Page 4 of Evermore
“Your mind disconnects from what's happening as a way to cope with overwhelming stress.
It's actually pretty common after losing someone important.” Dr. Martinez leaned forward, voice gentle but firm.
“You've been through hell with your mother's death. Grief shows up in all kinds of ways, including memory problems.”
Finn wanted to believe her, wanted to think this was just his brain being weird about grief instead of something that would slowly eat him alive. But what he'd found in his workshop felt like more than stress-related amnesia.
“The work I found is too complicated for someone having some kind of mental episode. It takes concentration, skill. Someone spacing out couldn't do complex book restoration.”
“Actually, lots of people function pretty well during dissociative periods, especially doing familiar stuff.” Dr. Martinez put down her pen and really looked at him. “I want to get you set up with a grief counselor and maybe something for sleep and anxiety. Bad sleep makes memory stuff worse.”
“What about brain scans? Neurological testing?”
“Based on what you're telling me, I don't think we need that right now. Let's try the psychological approach first.”
Finn left feeling more frustrated than relieved. Dr. Martinez's explanations made sense and felt completely wrong for what he'd discovered. She was treating him like some grieving kid with normal symptoms, not someone experiencing actual brain weirdness.
The walk back to the shop took him through the harbor district, past beat-up docks and working boats. He went slow, needing time to process how isolated he felt from any kind of medical understanding.
At the harbor overlook, he stopped and stared out at the lighthouse, white tower stark against the afternoon sky. Something about the view hit him with this powerful longing, like he should be somewhere else, with someone else, sharing this moment.
The feeling was specific, not just general loneliness. He was missing a particular person he couldn't name but somehow missed desperately. Not just wanting company, but wanting someone who would take his fears seriously without writing them off as psychological bullshit.
Finn found himself imagining conversations with someone who would listen to his concerns about lost time without immediately deciding it was grief-related. Someone who would look at the evidence in his workshop with the same careful attention they'd give any other mystery.
The fantasy felt so real he could almost hear another voice asking intelligent questions, almost feel someone standing next to him offering the kind of support that made scary truths bearable.
But when he turned around, the overlook was empty except for seagulls and waves hitting rocks. The loneliness that followed felt way out of proportion to just being alone, like he'd been abandoned by someone important instead of just reminded that he was by himself.
That night, Finn sat in his apartment above the shop, surrounded by all the books and vintage furniture he'd carefully picked out over the years.
Stuff that usually made him feel comfortable and at home.
But tonight, the familiar rooms felt wrong somehow, like they'd been designed for two people instead of one.
The reading chair by the window looked lonely without a companion. The kitchen table seemed way too big for just him. Hell, even his bed felt too wide, too empty, like his body remembered sharing the space with someone else.
While looking for a pen in his desk drawer, he found a small leather journal he didn't remember buying. The pages looked well-used, filled with his handwriting describing stuff that felt totally foreign even though he'd obviously written it.
Weirdest dreams last night. Not the usual anxiety bullshit about forgetting things or losing time, but peaceful ones.
I was underwater but could breathe just fine, following someone with green eyes who showed me things I've never seen before.
Tide pools full of crazy sea life, underwater forests swaying like meadows.
The dreams feel more real than being awake sometimes. In them, I know stuff about ocean ecosystems I've never studied. I can identify marine animals by how they behave, understand relationships between species I've never heard of. Knowledge that comes from nowhere.
When I wake up, I miss him. Miss someone I've never met, from dreams I can barely remember. The feeling sticks to me all day—real enough to taste but impossible to hold onto.
Finn read entry after entry describing dreams and feelings that were completely foreign but somehow familiar at the same time. The journal was like a record of some relationship with a person who lived in his subconscious but was totally absent from his actual memory.
But the emotions in those words felt absolutely real. The love described hit him right in the chest like something fundamental and true. Even without being able to remember what had caused those feelings, his body recognized them.
He closed the journal with shaking hands, overwhelmed by more evidence of a version of himself existing outside his conscious awareness. The entries described deep connection with someone he'd never met, detailed knowledge he'd never learned, feelings too specific to write off as fantasy.
Outside his window, the lighthouse kept its eternal rhythm—thirty seconds of light, thirty seconds of darkness.
Finn fell asleep in his chair with the journal in his lap, his last thought wondering if the green-eyed guy from his dreams might be real, might be out there somewhere looking for him just as desperately as he was looking for answers he couldn't name.
When morning came, he'd wake up with no memory of reading the journal, no conscious knowledge of why his chest felt hollow from missing something important. But somewhere in the spaces between memory and dreams, the truth would stay.
Love existed whether or not he could remember where it came from. And somewhere among the research stations and tide pools around Beacon Point, someone was following the same inexplicable pull toward answers that made no rational sense.