The shift in Annie's gaze was slow, a heavy-lidded transition from the agonizing reality of her father's words back to the boy sitting beside her. She looked at the hand gripping hers- strong, calloused, yet incredibly gentle. Her eyes traveled up his arm, past the wrinkled sleeve of his hoodie, and finally settled on his face.
She looked for a long time. She saw the dark, messy beard that shadowed a jawline that used to be soft and boyish. She saw the deep, bruised circles under his eyes and the way his green irises seemed to burn with an intensity she couldn't quite place. He looked like a man who had been living on the edge of a cliff for a century.
"Ethan?" she whispered again, Annie's eyes were curious until it was replaced by a flickering, dusty memory of a boy with a crooked grin and a propensity for getting into trouble. "You... you look so old."
Ethan let out a breath that was half-laugh, half-sob. The sound was jagged and raw. He didn't care that he looked like he'd been dragged through the dirt, he only cared that the blank wall in her eyes had a crack in it. She knew his name. She knew the boy from four years ago, even if she didn't know the man who had just spent ten weeks praying over her body.
"It's been a long ten years, doll," Ethan rasped, his voice thick. "And a really long ten weeks."
Annie frowned, her eyes scanning his haggard appearance again. She saw the way his shoulders were hunched, the way his hair was matted and wild, and the sheer exhaustion that seemed to radiate off him like heat. Even through the haze of her grief for her mother, a small, instinctive spark of the old Annie- the one who cared too much for everyone else, flickered to life.
"Ethan," she said, her voice small but firm. "You look... terrible. You need to sleep."
The irony wasn't lost on him. Here she was, having just woken from a ten-week coma, having just been told her mother was dead for a second time, and she was worried about the bags under his eyes.
"I'm fine, Doll," he promised, squeezing her hand. "I'm exactly where I want to be."
The next few hours were a blur of medical tests and soft-spoken explanations. Dylan and Kyson stayed on the periphery, giving Annie space to process the massive, gaping hole in her life.
The doctor explained Retrograde Amnesia to her- how the brain protects itself from trauma by locking away the most recent, painful memories.
Every time Ethan tried to bring up something from the last eight months, her new friends, the secrets they had whispered in the dark- Annie's face would go tight with frustration.
"I don't remember, Ethan," she would say, her eyes welling with tears. "I remember the bridge... I remember moving away. But everything after I came back... it's just black. It's like those months belong to someone else."
It was a knife to Ethan's heart. He was mourning a relationship that, to her, hadn't even started yet. To her, he was still the boy from her childhood- a little rougher, a lot taller, but not yet the person she had chosen to give her heart to.
As the sun began to set, Dylan insisted that Annie try to rest. The emotional toll of the day had left her pale and fragile. Kyson and Dylan stepped out to talk to the social worker about the legal mess Margaret had left behind, leaving Ethan alone with her once more.
Annie watched him from the bed. He was leaning back in that vinyl chair, his eyes fixed on the cardiac monitor as if he were guarding the very rhythm of her heart.
"Why are you still here?" she asked softly. "Kyson said you've been here the whole time. Ten weeks?"
Ethan looked at her, his expression unreadable. "Seventy days. I wasn't going to let you wake up alone."
"But why?" Annie pushed, her brow furrowing. "Four years ago... we were friends, but we weren't... this. What happened in those eight months, Ethan? Why do you look at me like I'm the only person in the world?"
Ethan felt the weight of her question. He could tell her everything- about the dances, the flirting, the way she looked at him when she thought he wasn't watching. He could tell her about the kiss they had. But the doctor had warned him: Don't force it. Let her brain find its own way back.
"You were a pain in my neck," Ethan said, a small, sad smirk touching his lips. "You came back to town and started shaking things up. You reminded me of who I was before I got bored and angry. We just... found each other again, Doll."
He stood up and walked to the nightstand, picking up the small, leather-bound box he had kept there. He opened it, revealing the dozens of pressed, dried flowers he had collected over the last ten weeks.
"I brought you a flower every morning," he said, setting the box on her lap. "One for every day you were gone. I figured if you couldn't see the world, I'd bring a little piece of it to you."
Annie reached out, her fingers trembling as she touched the delicate, papery petals of a pressed wildflower. She didn't remember him picking it. She didn't remember the crimson bloom he had brought just that morning. But as she looked at the sheer volume of his devotion- forty-one flowers, each one a silent 'I love you,' she felt a strange, magnetic pull toward him.
"I don't remember these," she whispered, a tear falling onto a dried daisy. "But I feel like I should."
"It's okay," Ethan said, leaning down and kissing her knuckles. "I remember enough for the both of us. You just worry about getting better. I'll be right here to tell you the stories whenever you're ready to hear them."
Annie looked toward the door, her thoughts drifting back to her stepmother. "Where is Margaret, anyway? Kyson didn't say. Did she... did she finally get bored of pretending to be my mother?"
Ethan's jaw tightened. This was the most dangerous part of the truth. He didn't want to tell her about the SUV, about the murder plot, or about the fact that her own family had tried to erase her. Not yet.
"She's away, Doll," Ethan said carefully. "There were some... legal issues. Your dad will tell you when you're stronger. But you don't have to worry about her anymore. She can't hurt you."
Annie sighed, a heavy, exhausted sound. She closed her eyes, her hand still resting in the box of flowers. "She was always so mean. I think I'm glad she's not here."
She turned her head on the pillow, looking back at Ethan. He was still there, a ragged, exhausted guard who looked like he'd walk through fire for her.
"Ethan?"
"Yeah, doll?"
"Go to sleep. Even if it's just in the chair. You're making me tired just looking at you, and I just 'slept' for 10 weeks."
Ethan smiled- a real, genuine smile that reached his tired eyes. He sat back down, leaning his head against the wall. "Only if you stay put."
"I'm not going anywhere," she murmured, her voice drifting off into the first natural sleep she'd had in months.
Ethan watched her until her breathing evened out. He was a stranger to her now, a ghost of a boy she used to know. But as he looked at the box of flowers on her lap, he knew that the foundation wasn't completely gone. It was just buried under the rubble of her trauma. And he was a very patient man.