He was safe because he did not disappear when terrible things happened.
I pushed myself upright carefully.
Reid noticed before I made a sound.
“How do you feel?”
“Better.”
“What time is it?”
“Six.”
“I slept three hours?”
“Almost.”
“You stayed.”
“Yes.”
I looked at the journal resting on the table.
Inside it was one thing that belonged to me.
Not a story borrowed from someone else.
Not proof gathered from photographs and messages.
A piece of my life with emotion still attached.
I had not recovered six years.
I had recovered a direction.
Toward Reid.
Perhaps memory would return slowly.
Perhaps it would never return.
Perhaps I would spend the rest of my life understanding the shape of what had been taken without ever seeing it clearly.
That possibility still hurt.
It would always hurt.
But I no longer wanted to wait for the past to grant me permission to live.
I wanted the date.
I wanted to kiss Reid again.
I wanted to learn why he hated dried fruit in cereal and why my handwriting occupied half the margins in his business ledgers. I wanted to know how he drank his coffee, what made him furious, and what he sounded like when laughter stole his breath.
I wanted to meet the man I had already chosen once.
Not because I owed loyalty to the smiling stranger in the photographs.
