Chapter 16 Charlotte
Miles almost kissed me at the diner.
I don't think he realized it. We were sitting in our booth, the same cracked red vinyl, the same smell of coffee and bacon grease, and I was telling him about our first coffee date.
How awkward it had been at first. How our hands met across the table, and how for one perfect moment, his tremor had stopped.
He reached across the table now, mirroring the gesture he couldn't remember, and his eyes went soft and focused in a way that made my breath catch.
"Like this?" he asked quietly.
"Exactly like this."
His thumb traced across my hand, and I watched something flicker in his expression, not memory, exactly, but joy. Like his body knew the choreography even if his mind had forgotten the music.
"Your coffee," the waitress interrupted, sliding two mugs onto the table. "Black for him, cream and two sugars for you."
I stared at the mug, then at Miles. "How did you—"
"I called Beth this morning." He looked almost embarrassed, color rising in his cheeks. "I wanted to get something right."
My heart ached again, but it was a good feeling. He was trying. Even without memories, even without context, he was actively trying to know me again.
"That's very sweet," I managed.
"I prefer 'strategically romantic.'" He lifted his mug with his good hand. "I'm told I used to be smooth. I'm trying to recover that along with everything else."
"Who told you that you were smooth?"
"No one, actually. I'm hoping that if I say it enough, it'll become true."
I laughed, and the sound seemed to surprise us both. The tension that had been building dissolved into something warmer, easier.
"Tell me more," he said, leaning forward. "About that first coffee date. What did we talk about?"
So I told him. About the awkward small talk that had given way to something deeper. About the phone call from Dr. Patel that had sent him spiraling. About the way he'd pulled back, built walls, tried to protect me from something I didn't yet understand.
"I was an idiot," he said flatly.
"You were scared. There's a difference."
"A small one." He squeezed my hand. "What happened next?"
"I showed up at your door with a casserole."
"You did not."
"Beth's mother's lasagna." I grinned at his expression. "Very small town, and you’re not exactly hard to find. You didn't stand a chance."
"I believe that." His eyes crinkled. "You're extremely determined when you want something."
"I wanted you."
Our conversations always found their way back here somehow. The word ‘chemistry’ didn’t do it justice. His gaze dropped to my lips for just a second, barely a heartbeat, before snapping back to my eyes.
"Charlotte—"
"We should go to the river," I said quickly, before I could close the distance and kiss him right there in the diner. "There's more I want to show you."
The air was cold, the late autumn wind cutting through our jackets. We stood under the oak tree where we'd had our first kiss at seventeen, where he'd tried to push me away just weeks ago, where so much of our history, both remembered and forgotten, had unfolded.
"This is where it all started," I said softly. "Both times."
Miles looked around, his brow furrowed with concentration. I could see him searching, reaching for something just beyond his grasp.
"I feel like I should remember this," he murmured. "Like it's important."
"It is important."
"Tell me."
So I told him about a few weeks ago, standing in this exact spot, the cold biting through my coat, listening to him list all the reasons I should walk away.
"What did I say?" His voice was quiet.
"You told me I deserved someone whole. Someone who wouldn't forget my name."
He flinched. "That was cruel."
"You were trying to protect me."
"From what? From you?" He shook his head. "That's the dumbest thing I've ever heard, and I apparently can't even remember saying it."
"I told you I didn't want safe." I stepped closer, close enough to feel the warmth of him despite the cold air. "I told you I wanted you."
"And what did I say?"
"Nothing. You just looked at me like—" I stopped, the memory tightening my throat.
"Like what?"
"Like I was the answer to a question you'd been asking your whole life."
He was looking at me that way now. The same expression, the same intensity, as if fifteen years and three lost months and all the trauma in between had changed nothing fundamental about the way we both saw each other.
"I'm looking at you like that right now," he said quietly. "In case you were wondering."
I was definitely not crying. The wind was just making my eyes water.
"We should go to the bleachers," I managed. "One more stop."
"After this, can I take you somewhere?"
I blinked. "You want to take me somewhere?"
"I have a plan." That stubborn glint was back in his eyes. "Beth helped."
"Should I be worried that you and Beth are conspiring?"
"Probably."
