Tears sting my eyes before I can stop them.
“I remember how I felt when you walked in that first night,” I whisper. “It was like… something inside me exhaled. Even if my mind didn’t understand why.”
He looks at me again—those impossibly blue eyes threaded with so much aching patience, it undoes me.
“I don’t expect you to remember everything,” he says. “But I’ll be here—for every piece that comes back, for every new one we build.”
I tighten my grip on his hand, anchoring us both.
“Don’t give up on me.”
“Never,” he breathes. “Not in this life. Not in the next. You might have forgotten me, angel… but I’ll love you like you never did.”
Chapter 4
Logan
The door clicks shut behind me, and silence presses in like a weight I can’t shake.
No steady beeping.
No rustle of hospital sheets.
No soft, rhythmic sound of Mac breathing beside me—her presence a heartbeat away.
Just this temporary apartment in Portland—half unpacked, chaos bleeding into every corner. Guitars leaning like forgotten promises. Pizza boxes stacked on the counter. Laundry slouched over a chair like it gave up halfway to the basket. The guys must’ve gone out again. Good. I don’t have it in me to fake okay.
I toss my keys onto the counter and scrub a hand down my face, dragging it through my hair. My shirt’s still wrinkled from hours hunched over her bed. I should care. I should shower. Eat. Breathe.
Instead, I move on autopilot.
I dig a roll of trash bags from my backpack and start cleaning—anything to keep my hands busy while my head spins. Cardboard gets broken down. Empty cans tossed. I try to impose order on this mess like it might bleed into me. Like if I can straighten the outside, maybe the inside will follow. Maybe I’ll stop feeling like I’m drowning in a body that still hasn’t figured out how to swim without her.
Eventually, I stretch—muscles tight, back aching—and head for the bathroom. I strip off the day with my clothes and step into the shower. The water hits hard, blistering hot.
I don’t flinch.
Let it burn.
Maybe it’ll scald away the helplessness.
The fear.
The guilt.
Being with her today… Christ.
She looked so lost. Like the light behind her eyes had been dimmed, flickering behind thick glass. And then the guys came in—loud, chaotic—and I damn near lost it. I wanted to shout, shove them out the door. Tell them to give her room. To give me room. To not steal what little clarity she had left.
But then she smiled.
And even more than that—she remembered something.
A couch.
Laughter.
Sunflower seeds in the carpet. Trey being Trey.
