Page 130 of One of Those Amnesia Stories

I pretended to wince, placing a hand over my heart. “Ouch.”

She laughed.

The sound hit me square in the chest. It was bright, unguarded, and seemed to unlock something in the atmosphere, flooding the space between us with a sudden, palpable warmth. I paused, my hand halfway to my mouth, arrested by the feeling.

A quiet, unexpected thought drifted through my mind: Were her hands so cold because she spent all her warmth like this? Giving it away to the people around her?

After that, the conversation didn’t stop. It just… kept finding new places to go.

At some point, I realized my fork had been resting on the edge of the table for a while, forgotten in the wake of whatever story she was telling about a PR disaster.

She talked with her hands when she got animated, sketching shapes in the air. Once, her wrist knocked her water glass, and she caught it before it could spill without even breaking eye contact.

I found myself noticing things I had no business noticing: the specific way she’d tilt her head to the left when considering a question, as if listening to a second, internal voice; the way she’d press her lips together to suppress a smile before it fully arrived.

The café changed around us, a silent stage crew resetting the scene. The elderly couple gathered their things and left. The two women were replaced by a boisterous group of students with textbooks. The angle of the sunlight through the window shifted, warming the wood of our table.

I didn’t notice the hours passing. My phone, usually a persistent weight in my pocket, stayed forgotten. The only thing that existed was the next question, the next story, the way her eyes lit up when she argued a point.

A single chocolate cupcake remained on the plate between us at the end. She glanced at it, then at me. “Do you want to split it?”

I shook my head. “Oh, no, please have it. I’m actually ridiculously particular about dessert. The frosting-to-cake ratio has to be perfect, the chocolate can’t be too sweet, it’s a whole thing.”

Her smile was one of pure, uncomplicated victory. “More for me, then.”

Watching her take the first bite, I had a sudden, irrational thought: I wished I weren’t so picky just so I could have shared that with her.

We stepped outside, the city air a cool contrast to the café’s warmth. She turned to face me, tucking her hands into her pockets. Her expression was shifting into something measured, polite… final. I knew that look. It was the look people gave before they said, This was nice, and meant Goodbye.

A bolt of pure, irrational panic shot through me. This couldn’t be the end.

The words were out before I could second-guess them. “Would you like to go on a date with me?”

She paused, glancing back at the café, then at me, one eyebrow arched. “Wasn’t that what this was?”

I took a deliberate step closer, closing the polite, public distance between us. “That wasn’t a real date,” I said, my voice lower, steadier now. “A real date ends with a kiss.”

She raised her brows, but I saw the faintest tremor of a smile at the corner of her mouth. “Getting too daring, are we?”

“Depends.” I took another deliberate step, my gaze holding hers. “Is it a yes to the date?”

Her eyes held mine, a calculating gleam in their depths. She tilted her head, considering. “Have you ever been to an escape room?”

I could only shake my head, mute, utterly captured by the intensity in her eyes.

“Are you free next Saturday?”

I nodded, the movement automatic.

A small, triumphant smile touched her lips. She shrugged, as if it were the simplest thing in the world. “It’s a date, then.”

She recited her number. I fumbled for my phone, my fingers suddenly clumsy, terrified I’d miss a digit and lose this thread.

I walked her to her car, a short distance that felt both endless and over in a heartbeat. She gave me one last, unreadable look before sliding inside.

I stood on the curb, the city sounds rushing back in. I didn’t know it then, standing there with the fading echo of her smile and her number glowing on my phone, but I was going to owe Liam for life.

The memories usually felt like a gift, warming parts of me I thought had gone cold. But today’s memory—the breakfast meeting, the ignored food—left me cold with a different kind of understanding.