time felt elastic, stretching on endlessly. Every moment was marked by a faint ache in his chest, an emptiness he couldn't fill with anything tangible. He was surrounded by memor

ou understand why things... ended the way they did." Jack's heart twisted painfully at her words. He wasn't sure he could handle the pain of reading it, of confronting the parts of their history that he still couldn't fully grasp. But the longing to understand-to piece together the missing parts of himself-was stronger than the fear of what he might discover. "I don't know if I'm ready for that," he admitted, his voice low. "I don't know if I can face everything that's in there." Mia's eyes softened, and she placed her hand gently on top of the notebook. "You don't have to read it all at once. Just... when you're ready." Jack nodded slowly, his fingers tracing the edge of the leather. The weight of the journal felt heavy-symbolic of the burden they both carried. He didn't know if he was ready to remember the things Mia had written in that journal, but he knew he had to try. --- The next few days passed in a blur of half-formed thoughts and painful realizations. Jack would sit in his hospital bed, the journal lying unopened on the bedside table, taunting him with its silence. Mia came and went, offering him quiet companionship but never pushing him to open the book. She had retreated, pulling back just enough to let him decide when-and if-he was ready to face their past. One evening, after Mia had left, Jack found himself unable to sleep. The darkness of the room pressed in on him, and his mind raced with fragments of images-faces, places, emotions-all jumbled together like pieces of a puzzle that refused to fit. With a sigh, he reached for the journal, the soft leather cool against his fingertips. He opened it slowly, and the first page revealed neat, careful handwriting. Mia's handwriting. --- **Entry 1: August 14, 2017** *I never thought I would write in a journal like this. But I can't seem to talk to anyone about what's been happening. Not even Jack.* *It's strange, really. We've been married for three years now, and I should be happy. I want to be happy. But there's this emptiness between us, this distance I don't know how to bridg