Astronaut.

The distant emptiness in her glacial eyes made his insides squirm. It hurt him to think that she would only know him as a stranger, possibly a visitor to the ill woman in the next bed. There wasn’t so much as a glimmer of vague recognition. She really had no memory of him. Before this moment, he had never realized just how powerful his need for her was.

Noah lifted his gaze to Jupiter’s face and felt tears beginning to crystallize on his dark lashes. The hospital room was the last place he knew she would have wanted to be. There were no wires, thank God… but there was a sterile smell of cleaning supplies and sickly souls that he distinctly remembered her saying “makes me want to cry.” He thought he could see some of that sorrow in her turquoise orbs, however disconnected they were. The only difference now was that she was wondering why she felt that way, instead of knowing and embracing it.

Then she glanced at him. “What are you staring at?”

He blinked, startled, and realized that he had been looking directly at her, a woman who didn’t know him at all. “I’m sorry,” he muttered, averting his eyes in discomfort as he uncrossed his legs. It disturbed him to hear the familiar fire in her voice spoken with such an unfamiliar attitude.

The silence between them was like a slowly widening canyon. Noah wanted it to break apart so that he could leave… but he had to stay. He always had to stay when he came to visit. He couldn’t be a coward and leave when he still loved the person she was. It grew harder to bear the pain of seeing her.

The doctor had informed him that there had been a head injury too great to repair itself. She didn’t remember anything before the accident. Her hair had been chopped off, and it seemed as though all of who she used to be was gone from the world.

“Why do you keep coming back?” A tiny wrinkle had appeared between her dark, beautiful eyebrows. It was the same line that had shown its face the moment she saw him at her door – the moment she realized he had come home. They were hauntingly similar, but he knew they were nothing alike.

He shrugged and stood up from his chair. “I keep thinking I’ll find an old friend,” he muttered sadly, keeping his gaze safely from hers as he turned toward the door to leave. The aura surrounding his person was heavy and alone.

“Wait.”

He turned eagerly to her, and saw instantly that she had risen slightly on the bed, white sheets pooling around her hips. Her hands were working together nervously in her lap, but her eyes were on him. She never could keep her hands still. “Yes?”

“Who’s your friend?”

What could he say? Would he spill his hurt like a kettle overturned? He couldn’t do that… it would only drive her away. She would have no idea what he was talking about! His eyes fell to his hand, which was clenched at his side. Had the doctors told her that she was Jupiter Anne Davis? He gnawed on his lip and looked up at her. “Well… who are you?”

She blinked in confusion. “Why, I’m… I’m… me.” Her eyes were wide and blue.

Noah wanted to say to her, ‘You are beautiful, you are my world.’ But he couldn’t. Not yet.

“So who is your friend?”

He smiled faintly and pulled the single chair to the side of her bed. Perhaps he would stay after all. Once he sat, his hand slipped into hers.

Her lip curled back slightly as she retracted her fingers from his grip. “Well?”

“She was an old girlfriend of mine,” he said with a pleasant smile. “She was the world to me. I could tell you about her, but… you can just have her diary.”

With a wink, he reached into the drawer beside her bed. He pulled out a tiny black book with yellowing pages. Her eye caught on his tattoos, and he grinned knowingly.

“Sometimes,” the man’s golden eyes sparkled as his lips shaped a ghost of the radiant smile he felt in his heart, “the best way to start loving the world is to leave it.”