THE GIRL WHO REMEMBERED MY DEATH

CHAPTER 13 — THE THIRD LIFE

The next morning, Lena took me to the sea.

We drove for almost two hours without speaking. The city disappeared behind us, replaced by narrow roads, sleeping villages, and fields washed silver beneath the clouds.

When we reached the coast, the sky was pale and the ocean restless.

“This is where it happened?” I asked.

“Not exactly here,” she said. “But close.”

She led me down a stone path toward a small town built between the cliffs and the water. The houses were old, their walls faded by salt and wind. Fishing boats rocked in the harbor. A bell rang somewhere beyond the market.

“I lived here,” she said.

“In the second life?”

“In the third.”

I watched her carefully.

“Who was I?”

She smiled faintly.

“You were a musician.”

“What kind?”

“The kind who believed every song needed to hurt a little.”

“That sounds pretentious.”

“You were very pretentious.”

I laughed, but Lena only looked at the sea.

“You played piano in a small tavern near the harbor,” she continued. “Sometimes you played violin at weddings. Sometimes you wrote songs for people who had no idea what to do with them.”

“And you?”

“I sang.”

“Of course you did.”

“I was not very good at first.”

“You were?”

“You told me I was.”

“Then I was probably lying.”

“You always looked at the sky before you lied.”

The words settled between us.

I looked away.

We walked through the town until we reached a narrow street lined with shuttered shops. At the end stood a weathered building with a blue door.

“That was our home,” Lena said.

I stared at it.

There was nothing remarkable about the house. The paint was peeling. One window was broken. A rusted lantern hung beside the door.

Yet something inside me tightened.

I could almost hear music.

Not from the street.

From somewhere beneath my own skin.

“You lived here together?” I asked.

“For six years.”

“Six years?”

“The longest we ever had.”

She said it like an apology.

Inside, the house smelled of dust and damp wood. The rooms were empty, but Lena moved through them with the certainty of someone returning after a short absence.

“This was the kitchen,” she said. “You burned everything you tried to cook.”

“I still do.”

“You once set a towel on fire.”

“That sounds dangerous.”

“You said the towel had insulted you.”

I smiled.

She opened a door at the back of the house. Beyond it was a small room with a window facing the ocean.

“You wrote our song here.”

“What song?”

Lena did not answer.

She crossed to the window and placed her hand against the glass.

“It began during a storm,” she said. “You were playing the piano while I was trying to write lyrics. The rain was so loud we could barely hear each other.”

“What was it called?”

“We never gave it a name.”

“Then how did it become famous?”

“Someone heard us perform it at the harbor festival. A recording was made without our permission. Years later, it spread across the country.”

“And we became famous?”

“You did.”

“What about you?”

“I stopped singing.”

I turned toward her.

“Why?”

She kept looking at the sea.

“Because of what happened.”

The memory came to her slowly. I could see it in the way her shoulders stiffened.

“It was late autumn,” she said. “The storm arrived before anyone expected it. The waves rose above the harbor wall. Boats broke loose from their ropes.”

“And I was there.”

“You were always there when something was breaking.”

“What happened?”

“There was a child near the old pier. His father had gone into the water after a boat line snapped. The child followed him.”

I imagined the scene: dark water, screaming wind, people gathering along the shore.

“You went after him,” Lena said.

“Why?”

“Because you couldn’t stand watching someone drown.”

“Did I save him?”

“Yes.”

The relief came too quickly.

“And then?”

Lena closed her eyes.

“The current pulled you beneath the pier. I tried to reach you, but the waves kept throwing me back. By the time the fishermen dragged you out, you were gone.”

I stared at the floorboards.

“Did I die in your arms?”

“No.”

Her answer was almost inaudible.

“I held your hand. But you were already dead.”

The house seemed to grow colder.

“Did you know it was going to happen?”

“I knew storms frightened you. I knew you hated the sea when it became violent. But I didn’t know you would go into it.”

“Did you try to stop me?”

“I screamed at you.”

“Did I listen?”

“You never listened when someone was in danger.”

I looked at the window. Beyond it, the ocean moved beneath a sky crowded with clouds.

“What happened to the song?”

“It became famous after we died.”

“After we died?”

“You died first. I lived another thirty years.”

“And you kept singing?”

“Once.”

“Only once?”

“At a concert in the capital. They asked me to perform our song. I tried.”

She turned toward me.

“I couldn’t finish it.”

“Why?”

“Because everyone applauded.”

I said nothing.

“They were celebrating a love story,” she whispered. “They didn’t know it was a grave.”

I thought of the melody from the station. The piano in Lena’s apartment. The song I had somehow recognized before I knew why.

“Can you sing it now?” I asked.

She shook her head.

“Not yet.”

“Then teach it to me.”

Her expression changed.

“Noah—”

“Please.”

She looked as if I had asked her to open a wound with her bare hands.

But she sat beside the old, broken piano in the corner of the room. Most of the keys were missing. She touched one, and it produced a dull, imperfect sound.

“The melody began here,” she said.

She hummed the first few notes.

The moment I heard them, pain moved through my chest.

I knew the next note.

I knew where the melody would rise, where it would fall, where the silence belonged.

Without thinking, I sang the missing phrase.

Lena stopped breathing.

I stopped too.

Neither of us moved.

“How did I know that?” I asked.

She stared at me with tears in her eyes.

“Because you wrote it.”

“I’ve never heard it before.”

“You have.”

“In a dream?”

“Maybe.”

She reached for my hand, but I pulled away—not because I didn’t want her touch, but because I was suddenly afraid of what else I might remember.

The sea struck the rocks below the house.

For one instant, I smelled saltwater.

I heard a child crying.

I felt freezing hands clawing at my coat.

Then I saw Lena standing on the pier, screaming my name.

I saw myself beneath the black water.

And I heard the song.

That night, after I returned home, I dreamed of the ocean.

I dreamed of a small coastal town, a blue door, and a woman singing beneath a storm-dark sky.

I dreamed of a child reaching for me.

I dreamed of Lena’s hand slipping from mine.

But beneath all of it, beneath the waves and the wind and the sound of her grief, a melody continued to play.

The song we had never named.

The song she could never hear.

And when I woke, I was still singing it.