The temperate breeze sent a shiver down my spine as it hit my back, snaking through my hair and announcing its presence. With it came the earthly spice that always lingered after a good storm, the mellowed smell oddly fitting for my current location.

I lifted my chin, peering up at the golden skyline, and letting its warmth wash over me. Despite the gray clouds, there was no denying that it was a beautiful day. Yet, I just felt hollow inside. Numb, in a way I hadn't felt before.

Was it too much for me to feel as if I had been the one who had given up on?

And was it wrong for me to resent myself for forgetting something that was supposed to be so special?

Something that was voiced in all the pictures on my phone, and all the momentos laid around my apartment.

It was clear from all the sympathetic looks thrown my way that this wasn't all a dream. That Elijah and I had something strong. And I couldn't remember.

Even when I now remembered everything else.

Everyone around me had told me that the guilt wasn't mine to feel, but I couldn't help it. They could say what they might, but this situation was my doing. Even if it hadn't been purposeful.

With a sigh, I kneeled, bringing my gaze away from the sky, and glancing down at the ground ahead of me. Yellow flowers sat at the foot of the headstone, signaling that someone else had been here recently. I took little to know that it had been my mom.

Nick Harper. Beloved father, husband, and son.

The intricately engraved words didn't serve enough justice in describing the person my father had really been. People said that words held power. Yet there they were, not even coming close to quantifying the impact he left behind.

Nothing ever would.

With a deep sigh, I placed the diligently wrapped bunch of sunflowers that I had also brought on the ground. Seeing them only left sadness where there should have been none. They had always been my dad's favorite. When I was younger, he would always marvel at the fact that whenever the sun wasn't out, sunflowers would face each other. As if finding the light in each other, when it was nowhere else to be found.

That is what my dad was for me. My light in the darkness.

"Hey, dad." I smiled through the tears, sucking in a ragged breath. "I wish you were here right now because I could really use some guidance." A mirthless laugh fell from my mouth, and I shook my head. "Gosh, I miss you so much. Mom does too."

Placing my head in my hands, I bit my lip, not saying anything else. There was so much to be said, yet I didn't know where to start. I didn't know how to get it all out when all I felt was pain.

The time passed slowly, with me being so caught up in my own thoughts that I didn't notice the setting of the sun. But when my tears had dried, and I lifted my head, the sky's fluorescence had indeed darkened. There was still some light left, but I knew it would be soon fleeting.

Deciding that it was probably time to go, I stood, gathering the jacket I had shed. With one last look at my dad's burial place.

"I love you."

I turned, heading, towards the parking lot, the pressure that I had come to relieve still weighing heavy on my chest. A gasp escaped my mouth when my foot snagged on a rock, but I caught myself just in time. I took a breath, shaking my head looking forward again.

But I stilled not a second later, my heart leaping to my throat. Frozen, I pressed my lips together, taking in the figure that stood not too far off. For a minute I couldn't tell if my eyes were playing tricks and I wasn't just mistaking things.

I blinked. He was still there.

Like an idiot, I just stood unmoving, my heart beating wildly as my mind went blank. It was as if all of my limbs had forgotten that I was the one that commanded them, as surprise ran its course and rendered me immobile.

Like every other time that I saw him, I didn't know how to feel. I wasn't sure if I should have felt happy for the way my heart reacted as if it remembered the memories that my brain did not? Or should I have felt sad because he hadn't shown up to the diner? But then maybe I should have been relieved that he was standing in front of me now.

Either way, seeing him was like an omen of pain. Because I knew that there was a good chance he was there to decline my offer. That he hadn't shown up at the diner because he had given up on me.

I watched as he smiled faintly, taking a step closer. The t-shirt he wore fitted his arms, while the body of it billowed in the wind, his hair tousled handsomely. His eyes were warm, but lined with fatigue.

"Sorry, I didn't mean to sneak up on you like that."

I shook my head quickly, wrapping my arms around myself.

"No, it is okay," I assured hurriedly, fearful that I would blink and he would be gone.

