Chapter 11 The Weight of Memory

Jonah made it to his office before the shaking started.

He closed the door. Leaned against the wood and let his knees give just enough that he had to catch himself on the desk.

"The hummingbird was always your favorite."

He shouldn't have said that. Shouldn't have let the words slip. Shouldn't have stood in that doorway watching her, bent over the specimen like she used to bend over the books in his college apartment, hair falling forward, bottom lip caught between her teeth in concentration.

Ten years. He had spent ten years building walls—building distance and a version of himself that didn’t shatter every time he thought of her.

And it had taken less than an hour in her presence to crack.

He moved to the window and pressed his forehead against the cool glass. From here, the mountains stretched into view—the same mountains they had once hiked together, same trails and overlooks where he had kissed her, believing forever was a promise they would both keep.

"Idiot," he muttered. To himself. To the mountains. To the memory of who he'd been at twenty-three.

A knock on the door made him straighten. Compose himself. Smooth down the mask.

"Come in."

Dr. Webb entered, assessment report in hand, but his eyes were too knowing. Too kind. Jonah hated it.

"Don't," he said before Webb could speak.

"Don't what?"

"Don't look at me like that. Like I'm something wounded you need to tend."

Webb set the report on the desk. Sat in the chair across from him without being invited. "How long are you going to keep this up?"

"Keep what up?"

"The ice. The formality. Calling her Ms. Blackwood like she's a stranger."

"She is a stranger," Jonah said, but the words tasted like ash. "Ten years make everyone."

"You still love her."

"I don’t—" He stopped, then started again. "What I feel doesn’t matter. She left. She made her choice. She came back knowing I was here, and now I have to—" His voice cracked, and he hated it. "I have to work with her every day. See her. Smell her perfume in the hallways. Watch her touch things in the lab like—"

He stopped. Couldn't finish.

"Like she belongs here?" Webb said quietly.

"No, she doesn't belong here." Jonah's hands curled into fists on the desk. "She gave up the right to belong here when she walked away."

"Did she? Or did circumstances—"

"I don't care about the circumstances," Jonah interrupted. "I don't care about the reasons. She left without telling me why. That's the only fact that matters."

Webb was quiet for a long moment. Then: "Have you noticed the collection?"

The subject change was deliberate. Jonah allowed it. "What about it?"

"The initials. E.B. Elias Blackwood."

Jonah's hand stilled on the report. "What?"

"Wren's great-great-grandfather. The collection is his."

The room tilted slightly. Jonah gripped the desk edge. "She didn't know."

"No. She seemed genuinely shocked."

"So someone—" His mind raced. "Someone donated her family's collection. Anonymously. Right when she was hired."

"It would appear so."

"That's not a coincidence."

"No," Webb agreed. "It's not."

Jonah stood. Paced to the window. Back to the desk. The pieces were arranging themselves in his mind, but the picture they made didn't make sense.

"Who knew?" he asked. "Who would know about the collection and about Wren and about—"

He stopped—because the answer was both obvious and impossible at the same time.

"Her mother," Webb said gently.

"Ruth." Jonah pressed his palms against his eyes. "Ruth donated it."

"Or arranged for it to be donated. Before her condition worsened."

"Why?" The question came out raw. "Why bring Wren back here? Why force us—" He couldn't finish. Couldn't say ‘together’ because they weren't together. They would never be together again.

"Perhaps," Webb said carefully, "she wanted her daughter to come home."

"Home." Jonah laughed, but the sound was bitter. "This stopped being Wren's home the day she left."

"Did it? Or did she just convince herself of that?"

Jonah turned to look at him. Really look at him. "You're defending her."

"I'm not defending anyone. I'm suggesting that sometimes people make terrible choices out of love. Out of fear. Out of thinking they're protecting someone."

"She wasn't protecting me. She was protecting herself."

"Was she?"

The question hung between them. Jonah wanted to say yes. He wanted to believe in himself and wanted the anger to stay simple, sharp, and clean—uncomplicated by the weight of possibility.

But he'd seen her face in his office. Seen the way she'd flinched when he called her Ms. Blackwood. Seeing the tears she'd tried to hide.

"I can't do this," he said finally. "I can't work with her and wonder and—" His voice dropped. "I can't survive losing her twice."

"Who says you have to lose her?"

"She left once. She'll leave again."

"Will she?"

"Her contract is six months, Marcus. Six months and then she's gone."

Webb stood. Moved toward the door. Paused with his hand on the handle. "Or six months to find out why she left. Six months to decide if the story you've been telling yourself for ten years is the true one."

"The story I've been—" Jonah's voice rose. "She left me. That's not a story. That's a fact."

"Yes. But why? Did you ever ask?"

"She didn't give me the chance."

"And when she tried to explain this morning? In your office?"

Jonah looked away. "I don't want to hear it."

"Because you're afraid."

"I'm not—"

"You're afraid that if you hear her reasons, you might understand. You might forgive. And forgiveness feels like weakness."

"It's not a weakness to protect yourself."

"No," Webb agreed. "But sometimes protection becomes a prison."

He left then, taking the report, leaving Jonah alone with his thoughts and the mountains and the memory of Wren's face when he'd mentioned the hummingbird.

Jonah sat down heavily. Pulled open the bottom drawer of his desk. The one he never opened. The one that held—

A photograph—worn at the edges, faded with time. The two of them together: her head resting on his shoulder, his arm wrapped around her waist. Both were smiling as if they had discovered the secret to happiness.

He had kept it, even after she left. Even after he had boxed away everything else that reminded him of her, this one photograph remained.

"Why?" he whispered to the image. To her face. To the past. "Why did you leave?"

The photograph didn't answer. It never did.

He put it back. Closed the drawer. Locked it.

Then he pulled up the staffing schedule on his computer and did what he'd been avoiding all morning.

Changed it.

Moved meetings. Rearranged times. Made sure that for the next six months, his path and Wren's would cross as little as possible.

It was cowardice. He knew it was cowardice.

But he also knew that seeing her every day—smelling her perfume, hearing her voice, watching her hands move with that careful precision—would break him.

And he'd worked too hard to put himself back together to let that happen.

His phone buzzed. A text from Sage: Are you okay?

He typed back: Fine.

Another buzz: Liar.

He didn't respond. Just set the phone down and stared at the schedule he'd rearranged. At the careful architecture of avoidance he'd built.

Six months.

He could survive six months.

He'd survived ten years.

What was six more months?

The lab was quiet when he passed it an hour later—he'd gone the long way to avoid it, but facilities needed a signature, and the forms were in the prep corridor. The door was open. He told himself not to look.

He looked.

Wren was at the table. Bent over the hummingbird. Her hands moved with absolute focus. She'd removed the damaged wing and was examining the bone structure with a magnifying glass.

She didn't notice him. Didn't look up. She was completely absorbed in her work.

And for just a moment—just one unguarded second—Jonah let himself remember what it felt like to watch her work. To see the passion and care she put into bringing broken things back to life.

Then she looked up.

Their eyes met across the space.

Neither spoke. Neither moved.

The moment stretched. Pulled. Held.

Then Wren's hands trembled. The forceps slipped. The tiny bone she'd been holding dropped.

"Damn it," she whispered.

The spell broke. Jonah turned and walked away before he could do something stupid. Before he could cross that threshold and ask the questions Webb had planted in his mind.

Why did you leave? Why did you come back? Why do you still look at me like you did ten years ago?

He made it back to his office. Closed the door. Locked it again.

And tried very hard not to think about the way her hands had trembled when she saw him.

Or the way he had done the same.