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Then the ground, because I don’t want to notice anything else.

“Please let go,” I mutter.

Aaron hesitates, the hopeful gleam dissipating in his gaze. His fingers loosen, and I slip my hands out of his. There’s a long, tense moment of silence.

“Then it’s true, huh?” Aaron smiles, but it’s frail. Nothing like the usual impishness that shadows every grin he’s ever offered me. “You don’t remember. Not a single date. Single moment. Single word. It’s gone. It’s actually…everything we’ve been through…ah. Fuck.” He forces his grin to widen despite how fake it is. “I don’t really know what to do. Ha. This sucks.”

My throat tightens. I’m not sure why. Anything we built together was clearly a mistake. But this smoldering, aching sensation is singeing the crevices of my chest, because Aaron’s eyes…

He’s hurting.

I hate how desperate I am to understand why.

“I…I’m sorry,” I say, because apologies are all I’m good for. “But I can’t see any way in which a relationship could be healthy for either of us.”

“So ask.” Aaron offers another smile as pained as his gaze. “I’ll tell you. I’ll show you.”

He stands there, waiting. Logan’s words come back in a deafening roar.

I’m sure he’ll try convincing you that you’re better off with him. Don’t be fooled just because you like his face.

So I merely stand there, staring at the floor.

“Okay.” Aaron draws a long, weighted breath, as if steeling himself. Sure enough, the soft, snowy texture in his eyes returns to being solid ice. It’s not cruel, though, or unfriendly. It’s more like he’s resolved. “If this is how you need to cope, I understand. But…”

Suddenly, he’s closing the space between us and frames my face in his warm palms.

“Are you okay?” he whispers.

I blink, so astonished that I forget to rip out of his grasp. “Am I okay?” I repeat, the words strangely foreign.

“You just woke up from a two-day-long coma after a car crash that wiped a year’s worth of memories from you.” Aaron’s hands move along the sides of my head, gentle enough that it doesn’t hurt when he grazes the swollen lump from where my skull connected with the window. “Break up with me if you want, but…but tell me what you need first.”

I can barely process what he’s saying. “I’m fine” is all I can scrounge together.

“Have you cried?”

I keep looking at him, because I’m behind, so far behind I can’t even think—

“Where does it hurt?”

The world is swimming. I think I’m about to faint from the sheer sensation of being overwhelmed, but then I realize it’s because a film of tears is clogging my vision. I can’t get rid of it—whenever I blink it away, it lies in wait behind my eyes to surge forward when I’m least expecting.

I try to say, Nowhere.

What comes out is “Everywhere.”

The acknowledgment heightens every ache in my body. My legs are sore—even standing is a bother. My ankles feel swollen, lifting my arms takes effort, and there’s an undercurrent of constant, unending discomfort pulsing in my skull. It hasn’t been this bad since before the diagnosis. I expect the car accident is to blame by setting me so far back.

I try to steady my breathing. I won’t cry. I have no reason to cry.

“You can cry if you want,” Aaron says, tucking me into his chest like I belong there, folding his arms around me like he’s done it a million times. Instinctively, I slump against him, as if my body knows it’s safe here in spite of my mind’s insistence that it’s not.

“Get out,” I breathe, because he’s Aaron Beckham, the boy who ruined my brother’s future. Logan told me just hours ago that mine is next. Why is it that when my brother came to his senses, I lost mine? How could I allow myself to be swapped in as the new victim so easily?

“I will,” he says, and I’m too drained to stop him from nestling me onto my mattress, then cradling my head and lowering it to the pillow. He’s treating me so kindly all of a sudden—he must be trying to earn brownie points. I didn’t take to his playful flirtation, so he’s veering off course. It’s a manipulation tactic.

“Did you finish unpacking?” Aaron ambles toward the boxes stacked in the corner of the room. “I tried organizing everything to make it easier—”