The bleachers were freezing. We huddled together on the metal seats, my shoulder pressed against his good arm, sharing warmth against the late afternoon chill.
"This is where I saw you again," I said. "At the reunion. You were standing by the punch table, looking like you wanted the floor to swallow you whole."
"Sounds about right."
"I couldn't breathe." I stared out at the empty football field. "Fifteen years, and the second I saw you, it was like no time had passed at all. My heart just… stopped. And then started again, beating only for you."
He was quiet for a long moment. Then: "I wish I remembered that."
"I know."
"Not because I need the memory." He turned to look at me, his expression serious. "Because I want to know what it felt like. To see you again after all that time. To realize I'd been given a second chance I didn't deserve."
"You deserved it."
"I really didn't." His good hand found mine, fingers intertwining. "But I'm grateful anyway."
We sat in silence, letting the cold and the quiet settle around us. His thumb traced patterns on my palm, absent, unconscious, achingly familiar.
"Okay," he said finally. "Your turn is over. Now it's mine."
He led me back to the house, his parents' house, our house, the place that had become home to both of us in ways neither had expected. But instead of going inside, he guided me around to the backyard, where a thick blanket had been spread under the bare branches of the old maple tree.
"Beth dropped off supplies while we were gone," he explained, looking almost nervous. "I wanted to… I mean, I know I can't do much right now, with the arm and the..." He gestured vaguely at his head. "Everything. But I wanted to do something. For you."
On the blanket sat a wicker basket, a bottle of sparkling cider, and my breath caught, a single white rose in a glass vase.
"Beth told me about these, too." He picked up the rose, held it out to me almost shyly. "Apparently, I've been leaving them on your doorstep every morning?"
"You have." My voice came out thick.
"I'd like to keep doing that. If that's okay."
I took the rose, brought it to my nose, and breathed in its delicate scent. "It's more than okay."
He helped me settle onto the blanket, then lowered himself carefully beside me, wincing only slightly. The basket revealed crusty bread, soft cheese, sliced apples, and two real glasses that he must have brought from the kitchen.
"It's not French toast," he said, gesturing at the spread with a self-deprecating smile. "But I managed not to burn or break anything."
"The bar is literally on the floor, and you're still proud of clearing it."
"I’d like to think of it as exceeding very reasonable expectations."
We ate in comfortable silence, the weak autumn sun warming our faces despite the chill in the air. I watched him struggle one-handed with the cheese knife, refusing to help until he finally, triumphantly, managed to cut a slice.
"Victory," he announced.
"Very impressive."
"I thought so." He handed me the cheese on a piece of bread, his fingers brushing mine. The contact sent warmth flooding up my arm.
"Can I ask you something?" he said after a moment.
"Anything."
"Tell me about your marriage. The real story." He met my eyes steadily. "Not the polite version. I want to know what you went through."
I took a deep breath. This was the part I hated talking about, the part that still made me feel broken and inadequate, even now.
"Seven years," I started. "Seven years of trying to have a baby."
"Charlotte—"
"No, let me. I want to tell you." I set down my bread, suddenly not hungry. "It started with hope. We were young, in love, ready to build a family. But then months passed. Then years. Then the doctors got involved."
He was quiet, but his hand found mine on the blanket.
"Fertility treatments are brutal," I continued. "Injections that leave bruises. Hormones that turn you into a stranger. Two-week waits that feel like suspended grief, because you're just waiting to find out if this time, this time, your body finally did what it was supposed to do."
"Charlotte." His voice was rough.
"And then the test comes back negative. Again. And you fall apart. Again. And then you pick yourself up and do it all over again, because what else can you do?"
A tear slipped down my cheek. He reached over and brushed it away with his thumb, the gesture so tender it made me cry harder.
"Our marriage became a medical procedure," I said. "We stopped being partners and became two people managing a shared disappointment. And then…" I laughed, bitter with pain. "Then she showed up on my doorstep. Pregnant. Without even trying."
"The affair."
"He chose fatherhood with her over the broken thing we'd become." I met his eyes. "And for a long time, I believed him. I believed I was defective. That I wasn't enough."
Miles grabbed my hand and looked me straight in the eyes. "He was wrong."
"I know that now."