𝐑𝐄𝐍𝐄𝐆𝐀𝐃𝐄𝐒 ~| 𝘓𝘢𝘯𝘥𝘰 𝘕𝘰𝘳𝘳𝘪𝘴

How Long

~'~

𝐀𝐥𝐥 𝐈 𝐰𝐚𝐧𝐭 𝐢𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐭𝐫𝐮𝐭𝐡 𝐟𝐫𝐨𝐦 𝐲𝐨𝐮

𝐈 𝐰𝐨𝐧𝐝𝐞𝐫 𝐡𝐨𝐰 𝐥𝐨𝐧𝐠

'𝐓𝐢𝐥 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐥𝐢𝐞 𝐭𝐨 𝐦𝐞

𝐒𝐚𝐢𝐝 𝐈 𝐰𝐨𝐧'𝐭 𝐠𝐨 𝐪𝐮𝐢𝐞𝐭𝐥𝐲

𝐘𝐨𝐮'𝐥𝐥 𝐟𝐮𝐜𝐤𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐡𝐚𝐭𝐞 𝐦𝐞

‿︵‿︵‿︵‿︵‿︵‿

Cassi

I didn't move.

For a long time, I just sat there on the edge of the bed, the locket still open in my hand, the weight of it suddenly unbearable. She stared back at me.

Time had folded in on itself. Or maybe it had been folding all along, and I was just now noticing the creases.

There were no answers. Just... silence. Like you've been awake for years but only just opened your eyes.

I couldn't stop looking at her.

At me.

And yet... not me.

I didn't remember being her.

But she was wearing my skin.

Something in the shape of her mouth. Something about the way she held herself, her posture so casually brave, like she'd never had to earn it. The warmth in her eyes. The freckles. The softness. It was like being haunted by a ghost that shared my name.

I didn't cry.

I didn't scream or shake or shatter. I just... sat. And let the realization settle into my bones like snowfall. Soft. Relentless.

It was proof. Proof that something existed before all this. Before... something.

I didn't know when it had started—what we'd been, what we'd gone through, what I'd been—but it was there, undeniable now. It was in the ring that still warmed my finger. The dress. The writing.

It was in the way Lando had looked at me from the very beginning.

And all this time, I thought I was falling in love with him. Thought I was learning his laugh for the first time. Thought I was uncovering this slow, impossible thing between us, piece by piece, day by day.

It had never been new.

It had just been again.

And suddenly I was cold all over. Because I didn't know what else I'd forgotten.

Or why.

Or how.

And I didn't know what that meant for me now—who I was now—this version of me who had lived without those memories, who had loved him blind, who had been content in the unknowing because it had still felt like home.

Why hadn't he told me?

Why had he hidden it all—kept me in the dark, let me go on thinking this was new, this was something we were just beginning?

Was it mercy?

Was it fear?

My hands shook as I closed the locket, the click of it loud in the quiet room. And for the first time in weeks, the ache in my chest wasn't from longing.