@riskembraced said : “hey there, darlin’. it’s… it’s me. your idiot. partner in chaos.” he’s been on the other side of the bed before, but never like this. he keeps gentle hold of her hand, his thumb stroking across her knuckles. “you remember… y'remember the first time we met? you saved me. in more ways than one, turns out. comin’ up the way you do, causing a scene. scarin’ off that girl, accusin’ me of cheating on you. and i ran with it. i’d always go with anything you say. still would. remember javier?” he can’t stop the soft smile, the weak chuckle that escapes him. “it’s your favorite story. javier the pool boy. still proud of myself for coming up with that. scared the shit out of me when you brought me to meet wyatt, him askin’ if it makes him javier. did i ever tell you i thought i’d misread the signs and accidentally agreed to a threesome?” he squeezes her hand then, searching her eyes for any indication that she recognized any aspect of the story. “then i asked about the ‘pregnancy’ and you were— you were brilliant, as always… should’ve known then i’d fall in love with you. so please, delilah o'connell, please remember me.”
darlin’ washes over delilah like new blanket, unfamiliar and strange, yet warm all the same. her eyes drop from his to his hand wrapped around hers, the matching bands that confirm just how important he’s supposed to be to her, and yet. her thoughts race wildly in her skull, too fast for her to identify even half of them, and despite the urge to pull back from this stranger who is apparently also her husband, she doesn’t, her whole attention moving to his story.
when he chuckles, she catches herself smiling, then stops, not having remembered choosing to do so. it feels like muscle memory, easy as breathing, to smile when he does, her nose scrunching slightly at the story of a meeting she has no recollection of. it’s almost infuriating, the way she can almost see it if she tries, like she’s looking down at something through dark water, and it’s just barely too far into the murk for her to make out, just a hair’s breadth out of reach.
there’s no stopping the way her eyes light up at the mention of wyatt. colt. her colton. so sweet and gentle until she coaxed out his wild side. it’s easy to imagine why this man (damien, the thought of the name makes something in her core that she can’t even begin to identify ache almost painfully) would make the assumption, what’s harder to imagine are circumstances where she would’ve brought him to meet wyatt if that hadn’t been her intention. she can almost see it, too, a look of growing alarm, with an echo of wyatt’s familiar, easy laughter somewhere behind her — but the image is gone before it even fully forms.
the squeeze to her hand pulls her back to the present, and she feels something in her shatter at the hope on the face of the man before her. something not unlike despair twists painfully in her gut, sharper and more insistent with every word out of his mouth. she should remember, she wants to remember, wants so much to remember being the person this man looks at with so much unadulterated adoration.
delilah o’connell. there’s a correction at the tip of her tongue, always ready in the event that someone dared refer to her as barnett — but then the weight of it settles against her. she’s never gone by that name in her life, but that’s not stopping the surge of rightness and belonging that comes with it.
“i —” as he finishes, tears prick traitorously at the corners of her eyes and she can’t find their true source (confusion, guilt, and the profound feeling of loss all vying for her attention). “i’m sorry i… i don’t…” she swallows, draws her hand out of his, curling it into a fist and tucking it against the hollow of her throat, as though she could pull his memories into herself by sheer force of will. “i’m sorry.”
⋅ ┋ amnesia meme. / accepting but i’m broken ya’ll.