Rain came just after midnight, not heavy not loud just soft, steady drops against the windowpanes of the lake house, like the sky remembered them too.
Aria sat curled on the couch beneath a thick knitted throw, mug in her hands, her legs tucked under her. Her eyes hadn't left the fire in over an hour. The flames were hypnotic, untouchable, alive.
Kai sat across from her, on the floor this time not beside her, not pressing, just… there.
Close enough to feel his warmth and far enough to pretend she didn't need it. Neither of them had spoken in a while but she knew what was coming and so did he.
"I want to tell you what I remember," Kai said softly.
She didn't look at him.
"I don't want excuses."
"Then I'll give you none."
A pause.
Then:
"I remember the sound first. Screeching tires. The crunch of metal. The way your voice cut through everything screaming my name like it was the only word that mattered."
She gripped her mug tighter.
"I remember pulling you out of the car. You were bleeding. Your forehead. Your shoulder. You kept trying to sit up, but you were shaking too hard. I held you down. Told you not to move."
He looked at the fire now too.
"There was water. Close. I thought we might be near the cliffs."
Aria's jaw tightened. "We were."
"I tried to call for help. But my phone was dead. Yours was cracked. You kept losing consciousness. I… I panicked."
Her breath hitched.
He didn't stop.
"I ran to the road. Flagged someone down. I told them to get help. I told them you were inside. I swear I told them."
Her voice broke. "And then what?"
He turned toward her slowly.
"I don't know. That's where it ends. The next thing I remember… I was in a hospital bed, and they were telling me it was six weeks later."
Aria looked at him now. Finally.
"And no one mentioned me."
He nodded.
"I asked. I… I knew there was someone missing. I felt it. But they kept saying I was alone. That I'd crashed my car. That the woman I thought I loved was 'just a dream.'"
Her throat closed.
"And you believed them."
"I tried not to. But when I looked at Brielle, and they said we were together… everything was already so broken in my head. I thought maybe they were right."
"Were you?" she whispered.
He shook his head.
"No."
His voice dropped to a confession.
"You were never a dream."
Aria stood.
She needed air not distance — just breath. She walked to the far window, watched the rain slide down the glass like tears the sky couldn't hold anymore.
"I woke up in the hospital," she said quietly. "A week after the crash. I was listed as Jane Doe because my ID was destroyed. No one came."
He stood behind her, close enough to hear, but not close enough to touch.
"I remembered everything. The road. Your arms. The fear. And then nothing."
She turned slowly. "They told me you died, Kai."
His breath caught.
She nodded, voice shaking. "That's why I didn't come for you. That's why I disappeared. I thought you were dead."
Silence.
Grief lived between them now. Heavy. Muted. Real.
"God," he whispered. "Ariella…"
She stepped closer.
"I spent three years trying to become someone else. Someone who didn't need answers. Someone who could survive without them."
He looked at her like she was the air he hadn't known he needed.
"Then why come back?"
"Because I saw you on TV," she admitted. "Launching your new project with her. Smiling. Whole. Alive."
He stepped closer now. "So you came back to destroy me."
"No," she whispered. "I came back… to see if you even missed me."
His fingers twitched.
"Do you think I didn't?" he asked, voice breaking. "Do you think every part of me that felt like it didn't fit wasn't screaming your name the second I touched her?"
Her breath caught.
"I never slept with Brielle," he said. "I never even tried. Because I couldn't stop dreaming of a girl whose name I couldn't say out loud."
Her lip trembled.
Kai stepped forward.
This time, she didn't move.
He touched her hand.
Slowly. Gently.
And when she didn't pull away, he threaded his fingers through hers.
"I don't want to undo the past," he said. "I want to rewrite the ending."
She looked up at him.
"And what does that look like?"
He leaned in.
So close.
"You. Me. Every memory we were robbed of — made new."
Tears burned in her eyes.
"But I'm not the girl you left."
"Good," he said. "Because I'm not the boy who failed you."
They stood like that in silence.
Two people scarred by time, tethered by memory.
Outside, the rain softened.
Inside, something healed. Not all the way but enough to breathe again.
She didn't sleep in his bed that night but she didn't drive away either and when she curled up on the couch, blanket to her chin, her last thought before drifting into a dreamless sleep was this:
Maybe the past wasn't done with them yet.
But maybe it didn't have to win.