
"No," he agreed quietly. "You don't."
I swallowed.
"Then tell me."
He looked at me in a way that made my chest ache.
Not dark.
Not mysterious.
Just… sad."Because the night you forgot me," he said softly,
"…was the same night you almost died."
My mind went blank.
Almost… died?
"That's not possible," I whispered.
But my voice trembled.
"Your mind did what it had to do," he continued. "It erased the parts that were too painful to carry."
I felt like the ground beneath me was shifting.
Like my entire life had a missing chapter I didn't know existed.
"And you were part of that chapter?" I asked.
His answer came without hesitation.
"I was the reason you survived it."
My breath caught.
Something twisted in my chest.Fear.
Confusion.
And something dangerously close to longing.
I stared at him, trying to understand how a stranger could feel like a memory my heart was trying to drag back to the surface.
Then he said quietly:
"You didn't just love me."
He leaned closer.
So close I could feel his breath.
"You trusted me with your life."
My pulse thudded in my ears.
And before I could ask anything else…
A sudden, sharp pain shot through my head.
So strong I gasped.
Images crashed into my mind—A scream.
Blood.
His voice shouting my name—
And then—
Black.
I clutched my head.
He caught me before I slipped from the chair.
And as everything blurred…
I heard him say, close to my ear, almost like a confession—
"I never stopped looking for you."