Page 208 of One of Those Amnesia Stories

I didn’t know how long it was.

Minutes.

Hours.

Time didn’t exist in the space between her heartbeat and mine. Then someone was running fingers through my hair.

So light I almost missed it. A whisper of touch, barely there, tracing the hair away from my forehead with the kind of care you give something fragile. Something you’re not sure you’re allowed to touch but can’t stop yourself from reaching for.

I became aware of things slowly.

I wasn’t sitting anymore.

I was lying on the couch, stretched out, my head resting on something soft. Alessia was somewhere beside me. Her scent was close. Her warmth was close.

I didn’t open my eyes.

Couldn’t.

There was a high chance this was a dream—the kind I’d had a hundred times before, the kind that evaporated the moment I reached for her.

I couldn’t risk it.

I couldn’t lose this.

Her hand lifted. The warmth of her fingers left my skin, and before I could stop myself, my hand shot out and found her.

“Please don’t go.”

My eyes stayed closed. If this was a dream, I wanted to stay in it as long as I could. If it was real, I didn’t want to see the look on her face when she told me I was asking for too much.

“I was just going to get a blanket.” Her voice was close.

So close.

“Be my blanket.”

I pulled her toward me.

She yelped and landed on top of me, her hands catching against my chest. My body went rigid. I’d moved without thinking, reached without hoping, and now she was here, solid and warm and real in a way she had never been in any dream.

She was going to push me away.

She was going to tell me I was crossing a line.

She was going to leave, and I was going to lose this moment, this impossible, fragile thing I’d been reaching for for months.

Her hands spread on my chest.

Her head found the crook of my neck.

She sighed.

And relaxed against me.

I breathed so slowly I barely breathed at all. Every inhale was measured, careful, designed not to move her. Every exhale was a prayer.

Please don’t leave.