Page 104 of When Hearts Remember

While our tongues were burning, tears of pain mixing with joy, our faces a mess.

It’d be perfect.

Tears stream down my face as I swallow the curry, the lava scorching my throat and charring my insides. Pushing my drink away, I focus on the physical pain, a distraction from the agony cleaving my heart in half.

Choked sobs rip from my throat.

I’m making a scene, but I don’t care.

“It’s spicy, isn’t it?” An older gentleman chuckles as he passes by my table. “I think I dried my tear ducts when I tried ghost pepper curry too.”

Wiping my tears away, I look at the gentleman, who hands me a napkin, a sympathetic smile on his face.

He murmurs, “Damn ghost peppers.”

“Everything burns,” I rasp, my vision blurring again. More tears fall and I sob into the napkin, unable to face the stranger anymore.

I can’t stop the tears. I can’t stop the pain. I can’t stopanything.

My Nova. My future. My heart. My soul. My everything.

Burns.

Everything burns.

Chapter 34

Present: Nine Years After the Accident—Twenty-Nine Years Old

“I’m glad we didthis, Lexy.” Dayton smiles as he takes out his credit card.

I quickly pull out my wallet, but he stops me.

“Don’t worry about it.” His familiar easygoing grin makes a reappearance.

We’re sitting by the windows in a quaint cafe on the Upper West Side. Pedestrians hurry to their next destinations, all bundled up in wool coats and leather gloves, no doubt bracing themselves against the brisk wind of late fall.

Dayton and I have texted occasionally since he visited me in the hospital. He’s a good friend, and he’s tried, more than Summer—or Sandra—to my disappointment, to reconnect.

I constantly remind myself while it might feel like I just took a nap, for everyone else, years have gone by. Years where they’ve lived life, experienced hardships, got married, had kids, and became completely different people.

Just like how I’ve matured, it’s only normal for relationships to change.

Maybe someday, the aching loss I feel would fade away.

“So, how’s the medical trial going?”

“I honestly don’t know. They don’t tell me much because they don’t want to influence the results—placebo effects or whatnot. Just a bunch of pills and monthly scans and checkups.”

“But do you think it’s working?”

Something in his voice makes me look up. Dayton smiles at me in that reassuring way of his. He reaches over and holds my hand.

“My memory? Like, has it come back?”

He nods.

“No, not really. I have snippets of images. But nothing I can make sense of.” My chest tightens and I stare at our hands—a sight I remember so well. But I want to pull away. “Just a lot of water. Dark waters. Screams and yelling. I can’t tell what’s real or not.”

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