Elijah nodded, his eyes shifting to the floor before flitting back to mine, and his thoughts hidden beneath a shadowed cast.

I cleared my throat, desperate to make the awkward feel of the encounter disappear. "I called you. I still have your phone number," I started hesitantly, my voice too small for my liking. "I don't know if you got the message I left but-"

"I got it."

I closed my mouth, nodding slowly, a million thoughts whirling through my mind. I inhaled slowly, trying to internalize his words and not feel hurt.

"Oh." Even though I knew the question was blunt, my growing confusion at his confession won out. "Why didn't you call back."

I asked the question before I could take it back.

Why didn't you come around?

When he didn't answer right away, I looked away, trying to figure out if I had gone about everything all wrong. If I had believed in something, that wasn't really there.

The same sentiment that had been nagging at the back of my mind resurfaced.

If we had really been in love as everyone had said, then why hadn't he called or reached out?

"When you didn't show I figured you hadn't received it. Or maybe you didn't want to," I rambled, not able to stop myself as his jaw set. "Either way, I would have been okay if you told me."

The gold in his eyes dimmed as I bit my lip, unsure as to if I should just leave. I hoped he would correct my words and give me a reason for why he didn't come. But he didn't.

"Elijah?" I took a step forward, despite my reservations, swallowing back the lump in my throat. "Maybe I don't know you now, but if you want this, then I am willing to try." Our eyes remained fastened, and for a minute I believed I had hit the treasure chest buried at the bottom of the pit. "But you have to want this too."

I stood resolute, waiting for him to say something. When he looked away, opening his mouth only to close it, warmth unpleasantly flooded my veins.

I took a deep breath, urging all of my desperation not to fester even more. But despite the fact that I really did want to try and remember what had been between us, I would not walk through fire for this. Even if everything in me wanted to. I had been through enough.

"I think I am going to just go." Despite my words, I had barely taken a few steps past him when my frustration got the best of me. I spun around, pausing momentarily to see that he had started after me. He stopped when I opened my mouth.

"Is there something you wanted to tell me?" I shook my head. "A reason why you came? Forgive me if I am being blunt, I am just confused."

"If I'm being honest with you, I don't know. I shouldn't be. But I am."

He grimaced, shoving his hands into the pockets of his jeans before tucking them underneath his arms. The words were like a slap in the face because after all I had been through and all the effort I had put in.

"You don't know?" I repeated, crossing my arms in front of me. I waited for him to give me something else's.

I knew that I needed to calm down, but I felt as if I deserved something more. I didn't need uncertainty. I needed him to reassure me I was still what he wanted, and that I wasn't searching in vain for something that wasn't there.

Elijah swallowed, running a hand through his hair. There was confliction in his shoulders, and tension in his posture, but my anger had heightened to a point where it had all almost gone unnoticed.

"No, I am the one who doesn't know," I stated, my mind whirling. "Yet I am also the only one trying here. Everyone said that what we had was great, but I haven't seen you at all."

"I know, and I'm sorry. Believe me on that. But..." Elijah shook his head again as he trailed off. He looked off to the side, his jaw set.

"But what?" I asked, a little softer.

His gaze landed on me, and I sucked in a breath at the melancholy potency in his eyes. It was a look that should never be in anyone's eyes.

"But this hasn't been easy for me either. I shouldn't even be here."

"Why not?" I asked, stepping closer, only to pause when he took a step back. "Is there a reason you haven't come around?"

Elijah shook his head, and his jaw tightened as he trained a hard stare at the floor. "Forget I said that," he said in a low voice. "I'm sorry if I bothered you."

I narrowed my eyes in confusion. None of this made sense. I scuffed my shoe across the floor, narrowing my eyes to myself. Obviously, there was something that he wanted to say that he wasn't saying and I couldn't figure out why.

How had he even known I was here?

"You are not bothering me, I just would like to know if you still want to give what we had another try." I paused, my next words getting stuck in my throat briefly before I forced them out. "I want to know if you still love me enough to let me remember why I fell in love with you."

