flew me to places I've never been
Ever didn’t answer right away. His thumb moved slowly against his knuckles—circular, controlled, like if he kept the motion steady enough, he might stay that way too. "I don’t know if I miss you," he said finally, with quiet precision. His voice didn’t crack; it wasn’t cruel. Just honest. "I know I’m meant to. I know the me from before would have. I just… don’t know if the part of me that could is still here."
His eyes didn’t lift. Instead, he watched the faint condensation from her tea bleed into the wood of the table. "When people lose their memories—permanently, I mean—it doesn’t seem unreasonable for their partners to… leave. No one blames them. It’s not abandonment." He shifted his hands, adjusting them so they folded in the other direction. A blink, slow and deliberate. "So if you wanted to be done with all of this—" all of me "—I would understand. You might have enjoyed your time around me before, but that was not the man you fell in love with." He finally glanced up, not at her eyes, but somewhere near her collarbone.
The quiet lingered, a hum just below the surface, until he added, "Mateo’s been working on a quest for years. Something that would do what the infection did—quiet my mind, make the world bearable."
His eyes didn’t lift. Instead, he watched the faint condensation from her tea bleed into the wood of the table. "When people lose their memories—permanently, I mean—it doesn’t seem unreasonable for their partners to… leave. No one blames them. It’s not abandonment." He shifted his hands, adjusting them so they folded in the other direction. A blink, slow and deliberate. "So if you wanted to be done with all of this—" all of me "—I would understand. You might have enjoyed your time around me before, but that was not the man you fell in love with." He finally glanced up, not at her eyes, but somewhere near her collarbone.
The quiet lingered, a hum just below the surface, until he added, "Mateo’s been working on a quest for years. Something that would do what the infection did—quiet my mind, make the world bearable."
but now I'm laying on the cold hard ground
