She remembers the friendship—Braden’s best friend, the boy who hovered at her side, her shadow, her protector. But not the shift. Not the slow, beautiful slide from comfort into something deeper. Something wild. Something real.
Gone.
I try to hold her gaze, to keep myself steady, but the ache inside me swells like a storm surge. Was it fear? Maybe. Rejection? Probably. But more than anything—it’s grief. For what we had. For the part of her that used to look at me like I was her world.
The part that remembered my hands on her skin. My mouth on hers. The way she used to whisper my name like a prayer and a promise.
Now, she just stares, lost.
I swallow hard. My jaw ticks as I shove it all down—stuff the hurt into the deepest place inside me and slam the door shut.
Be her anchor. Not the storm.
“Yeah,” I say quietly. Even that one word feels jagged in my throat. “That’s me.”
Her brows knit together. Her hand lifts, fingers brushing the bandage at her temple like the answers are buried beneath it. My heart twists as I watch her struggle to find me in a mind that no longer knows how.
June doesn’t catch it. She hums and taps at her chart, still all sunshine and blissfully unaware that she just turned our whole world on its head with one casual comment.
And God help me—I want to hate her. Just a little.
Jesus, June. Do you enjoy emotionally gutting people before breakfast?
But I keep my shit together. For Mac.
Because she doesn’t need the past right now. She needs the present. She needs something steady.
She needs me.
So, I stay still. Stay quiet.
And I wait.
Because if it takes a hundred days… a thousand quiet reassurances… I’ll give them.
I’ll wait for her to find her way back to me.
Even if it means pretending we’re just friends again.
Even if it shreds me to pieces.
The space between us crackles—heavy with words unspoken. She’s looking at me again, searching, like she’ll find the truth written on my face.
And maybe…maybe she does.
Because right now, she might not remember loving me.
But she remembers wanting me.
June, the chaos gremlin in scrubs, clears her throat, slicing through the moment. “I’ll be back soon with the doctor. He’ll want to check in during rounds.”
Then she’s gone, and the door clicks shut behind her.
Mac exhales shakily, fingers curling into the edge of the hospital blanket. I watch her for a beat, then speak before I overthink it.
“Do you want anything?” I ask, gentler this time. “I can pick something up for you—anything. PJs? Something soft?”
She hesitates. Her teeth catch her bottom lip. Then, almost too quiet to hear, she whispers, “Tell me about Braden.”