There was the question out in the open.

I was bearing my heart, along with emotions that didn't even make sense to me.

Was he going to do the same?

His eyes met mine, the silence of the world deafening, almost as if the universe was anticipating his answer right along with me.

I knew about the link between our car crashes, so I understood if that was the source of his hesitance. But despite knowing that he had lost his brother and me, my father, there was something in me that told me all wasn't lost. It was in his face, back at the hospital. It was in the eyes of everyone who had something to say about what they saw when Elijah and I were together.

So what I needed to know was if he wanted to try. If he would meet me halfway.

I couldn't do this on my own.

"I need to know how to move forward. Every time I think of you, there is a part of me that hurts," I said truthfully. "And I don't know why." It was painful to breathe. "I want that pain to go away. Either you are going to help me, or I am going to have to figure it out on my own."

It felt as if forever passed, and the minutes were as if days as I stood there. I watched as the wind ripped through his hair, rustling through his clothes. I knew it was doing the same to me, but I barely noticed the chill that the breeze brought on. Instead, I noted the way I was squeezing my hands together, my nails biting into my palms.

Nothing.

I nodded, as the dread that had grown, bloomed into disappointment in response to his silent answer. Logically, I shouldn't have been feeling any attachment to him. Or sadness for that matter. But the world had proven to be everything but logical over the past years. The hollow ache in my heart only solidified that fact.

I knew we had to have been serious. My heart remembered it, even if my mind didn't. But it didn't matter, because he obviously didn't love me enough to fight through what we were going through.

I pivoted on my heels, ready to just get out of there. I would not waste my time on someone who didn't want me anymore.

"Wait... please."

Against my better judgment, my pace faltered. Leaves crunched from behind me, and I sucked in a breath at the feel of a hand on mine. The single touch was like a surge of hope. Hope that I wasn't absolutely crazy to react this strongly to someone I didn't even know.

"What do I need to do to take away your pain?"

His words left me more confused.

One minute they were telling me to go, and the next....they were urging me to stay.

I turned, searching his eyes, and my heart aching at the affliction. Even though my movement had put us mere centimeters apart, I didn't take a step back. Even though everything in me screamed he was a stranger, something deep down knew that he wasn't.

I knew he was safe.

"Just tell me you still want me to try," I breathed. "Tell me I am not absolutely insane for feeling this way about you."

I knew my desperation was illogical, but it all hurt too much. I felt too strongly.

"Sweetheart, I need you to understand something. I want to. You have no idea how bad I want to." His gaze remained locked with mine, and for a moment I thought I saw him waver. I thought I saw the defenses drop, and his eyes tell me I wasn't crazy. That I was right to feel this way. "But I can't do that. Rowan, I can't ask you to try...to stay."

I blinked, feeling as if someone had punched me in the gut.

"Did me forgetting really ruin us that much?" My voice was weak, but I didn't care. It voiced how I felt. Everyone had been wrong. I grasped my curls, that the wind was flinging violently in my face, and tugged them away.

Elijah shook his head, his gaze dropping to the floor as the reality of it all came crashing down on me. I was pretty sure that the entire universe laughing at my attempt to make things right.

Without a second thought, I released my hold on my hair, unclasping the necklace that lay against my collarbone. I knew that he had given it to me because Skylar had told me. I had kept it on hoping to give me normalcy when nothing was. But now it wasn't needed.

Elijah looked up when I held it out, and I glanced away. Everything in me wanted for him to demand that I put it back on and tell me that he was lying.

But he didn't, and a jolt ran up my arm when his fingers touched mine. I dropped the chain into his palm, feeling as lightning had struck me down.

I couldn't do this if he wouldn't give me anything.

Wordlessly, I stepped past him, spotting my car. The pressure in my chest increased tenfold with each step that I took, but I didn't look back, desperate to just reach the parking lot.

And I would have made it if it wasn't for the hand that grasped mine, stopping my trajectory.

