The moment stretched, trembling on the edge of something unreal.
My mother stared at me as though I were a ghost pulled from the depths of her own memory. Her hand tightened instinctively around Aiden's frozen fingers, and for the first time since the world had stopped breathing, she looked afraid.
"Jasmine?" she asked again, her voice barely louder than a whisper. "What are you doing here?"
The sound of my name on her lips shattered something in me.
"I…. I don't know," I said, my voice shaking. "I think… I think I'm dreaming. I've dreamt of you before. More than once."
Her brows knit together slowly, confusion turning sharp, alert.
"This isn't a dream," she said carefully. "Not yours, at least."
The words slid down my spine like ice.
"What do you mean?" I asked.
She glanced around us.
The figures, the suspended light, the paused moment of her life and then looked back at me.
"You're standing inside my memory," she said. "This already happened. Every word. Every choice."
