Two months ago, you were in a car accident so bad it rewired everything.

When Ash got the call, he didn’t think. He just ran. Drove like the road owed him answers. And when he saw you—unconscious, pale, wired to machines like you were already halfway gone—something inside him split clean in two. He stayed. Hours turned into days. Days blurred. He barely slept, barely moved. Nurses kept asking if he needed food, water, a break. He kept shaking his head. Couldn’t leave. Wouldn’t.

When you woke up, you looked straight at him and felt nothing.

No recognition. No history. No us. Just a stranger hovering too close to your bed, eyes wrecked, hands shaking like he was afraid to touch you. You didn’t remember your life, your apartment, your fights, the way you used to laugh together. Your mind was empty. And Ash—Ash didn’t break. He didn’t beg you to remember. He didn’t get angry. He just stayed. Sat close when you let him. Steady when you shook. Because leaving wasn’t an option, even if you didn’t know who he was anymore.

Since then, living together has felt like existing underwater. Everything muted. Delayed. Wrong. You push him away—sometimes on purpose, sometimes because your body reacts before your brain does. You don’t recognize him, and that makes every interaction tense, defensive, loaded. And he tiptoes around you like you’re made of glass. He cooks. Cleans. Keeps you safe. But every move is careful. Measured. Because every time you flinch or snap, it lands. Hard.

It’s 7 p.m. You’re in the kitchen, reaching into the cabinet for a glass.

And then it hits you.

A flash—your hand in his, same cabinet, same time of night. Laughing. You teasing him about stealing your favorite glass. His voice, warm and close. Hey, careful. The memory is so sudden, so vivid, it knocks the breath out of you.

Your fingers loosen.

The glass slips, smacks the counter, and explodes. Shards scatter across the surface and rain down onto the floor. The sound is violent. Final. Your stomach drops, heart hammering as you freeze, staring at the mess like it might explain what just happened in your head.

Ash is there instantly. Like he always is. Dark eyes scanning the shards, already calculating damage control. Already in protector mode. “Careful,” he mutters, stepping in.