He Mourns Me, I Don’t Know Myself

Chapter 4: Tell Me Your Name

The confirmation hangs in the air, heavy and irrefutable. Yes.

I look at him. I look at the man sitting beside me on the balcony, nursing a cup of tea, carrying a grief so profound it seems to warp the air around him. I am the woman in the photograph. I am the woman laughing on the beach, the woman whose waist he was holding so securely.

I look down at my translucent hands. I don't feel like her. I feel like an echo of her.

But I am here, and he is here, and the silence between us is suffocating. I can't keep wandering around this apartment like a stray cat, waiting for the pieces of my mind to stitch themselves back together. I need to pull the thread. I need to unravel whatever knot is tying us together in this quiet, tragic room.

"Tell me," I say.

My voice sounds stronger this time. Firmer. He doesn't look at me. He keeps his gaze stubbornly fixed on the concrete ledge of the balcony.

"Tell me who you are," I demand gently. "And tell me who I am."

Ronan slowly lowers his mug to his lap. His shoulders rise and fall with a deep, shuddering breath. For a moment, he looks like a man preparing to step up to an executioner's block. The pain on his face is so raw, so violently visible, that I almost take the question back. Almost.

He turns his head, just slightly, not quite meeting my eyes, but looking in my general direction.

"Seraphina," he says.

The word drops from his lips like a heavy stone. He stops speaking immediately, pressing his lips together as if the mere act of saying the name has drained him of all his strength. His throat bobs as he swallows hard.

Seraphina.

I let the name roll around in my mind. Seraphina. It doesn't trigger a montage of memories. There are no sudden flashbacks of birthday cakes or high school graduations. But it fits. It slips into the empty space in my chest perfectly. It is the shape of me.

"Seraphina," I repeat softly, tasting the syllables. "Seraphina. Okay."

I look at him, waiting. "And you?"

He grips the mug so hard his hands begin to shake. The tendons in his neck pull tight. He closes his eyes, bracing himself.

"My name is Ronan," he says, his voice cracking on the second syllable.

Ronan.

The moment he says it, a violent jolt shoots through me. It's not a memory—I don't see his face in a crowd, I don't remember him saying it to me before. It's a physical reaction. My heart gives a sharp, painful thump against my ribs. The name Ronan feels like a key turning in a rusted lock. It feels heavy, familiar, and incredibly sad. It is a name I know I have spoken a thousand times, whispered in the dark, shouted in joy, cried into a shoulder.

"Ronan," I whisper.

He flinches. The sound of his name in my mouth makes him recoil slightly, his breath hitching.

"Why won't you look at me?" I ask.

The realization hits me suddenly. Ever since I "woke up," he hasn't held my gaze for more than a fleeting second. When he found me in the hallway yesterday, he stared in shock, but since then, his eyes have constantly darted away. He looks at the floor, he looks at the wall, he looks at the city skyline. He looks anywhere but directly into my eyes.

"Ronan," I say again, leaning forward. "Look at me."

He shakes his head, a tight, jerky movement. "Don't."

"Why?" I press, feeling a strange surge of desperation. I don't know why it matters so much, but it does. "If I'm Seraphina, and you're Ronan, and we lived here... why can't you look at me?"

"Because," he gasps out, the word tearing from his throat. He finally turns his head and forces himself to look directly into my face.

His eyes are bloodshot, swimming with unshed tears. The grief in them is so overwhelming, so absolute, that it feels like a physical wave crashing over me. He looks at me for one second. Two seconds. Three.

And then, just as quickly, he violently rips his gaze away, staring down at his knees. A single tear escapes, cutting a wet track down his cheek.

"Because," he whispers, his voice breaking into pieces, "every time I look at you, I realize you don't know who I am. And I don't think I can survive that twice."

He stands up abruptly, leaving the mug on the table. He walks back into the apartment, sliding the glass door shut behind him, leaving me alone on the balcony with a name, a transparent hand, and a breaking heart.