Ben flushed and shifted his attention to some indeterminate point off to the left. Talking through everything in their past was what Melody always wanted from him, but it was the last thing Ben was going to do. How many times now had he kept repeating the same pithy comments when she asked? We're in a better spot now. We got through things. We've been happy lately. None of it was what she wanted to hear, but it was all he was willing to give her. She seemed to think that he was keeping things from her, but she didn't understand. If he'd had the option, Ben would have chosen to forget those things, too. It wasn't fair to dredge them up again once they'd finally moved past it.

"I don't want to talk about the way things were before," he admitted. "I just wanted us to be happy now. But it's like she's determined not to be happy. No matter what I do, she's so focused on the past. If she wasn't sure how to feel, I think I could handle that," he said, echoing Dionisia's explanation back at her. If that was the case, at least he could try and win her over gradually. That was more or less how he'd started, after her accident — but as her memories came back, things had only gotten worse, never better. "But I think she's made her mind up on me."

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