Page 168 of One of Those Amnesia Stories

He turned his almost immediately, lacing his fingers through mine as though it were the most natural thing in the world.

“Cassian.”

I waited until those wounded eyes found mine.

“You’re not broken.”

I held his gaze, willing him to see the truth in my eyes.

“There are so many words I can’t say. Anytime I have to say ‘sorry,’ I feel like throwing up.”

A small smile tugged at the corner of his mouth.

Just a flicker.

But it was there.

I squeezed his hand.

“You’re not broken,” I repeated, needing him to hear it twice. Needing it to land.

Then I added, lighter, “Annoying at times? Sure. But not broken.”

A watery laugh escaped him, catching in his throat.

He looked down at our joined hands, then back up at me.

His eyes were intense now, burning with something that made my breath catch.

“Alessia.”

His voice was rough, stripped bare.

“I want you to know that just because I can’t say them doesn’t mean I don’t feel them.”

A breath left me, stolen from my lungs before I could stop it.

He was answering the question.

The one I’d asked in that hospital room, before I knew anything. Before any of this.

Do you love me?

He’d said, “I care about you,” then. I’d filed it away as confirmation. He didn’t love me. He just cared. Like you’d care about an acquaintance, a colleague, a responsibility. I straightened, my spine going rigid, and turned to look ahead at the street. At anything but him.

I didn’t know what to do with this.

With any of this.

Even in the last few months, when I’d started to suspect he might have feelings for me, I’d kept them at arm’s length. Maybe he felt something.

But love?

That was a step I hadn’t let myself consider. I wasn’t prepared for this. For the quiet certainty in his voice. For the way those three unsaid words suddenly seemed to fill the space between us, even though he hadn’t spoken them.

I didn’t know how to react.

I didn’t know what to do with a man who couldn’t say “I love you” but had just told me, with every fiber of his being, that he felt it anyway.