Page 191 of When Hearts Remember

I want what they have, minus the wreckage. I hope to find it someday and I wish for the same for you.

Your confidant,

Dreamer and Believer

P.S. Clue:Another name for this journal.I know, I’m lazy with this one, but ballet practice and school have been kicking my ass, so I haven’t had time to come up with something cleverer.

Suddenly, a knife of white-hot pain drives through my skull.

It’s blistering. It isn’t just pain this time—it’s an explosion.

I cry out and bury my face in my hands as the headache bursts from behind my forehead, rippling out like a bomb just went off.

Then the images come. Vivid. Sharp. A slide show.

The missing pieces, the memories of us I’ve been searching for.

Me huffing down the steps of Ravenswood Library to the DVD room, freedom in my veins after I broke up with Dayton. I wanted a glimpse of my keeper, even if that broke the rules.

The beautiful man—the god of war—smiling at me that first day outside the library after he picked up the things I dropped on the ground.

Me describing the perfect picnic at the hidden courtyard to be shared with the man I love—Ethan—once I graduated from college and got a job.

A picnic I inadvertently had years later, not knowing how hard it must’ve been for him to live out this beautiful future we planned together, but I’d become a stranger.

A violent storm and a blackout. The elation I felt when I saw him walking up to me. His words,“I knew you’d be beautiful,”before he kissed me like his life depended on it.

Our passionate sex, his tutoring sessions, the way he grinned when we jotted down the first seven items of my Twenty by Forty list.

My hummingbird earrings and his vintage cuff links.

The gentle graze of his finger on the bridge of my nose—his love in a single gesture.

His favorite color, blue, because it reminded him of my eyes.

“Marry me,”his words to me when he crouched over me, shielding me from the violent hail during the first snowstorm of the year.

I teased him, saying he didn’t have a ring, that I wouldn’t answer him until our date for the ghost pepper curry challenge.

The what-if game, me asking what he’d do if a rock struck me and I lost my memories. His fervent response that day at the library.

“If a rock smacked you on the head and you lost your memories, I’d do everything in my power to make you remember. Even if that meant recreating our love story, reminding you with every touch, every word. Because there’d be no way I’d let you slip away. No way.”

I sob into my hands.

He did everything. He never gave up on me.

Every single moment since I’ve woken up from the coma carries a different meaning.

The memories continue to slam in—relentless—an avalanche finally tearing down the mountain after one too many snowstorms.

I shake in my seat, my fingers clutching my head.

And I remember.

Each and every moment. Those four missing years.

The dreamer and his keeper.

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