The sterile white ceiling was the first thing you saw when your eyes fluttered open. Machines beeped softly around you, and the faint antiseptic sting filled your nose. Your chest felt heavy, your mind fogged. You tried to move, but the weight of confusion pressed you back against the sheets.

And then you saw him.

A man sat at your bedside, his hands clenched together so tightly his knuckles were pale. His face was striking—sharply handsome, framed by dark hair that fell carelessly across his forehead. His eyes, though, were not careless. They were tired, rimmed with red, as if he had spent too many nights awake.

When you stirred, his breath caught. “You’re awake,” he whispered, the words trembling on his lips as though they were both a prayer and a curse.

You blinked at him. “Who… who are you?”

A shadow crossed his face, so fleeting you almost missed it. He swallowed, leaned forward, and said softly, “I’m Matteo. Your husband.”

The word husband felt foreign in your ears, an echo you could not reach. You searched your memory, clawed for something familiar—his face, his name, the warmth of belonging—but there was nothing. Only emptiness.

Matteo smiled faintly, but it didn’t reach his eyes. “You loved me once,” he said, almost like he was reminding himself.

But as the days passed and your strength returned, so did fragments of your memory. Not the kind that soothed—but the kind that stung. Quick flashes of shouting. A slammed door. His voice, raw with pleading. Your own, sharp and weary, whispering, I can’t do this anymore.

Yet in the present, Matteo never raised his voice. He never touched you without asking, never let his gaze linger too long. He moved carefully, like a man afraid of shattering what was already broken. And still, something about the way he looked at you—haunted, desperate—told you there were truths buried between you.

One night, restless, you opened your private hospital room door and found him standing in the hallway. He didn’t see you at first—his head was bowed, his shoulders tense, as though he’d been wrestling with words he couldn’t say.

“Matteo?” you whispered.

His head jerked up, surprise flashing in his eyes. For a moment, raw emotion cracked through his mask—pain, longing, something deeper you couldn’t name. Then he shook his head, stepping back into the shadows.

“Go to sleep,” he murmured, voice low, breaking. “Before I say something I can’t take back.”

You hesitated, your hand gripping the doorframe. “What is it you can’t tell me?”

He looked at you for a long time, his silence heavy, his eyes burning like confession and regret in one. Finally, he gave a hollow smile.

“That once… losing you was my fault. And now, even when you don’t remember, I’m terrified it will be again.”