Avery walked faster than she ever had in her life.
Her heart pounded beneath her ribs as if it were trying to outrun her confusion, her fear, and the unexplainable ache that had taken root the moment Ethan said her name—her real one, her full one—without hesitation.
And that final sentence…
Sometimes the soul remembers what the mind forgets.
It echoed, looping in her head like an old melody she had once known by heart.
Avery pressed a hand to her chest as she reached the end of the block, trying to steady her breath. She didn't know whether she wanted to scream or cry or run back to demand answers from him.
No.
She wasn't going back.
She didn't even know him. He was a stranger. A stranger who talked like he had lived inside her life long before she existed.
She turned the corner—only to stop abruptly.
A black car slowed beside her.
Her spine stiffened, panic sparking, until the tinted window slid down smoothly.
A familiar voice spoke.
"Avery."
Ethan.
She stepped back instantly. "No. Don't—don't follow me. Seriously."
"I'm not following you."
He rested one arm on the window frame, expression impossibly calm.
"You left your phone at the café."
Avery blinked.
Then blinked again.
"My—what?"
He held it up. Her phone.
Her actual phone.
He wasn't lying.
Heat rushed to her cheeks in embarrassment, but she forced herself to stay guarded. "You could've left it with the waitress."
"I could have."
His gaze softened.
"But I wanted to make sure you got it back safely."
There it was again.
That gentleness she didn't know how to react to.
"Just… drop it on the sidewalk," she muttered. "I'll pick it up."
Ethan's lips twitched, not quite a smile.
"I'm not tossing your phone onto the ground."
"It's fine, I have a case."
He shook his head once. "Come here, Avery."
The way he said her name—steady, warm, with a kind of careful familiarity—made something deep inside her tighten.
But she forced herself to stay logical.
Grounded.
Skeptical.
She took two steps forward but kept her distance from the car door, reaching out her hand.
Ethan extended the phone toward her.
Just as her fingers brushed the edge of the device, his voice dropped—soft, low, and devastatingly certain.
"You always forget your things when you're overwhelmed."
Her breath stilled.
The street noise faded.
The cold breeze.
The hum of the city around them.
All she heard was that single, simple sentence.
A sentence no stranger should know.
Avery snatched the phone quickly, clutching it to her chest. "Stop saying things like that."
His brows drew together. "Things like what?"
"Things that sound like you've known me my whole life."
He didn't speak.
And that silence was worse than any answer.
Her pulse hammered as she stepped back from the car. "I don't know what you want from me, but whatever it is, you're not getting it. So please—just leave me alone."
Ethan's jaw tightened, not in anger, but restraint.
A kind of discipline that looked practiced. Long-standing. Painful.
"You think I'm after something," he said quietly. "I'm not."
"Then what is all this?"
He hesitated.
Then—
"It's… complicated."
"That's not an explanation."
"It's the truth," he said.
She shook her head.
"No. No more half-answers. No more riddles. If you have something to say, say it."
Ethan's grip on the steering wheel tightened—white-knuckled, controlled.
"You won't believe me," he said softly.
"You haven't even tried."
He looked at her for a long moment through the open car window.
His eyes were dark, steady, and filled with something too old, too heavy for a man his age.
"I knew you before you ever met me," he said finally.
Avery's breath froze.
"And not in the way you think," he added.
Her throat worked. "Then in what way?"
Ethan glanced down briefly, as if searching for the least terrifying version of the truth.
"When I saw you today," he admitted, "it felt like remembering… not discovering."
A shiver ran through her.
"That's not possible," she whispered.
"I know."
"And you sound insane."
"I know that, too."
"Then why say it?"
His gaze lifted, locking onto hers with a quiet intensity that felt like gravity.
"Because lying to you would feel worse."
Avery took another step back, suddenly aware that her legs were trembling.
She needed distance.
She needed air.
She needed space from whatever this was—whatever he was.
"I'm going home," she said. "Don't follow me."
Ethan didn't argue.
Didn't plead.
Didn't try to step out of the car.
He simply nodded once, slowly.
As if he knew better than to push further.
But as he drove away—quietly, carefully, without a single word more—Avery couldn't stop watching his car shrink into the distance.
Couldn't stop feeling the ache he left behind.
Couldn't stop hearing the sentence that had shaken her to her core.
You always forget your things when you're overwhelmed.
How could he possibly know that?
Avery finally reached her small apartment twenty minutes later, hands still trembling as she unlocked the door.
She stepped inside, set her phone on the counter, and leaned both palms against the cool surface, breathing hard.
She felt strange.
Untethered.
As if she were standing on the edge of a memory she couldn't access.
Her eyes lifted reluctantly toward the mirror above the entry table.
Her reflection stared back—wide-eyed, shaken, lost.
"Who are you?" she whispered to herself.
She didn't mean Ethan.
She meant herself.
Because for the first time in her life, Avery felt like she wasn't living the beginning of a story—
She was walking into the middle of one she didn't remember writing.
Across the city, Ethan parked his car in the underground garage of a towering, glass-walled building.
His building.
His entire empire.
He stepped out, walked through the private elevator, and pressed the button for the top floor.
As the elevator ascended, his reflection stared back at him—calm on the outside, devastated on the inside.
He whispered to no one.
"She's alive."
The elevator dinged.
"And she doesn't know me."
His hand curled slowly.
"But she will."
He exhaled shakily, pressing his thumb against the pulse point of his wrist—a habit he had developed over years of waiting.
"Avery," he murmured.
"I found you too early again… but I won't lose you this time."
The elevator opened into his penthouse office, windows overlooking the entire city.
He stood there, hands behind his back, shoulders tense.
"We'll begin again," he whispered to the empty room.
"Even if you don't remember how many times I've loved you before."
And for the first time in a long, long time—
He allowed himself to hope.