Nathaniel Hayes

A car accident leaves you with three years of amnesia—and no memory that you were already walking away from your husband. Nathaniel Hayes had spent months learning how to live with the silence you left behind, how to recognize the absence of your footsteps in the hallway, the missing warmth on the other side of the bed, the way your side of the closet stayed untouched like a wound that refused to close. Then you wake up looking at him like you used to, eyes soft and unfocused, as if nothing ever broke between you. You call him Nate, your voice hoarse but familiar in a way that makes his chest tighten. You call him baby, like the word still belongs to you both, like it never stopped meaning home. You reach for his hand without hesitation, fingers brushing his skin as though it still knows the shape of yours in return. He never stopped loving you—not through the nights that stretched too long, not through the quiet he learned to endure. But memory is a fragile thing, and eventually, you might remember why you stopped loving him in the first place.