The lovers greeted their friend and followed him as he went to join this person's new fiancée.
"You look really worried," Nathan remarked, stroking his fiancée's swan neck.
The latter couldn't help but sigh.
"It's true, I am. To think that I'm so happy, that I'm about to marry you and be even happier, while this person has been in a serious accident and lost his memory, perhaps forever, with a fiancée he left some few years before the tragedy, and whose feelings are surely chaotic."
She grimaced.
"I can't help feeling sorry for him."
"It's normal, darling." her love consoled her, kissing her tenderly.
"You simply have a heart."
"Oh, my darling."
The couple kissed again before turning to Leandro and Leonie and watching them intently. Leandro, like last time, held the hands of the still upset young woman.
"How about we join them?" suggested Nathan, turning to his love, who stared at him in astonishment before smiling and nodding.
"Well, I'll ask Leandro and if it's okay, we'll go, because I can see that you'll only be appeased once you've chatted with that Leonie who will never be as beautiful as you."
"Nathan!" exclaimed Crystal, clapping him tenderly on the chest.
"What, I'm just stating a truth."
"Yes, maybe, but this person loves her and that's what matters."
When Leandro, having received Nathan's message, stared at them for a moment before relaying the message to the new fiancée, and she in turn turned to them to assess them and finally gave her consent, the couple joined them at their table and were introduced in the rules.
Inevitably, the two women assessed each other and immediately understood each other's strengths and weaknesses. Two women who loved the same man, one representing his past, the other his present and no doubt his future.
Nature was like that.
She really was beautiful, Crystal recognized, not the classic, fascinating beauty Crystal possessed, but the kind that binds men and forces them to take the young woman seriously, to respect her and to see far into the future with her. Tonight she wore skin-tight jeans embossed with a sequin motif, a sleeveless blouse that showed off the slimness of her arms and waist, and she had stressed her long, jet-black hair to the side.
Exchanges of banality quickly over, we got down to business.
"So it's you," Leonie argued with a bitter smile. "The said Crystal, the one this person loved so much."
"I loved him too." replied said Crystal with a shrug.
"But I heard you got over your breakup a lot faster than he did." she added, glancing eloquently at Nathan, sitting deceptively impassive next to his fiancée.
"It wasn't a contest, it's just that we weren't meant to be together. And I'm glad we weren't. How is he Leonie?" asked Crystal in a gentle voice.
Leonie studied her with her brilliant midnight-blue eyes before replying.
"He's fine, at least physically. But the mind..."
The young woman paused as if struggling to reveal what was really bothering her.
"Yes?" Nathan's fiancée encouraged her.
The pretty face of this person's new love grew frighteningly taut.
"I feel like I'm dealing with a totally different person."
"Maybe..." began Nathan, but Leonie interrupted him.
"I know, that's what I said to myself at first too, maybe it's because of the accident, the memory loss, the long period of separation, that everything will come back to normal one day, but you'd have to pass the time, go very slowly...I know all that. But it doesn't work. I always have this strange feeling that I'm in front of a being totally foreign to the one who was before."
"Before the accident?" inquired Crystal, "or before the operation?"
Leonie looked up at Nathan's fiancée again, and this time didn't reply.
"Perhaps you'd like to go and see him? Tomorrow," she clarified, since visiting hours were over for the day.
Crystal consulted Nathan, who after a legitimate hesitation nodded in acceptance.
Crystal thought that during this evening, she would have nothing more to learn, nothing to be surprised about, but this was not the case. She was stunned to learn from Leandro himself that, in fact, it had been almost five years since he'd seen this person again, since the moment he'd separated from Leonie. It had taken that accident for them to see each other again, and even then, it was almost the same, since he hadn't even recognized her. He hadn't recognized his long-lost friend, and although the situation was anything but ordinary and as forgiving as it could be, the bar owner was deeply hurt by it, because he really did love his friend, he loved this person.
So the next day, Crystal and Nathan found themselves at the hospital where this person had been admitted, and then at his door. Nathan wanted to knock, but Crystal stopped him. They looked at each other and, as always, her love was understanding. After all, they hadn't seen each other for almost seven years. The young woman needed to take a few deep breaths before she could finally nod.
Nathan knocked, Leonie answered, and the couple entered.
The moment Crystal crossed the threshold, for the next few seconds she was conscious of only one thing: him.
He was sitting by the window, gazing vaguely at the outside, and only turned around when Leonie called out to him, so he turned to face his new visitors. He was as handsome as she remembered, if not more so, and yet she realized at first glance that her fiancée was right. Crystal immediately had the impression, the conviction even, that she was dealing with a person totally different from the one she had known, the one she had loved with all her being.
Yet the rest was there, the slim body, less muscular no doubt because of the accident, the black hair whose strands touched his shoulder, the southern iron-grey eyes, so wonderfully grey...
"Hello Nicky." Nicky, a simple abbreviation of his real name Nicholas Raven Specter. "How are you?"
"Fine. Forgive me, I don't recognize you, but I assume you know who I am."
She nodded eloquently.
"Sorry," he repeated. "I forgot you."
The voice was the same too, but why was it so different, Crystal thought. Then in an incredible illumination, and so delivering, she understood. She was free of him. It wasn't this person who was different despite the horror that had befallen him, but it was her. It would never be the same again.
It was still Nicky, but it was no longer her Nicky. Never again.
She gave him a radiant smile that surprised him and made him frown, before turning to Nathan and revealing the truth in her face and eyes. Nathan couldn't help but kiss her.
"Please," Leonie stopped them. "You're in Nicky's room.
"Yes, excuse us."
"It's nothing." laughed Nicky briefly. "You love each other, it's natural. So." he continued as he rose to join his bed. "Tell me about yourself. How did we meet?"
"We dated," Crystal admitted, laughing in turn, "but that was a very long time ago, and it didn't last either."
"An interesting story. And, we've been friends ever since!"