"How do you love someone you can’t remember… but can’t seem to forget?"
The city’s soft evening glow filtered through the tall windows of Damon’s penthouse. The lights of passing cars below flickered like restless fireflies, and in the silence of the living room, only the occasional clink of cutlery and the hushed hum of the fireplace broke the stillness.Juliette sat on the couch, her legs curled beneath her, wearing one of Damon’s oversized sweaters. Across from her, Damon held a sleek black tablet, his fingers trembling ever so slightly. Mason had fallen asleep in the guest room hours ago, leaving behind a drawing of their family: Juliette, Damon, and himself - hand in hand beneath a sun made of hearts.It was that drawing that gave Damon the courage to do what he was about to do.“I want to show you something,” he said softly.Juliette looked up from her cup of tea, her eyes curious, yet hesitant. “Another photograph?”He shook his head. “A video”.The tablet glowed to life, and the screen filled with color. Damon tapped a folder titled *Anniversary –
After the cameras faded and the applause settled into memory, the house returned to silence; too silent for three people who’d just been reunited in front of the world.The soft clink of cutlery and the low hum of the city beyond the window framed a silence too heavy for words.Damon sat at the head of the dining table, back straight, composed on the outside but unraveling within. His eyes flicked between Juliette, who sat opposite him, and Mason, seated between them and poking at his mashed potatoes with the innocent focus of a child caught in an atmosphere he couldn’t understand.Juliette’s hand rested motionless beside her plate, fingers gently curled, and eyes distant as if the meal before her were just another painting, just another dream she couldn’t name. Since her return, it was as though she were walking through a house filled with strangers wearing familiar faces.She hadn’t said much since arriving – only a soft thank-you when Damon opened the door and a gentle greeting to
Juliette didn’t sleep.Even with Mason curled safely in her arms, even with Damon seated silently in the chair across from the bed like a sentinel guarding their peace - her eyes stayed open.The penthouse was dark except for the low hum of city lights beyond the glass wall. Every so often, Mason stirred against her chest, his small hands curling into her shirt, his breath warm and steady. It anchored her.But it didn’t quiet the noise in her head.The memories hadn’t returned in full. They floated in half-formed fragments like blurry photographs underwater, always slipping just out of reach. What she held now wasn’t memory. It was instinct. Sensation. A mother’s pull that defied logic or proof.She didn’t remember raising Mason.But her arms knew how to hold him.--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------By dawn, her body ached from stillness, but she refused to let go. Mason stirred with a soft yawn, blinking again
The penthouse was quiet, — eerily so. Damon stood at the window, watching the city stretch out before him like a maze of choices he no longer knew how to navigate. Juliette was gone again, and this time, not because of war or enemies, but because of memory. Or rather, the lack of it.After her departure from the coastal retreat, Damon had returned to the city, trying to respect her wishes. She’d asked him not to follow. And though every fiber of his being screamed to run after her, to hold her and remind her of the love they’d fought to protect, he didn’t. He’d lost her once in the fire of betrayal. He wouldn’t lose her again by smothering her healing.But someone else was suffering now: Mason.The boy had grown quieter each day since Juliette’s disappearance. At first, Damon thought it was just the adjustment. But then came the nightmares. The silence at dinner. The drawings that showed a house with no mother, only dark clouds hanging above a lone child.And now — now he was missing.
Juliette hadn’t been back to her childhood home in years.The place had once felt like a museum of regret, each hallway echoing with voices of pain and shadows of decisions she had tried to forget. But now, she returned not to run from the past but to find it. Something inside her knew that if she wanted answers — real, unfiltered truth, they would begin here, where it all started.The house stood in stillness as she stepped through the doorway, the air thick with the scent of aged wood, forgotten books, and dried lavender from a vase that hadn’t been touched in years. It was her grandmother’s house now passed down quietly through paperwork Juliette barely remembered signing. Somehow, even through the layers of time, it still felt untouched - Preserved - Waiting.She moved from room to room, not entirely sure what she was looking for. Her hand brushed across the banister, the same one she used to slide her fingers along as a child, pausing at the dip carved by years of her small palms
The storm rolled in just before dawn, casting an eerie haze across the horizon. The once gentle waves now crashed violently against the jagged rocks beneath the bluff, as if echoing the storm brewing inside Juliette.She stood at the window of her cottage, arms wrapped tightly around herself, the wool cardigan barely warding off the chill that had nothing to do with the weather. Damon’s words replayed in her mind, over and over; every confession, every memory he had tried to return to her.“We were married.”“You saved my life.”“We lost everything together… and still chose each other.”But those memories belonged to someone else. Someone braver. Someone stronger. Someone who hadn’t been hollowed out by confusion and grief.And yet… every time she looked at him, every time she heard his voice, something inside her stirred. Not memory, not exactly. But emotion. An ache in her chest that pulsed in rhythm with his presence.That morning, she’d barely slept. After his confession, she'd fl