The hospital room had transformed into a makeshift library. Textbooks were splayed open across the foot of the bed, and the rolling meal tray was buried under a mountain of loose-leaf paper and half-chewed pens. Ethan sat on the edge of the bed, his brow furrowed so deeply it looked painful, while Annie leaned back against her pillows, a charcoal pencil tucked behind her ear.
"It's x = 42," Ethan muttered, scribbling a final, aggressive number at the bottom of his page. "It has to be. The logic is sound, Doll, I followed the formula. I'm a man of logic."
Annie leaned over, squinting at his chicken-scratch handwriting. She let out a soft, melodic giggle that quickly bubbled into a full laugh- the kind of sound that made Ethan's heart do a backflip.
"Ethan, you multiplied by the reciprocal on the wrong side of the equation," she said, her eyes dancing with amusement. "And your logic isn't sound- it's practically a cry for help. x isn't 42. It isn't even close."
"You're judging me," Ethan accused, though his lips were twitching into a smile. "I'm over here trying to rebuild my future, and you're mocking my mathematical prowess."
"Give me the pen," she commanded, holding out her hand.
Ethan handed it over like a defeated soldier surrendering his sword. Annie pulled his notebook onto her lap. She didn't pause to look at the textbook or check the formulas. Her hand moved with a fluid, instinctive grace, crossing out his jagged lines and replacing them with elegant, correct steps.
"See?" she whispered, her voice warm. "You have to isolate the variable first. You were so busy trying to force the answer that you forgot to listen to the problem. The answer is 7."
Ethan stared at the page, then back at her. He let out a long, dramatic sigh of disbelief. "How is it that you were in a coma for ten weeks and you're still better at math than me? Your brain was literally on 'power-save mode' while I was out here struggling with reality, and you still beat me in thirty seconds."
Annie laughed again, but as the sound faded, she went still. The pen slipped from her fingers, rolling across the white sheets.
The clinical smell of the hospital vanished. Suddenly, she felt a cool, late-October breeze against her face. She wasn't in a bed, she was sitting on the cushioned bench of her bedroom window. Across the narrow alleyway, Ethan's window was shoved wide open. The night air was crisp, smelling of damp leaves and woodsmoke.
In the memory, Ethan was leaning against his windowsill, his varsity jacket tossed on his bed behind him. He was holding a physics book, looking completely lost.
"Annie, if I have to calculate the velocity of one more falling object, I'm going to become a falling object," he shouted across the gap, his grin lopsided and mischievous.
"Maybe if you stopped looking at me and started looking at the page, you'd finish faster," Annie retorted, her cheeks flushed from the cold and his gaze.
Ethan leaned further out, his green eyes locked onto hers, glowing in the moonlight. "Can't help it, babydoll. The textbook is black and white, and you're... well, you're the most interesting thing in the neighborhood. Besides, why study gravity when I've already fallen for the girl next door?"
Annie had thrown a crumpled-up piece of paper at him, laughing as he caught it with one hand. "You're cheesy, Ethan Hawthorne!"
"Cheesy but effective," he'd whispered, his voice dropping into that low, dangerous register that made her stomach flip. "I'll get the math right eventually, Annie. I just need a better reason to pass than a grade. How about this: for every problem I get right, I get five minutes of your time without a book between us?"
The memory dissolved like mist in the sun. Annie blinked, her breath coming in short, shallow hitches. She realized she was staring at Ethan, her face burning with a heat that had nothing to do with the hospital's central heating. Her cheeks were a brilliant, dusty rose.
Ethan's playful expression shifted to one of immediate concern. He leaned in, his hand hovering near her face.
"Annie? What's wrong? You're vibrating. Is it a headache? Should I call the nurse?"
Annie shook her head, her hands flying to her warm cheeks. "No, I... I just remembered something else. Something from months ago."
Ethan went still, his eyes searching hers with that raw, hopeful intensity that always made her feel seen. "Tell me."
"The windows," she whispered, a small, shy smile breaking through her embarrassment. "It was autumn. We were studying across the alley. You were complaining about physics, and you were... you were being incredibly cocky."
Ethan's eyes widened, a slow, triumphant grin spreading across his face. "What time? The 'falling object' comment? Or the part where I tried to trade math answers for a date? Or something completely different?"
"The part where you said you'd already fallen for the girl next door," Annie replied, her voice gaining a bit of its strength. "And you caught the paper I threw at you. You looked so proud of yourself."
Ethan let out a shaky, joyful breath, leaning his forehead against the edge of the meal tray.
"God, Annie. I remember that night. I spent three hours on one page just so I had an excuse to keep my window open and talk to you. I almost caught pneumonia just to hear you laugh."
He looked up at her, his expression softening into something so tender it made Annie's breath hitch. "You're starting to find the pieces, aren't you?"
"I think so," Annie said, reaching out to touch the sleeve of his jacket. "It's not everything yet. It's like... snapshots. But the snapshots all have one thing in common."
"What's that?"
"You're in all of them," she whispered. "And you're always looking at me like you're afraid I'll disappear if you blink."
Ethan took her hand, his thumb tracing the knuckles she had used to throw that crumpled paper months ago. "I was afraid. For a long time, you were the only thing that felt real in this town. And then you did disappear into that sleep, and I had to learn how to breathe in the dark."
He squeezed her hand gently. "But the snapshots are a start. We'll take as many as we can get."
Annie leaned back, the warmth in her cheeks finally settling into a comfortable glow. She looked at the Calculus packet and then at the boy who had once traded physics problems for her time.
"Well, Detective Hawthorne," she teased, "if you want to keep 'researching' those memories, you'd better finish this page. My time is very valuable, you know."
Ethan laughed, picking up the pen with renewed energy. "Yes, ma'am. One isolated variable, coming right up."
As they returned to their work, the hospital room felt less like a cage and more like that window seat from four months ago- a place where the world was quiet, the light was soft, and the only thing that mattered was the distance between them, which was getting smaller every single day.