I glanced back, the split second that passed allowing me to see the look on Elijah's face, before he tugged me to him, catching me off guard.

A wave of something rawly familiar ran over me.

Ice skates.

My Apartment.

Him.

The visions were gone before I had time to dwell on them, my senses flooded by what was occurring at the current moment.

"Elijah-"

Warm lips pressed to mine, surrounding me in a blanket of warmth and familiarity that caused my chest to squeeze. I froze, taken aback before an instinct-like urge overtook my mind. My thoughts fled, the feel of his lips overpowering my rationality. They took over my thoughts, consolidating everything I had been feeling since I had seen him last in the hospital.

Tell me you still want me.

Tell me I'm not insane for wanting this.

I gripped his shirt in my hands, tugging him closer as his lips parted, and I followed his lead willingly. Warmth rolled through me as our mouths moved together as if a matched set, fitting together perfectly and everything else around us falling away.

At that moment, nothing else mattered.

While my brain screamed at the fact that I was kissing a stranger, the rushed pounding of my heart, and the way my body answered immediately to his touch, told me otherwise. He wrapped him around my waist, pulling me close, and I brought mine around his neck gripping his hair.

The kiss felt so wrong, in the same way, it felt so right. His touch was so foreign, yet so familiar.

Kissing near a cemetery.

It was dark. It was haunting. It was desperate.

Elijah shifted, and his hand snaked through my hair, cradling my head as our breaths mingled.

"Rowan."

And just like that, my sense came back. I jerked back, ripping myself from his arms. I breathed out, bringing my hand to my lips, still able to feel his on mine despite the loss of contact.

It became too much.

The tears that I had been holding back before surfaced as I shook my head in disbelief in frustration.

I hated that the kiss had felt so right when just moments before he had given me absolutely nothing. I wasn't here for the push and pull mind games, no matter how much we were supposed to be in love. No matter how much I knew that there was a time when I must have loved him.

I took a step back at the same time Elijah took a step forward, and I held up a finger. He stopped immediately.

Kiss me again.

"You don't get to do that," I breathed, my face growing hot as the tears fell, my mind warring with my heart. "I shouldn't have allowed that." I wouldn't have believed myself if my own words were directed at me.

"I am so sorry. I don't know why I did that." He raked a hand through his hair, the vein in his jaw popping out before he shook his head. "This is what I meant when I said I wasn't supposed to be here. I can't seem to stop hurting you."

Why did he keep saying that?

The kiss had caused me everything but pain. But as much as I wanted to reach for him again, to let him make me remember through his touch, I stood my ground, wrapping my arms around me.

"You didn't hurt me." It was the truth. "Is that why you didn't reach out or answer my calls or text? Because you think you are hurting me?" A realization crossed my mind. "Is it about the car crash because-"

"I know," he interrupted, cutting me off. "But it isn't that simple."

"And why not? Please tell me why it wouldn't work, because I can't remember," I pleaded, my voice cracking. "Was what we had not invincible enough? If I told you I wanted to make it work when we first found out, then why do you think it wouldn't have?"

I felt my phone vibrate in my back pocket, but I ignored it, desperation pooling off of me as I awaited his response.

"Because you have already been through so much. I don't want to hurt you anymore-"

"You haven't hurt me-"

"And there is no guarantee that you will even remember me," he finished, his voice shaking. Dejected, my hands fell limply to my sides as I internalized what he was saying. "I don't want you to waste your time on me when you could be out living your life. You deserve to be making fresh memories, not racking your brain to conjure up those that have passed."

I shook my head, my mind falling back to the visions that had crossed my head right before he had kissed me.

"We went ice skating," I blurted before I could even think, the words falling as if a plea.

Elijah's body went rigid. "What?"

"We went ice skating, didn't we?" I shook my head. "I know it is small, but that counts for something. You just grabbed me and I remembered something. I think-"

"Baby..."

"It was you wasn't it?"

He just stared at me, his eyes wide and his chest rising and falling heavily. Something told me that it wasn't enough.