CHAPTER FOURTEEN:The Way You Looked At Me Then

Elianah

She hadn't told anyone, not even Isaiah, but she was hearing things.

Not out loud.

Not exactly.

More like inside, between thoughts — soft echoes that didn't belong to this life.

Today in class, she looked out the window and saw a swing hanging from an old oak tree.

And for one moment, she remembered pushing someone on it.

Laughter.

Warm fingers.

A promise.

She blinked — and the tree was just a tree.

But the ache stayed.

That evening, she found Isaiah waiting near her locker. He didn't speak — just handed her a folded page from his sketchbook.

It was her again.

The girl in the dream.

In the ballroom.

Wearing a silver necklace that she had never owned — but somehow missed.

> "I don't know how I drew it," he said.

> "I don't know how I remember it," she replied.

They stood in silence, breathing in a moment they hadn't lived in this life… but had never really left.

---

Isaiah

Being near her calmed him. But it also terrified him.

Because every time Elianah looked at him with those eyes — full of recognition she couldn't name — he felt like he owed her something.

Something massive.

A truth.

A memory.

A life.

They sat together by the art building wall, watching shadows stretch across the ground.

> "Do you ever feel like we're on borrowed time?" he asked.

Elianah tilted her head.

> "I think we've had time stolen from us," she said.

"Now it's just trying to come back."

He looked at her then — really looked — and something unspoken passed between them again.

The kind of look people wrote poems about.

The kind of look that didn't belong to teenagers.

The kind of look that remembered centuries.

---

Cassia

She stared at the mirror, holding the velvet pouch in her palm like it was breathing.

> "They're waking up too quickly," she said to her reflection.

Her voice cracked.

This wasn't going how it was supposed to.

Elianah was remembering him too soon.

Isaiah was choosing her too easily.

She took a breath and gritted her teeth.

> "I'll remind them of what they forgot. Of how it really ended."

And this time, she wouldn't just try to rewrite the story.

She would burn the page entirely.

---

Narrator

There are moments when love is quiet.

Not grand. Not loud.

Just two people, sitting under a sky that has seen them before.

But the past has no patience.

And fate doesn't wait for comfort.

Elianah and Isaiah were falling again.

But what neither of them knew…

was that this life wasn't asking if they were ready.

It was asking what they were willing to lose — this time.