Five days earlier, that hand had gripped my shirt in our kitchen.
Five years of touching lived in my body. I knew how his palm fit against mine. I knew the pressure of his fingers at my waist, the drag of his nails along my back, the absent movement of his thumb when we held hands in public.
He knew none of it.
I should not have touched him.
The doctors had warned me that familiarity could become intrusion when only one person remembered it.
Still, I placed my hand beside his.
Not over it.
Beside.
Close enough that our little fingers nearly met.
“I don’t know how to do this,” I whispered.
His breathing remained slow.
“I know how to repair things. I know how to find a fault in a circuit no one else can trace. I know how to keep a boat afloat in weather that should sink it.”
I looked at the narrow gap between our hands.
“I don’t know how to be loved by you when you don’t remember choosing me.”
His fingers moved.
Not toward me. A reflex, perhaps.
I stayed.
When Noah woke, pain crossed his face before awareness.
His eye opened. He looked at the ceiling, the monitors, then at me.
Wariness appeared.
I sat back to give him space.
“Hi.”
He swallowed. “You.”
“Yes.”
He searched my face. “Reid.”
My heart lurched.
“You remembered my name.”
“Told me.”
“I know.”
His gaze drifted to the window. “You work here?”
