The ride back from the café was wrapped in silence.
Eliana sat with her arms crossed, eyes fixed on the road ahead. The taste of lemon tart still lingered on her tongue, but the sweetness had soured in her mind.
She didn't speak. Didn't glance his way. Her body, stiff and angled away, said everything she refused to say aloud.
Damon noticed. Of course, he did.
He flicked a glance at her from the driver's seat, his fingers tightening slightly around the steering wheel. "You've gone quiet."
She didn't respond.
He waited.
"Eliana?" His voice was lower now, tinged with concern.
Still, she said nothing.
"Did something happen?" he pressed. "Was it something I said?"
Her head turned, slowly. "Does everything have to be about you?"
He blinked. "I—what?"
"Maybe I'm just tired," she snapped. "Maybe I just don't feel like making conversation after spending the whole day being pushed and pulled in directions I didn't ask for."
Damon's jaw clenched. "I wasn't pushing you. I thought… I thought getting out might help."
"Help what?" she shot back. "Help me remember a life I'm not sure I want? Help me fall into a version of myself that fits your story better than the truth?"
The tires hummed against the asphalt as silence swallowed the space between them again.
Then Damon said, quietly, "That's not fair."
"Neither is this," she muttered, turning her face toward the window. "None of this is."
For a moment, all she could hear was the wind against the car. Then his voice came again—measured, but edged.
"You agreed to come."
"I did," she admitted. "And maybe that was stupid. But every time I start to feel something, you show up with some perfectly timed memory or favorite pastry or piece of jewelry—and I don't know if I'm feeling the truth or what you want me to feel."
"That's not what I'm doing," Damon said, his voice tightening.
"Isn't it?"
He didn't answer.
Her heart pounded. She hadn't meant to lash out so sharply, but the confusion and tension inside her had been building like steam in a sealed kettle. And Damon—Damon with his calm voice and haunted eyes—was the perfect target. Because he was the one thing she couldn't read.
When they finally reached the estate, he parked the car slowly, carefully, like he was buying time.
She didn't wait for him to open her door.
She stepped out, headed for the house without a word.
"Eliana," he called after her.
She paused on the front steps, back still turned. Her shoulders were stiff, but her voice was calm when she spoke.
"You said you were mine. But you never said if I was yours."
Then she went inside.
---
The hallway was dim, lit only by the late afternoon sun filtering through the tall windows. Eliana didn't stop walking until she reached her room. Her sanctuary. Her prison.
She closed the door and leaned against it, letting her breath shudder out.
She hated how her body still buzzed with the memory of his voice. How her chest still tightened at the way he'd looked at her across the café table. Like she was something delicate. Precious.
But how could she trust it?
She paced to the mirror and stared at the pendant around her neck.
A crescent moon.
A tiny star.
A gift she didn't remember asking for, from a man she didn't remember loving.
"Why do I feel like I'm falling for you," she whispered, "when I don't even know if you're real?"
She didn't wait for an answer. There never was one.
---
Later that evening, the knock on her door came soft and hesitant.
She almost didn't answer.
Almost.
But curiosity was a louder whisper than pride.
She opened the door a crack.
Damon stood there, no suit jacket this time—just a soft charcoal shirt with the sleeves rolled to his elbows. His hair was slightly tousled, and his expression unreadable.
"I wanted to say I'm sorry," he began.
She didn't respond. Just opened the door wider and stepped aside.
He walked in, slowly, as if waiting for her to change her mind.
"I wasn't trying to manipulate you," he said. "The café… the necklace… the things I remember about you—I just thought they might help. I didn't mean to push."
Eliana folded her arms. "Maybe I don't want help. Maybe I want honesty."
He looked at her, then away. "I've been trying to give you that."
"Trying isn't doing."
That struck something. He flinched, just barely, but she saw it.
For a moment, neither of them spoke.
Then Damon crossed to the window, placing a hand on the glass. The dying light turned his profile to shadow.
"You asked me once," he said slowly, "if I loved you."
Eliana's breath hitched.
"I didn't answer properly," he went on. "Because I didn't know. Not really. You were always… difficult. Guarded. But brilliant. And I think… I think I'm only realizing now that I was falling for you when I lost you."
She didn't move.
Didn't dare.
Damon turned to face her. "And now? I don't know what this is between us. What's real. What's memory. But I know how I feel when you walk into a room. And it scares the hell out of me."
Eliana stared at him, heart thudding.
She wanted to believe him.
She didn't.
And that contradiction burned through her like fire and ice.
"I don't want you to say things just because you think they'll bring me back," she whispered.
"I'm saying them because I can't keep them in anymore."
Silence.
She stepped closer—just a foot.
"Then tell me something you're afraid I'll hate you for."
Damon's eyes flickered.
She saw it—the hesitation. The retreat.
And that, more than anything, was her answer.
"Exactly," she said, turning away. "You want me to trust you, but you won't bleed for it."
"Eliana—"
"No," she said, voice tight. "I'm done trying to decipher which parts of you are real and which are just rehearsed."
She moved past him toward the door.
But before she could leave, he said quietly, "There are things I haven't told you. Not because I'm hiding them. But because I don't know how to tell you without losing you."
She paused.
Turned.
"I can't lose something I never truly had," she said.
And then she walked out.
---
Eliana didn't sleep that night.
She lay in bed with the necklace still on, one hand pressed over it like it could hold her together.
Images flickered through her mind—Damon's voice, his touch on the small of her back as he led her into the café, the way he'd looked at her like she was a riddle he'd never solve.
She hated that she felt anything at all.
She hated that it felt like the truth might destroy her either way.
Was Damon lying?
Or was he just broken?
And if he was broken…
Why did she feel like she wanted to fix him?