Wyn­ton remains sus­pend­ed in an ethe­re­al space, caught between the weight of mem­o­ry and the real­i­ty of the present, where time has become a shape­less thing. The air is thick with the scent of flow­ers, over­whelm­ing in its sweet­ness, as though Cas­sidy her­self is woven into the fra­grance sur­round­ing him. Silence stretch­es between them, stretch­ing far beyond sec­onds, minutes—perhaps even lifetimes—leaving him in a state of lim­bo where he is nei­ther ful­ly present nor com­plete­ly lost. His mind drifts, won­der­ing what she might be doing at this very moment. Is she read­ing? Is she sim­ply watch­ing over him? A deep long­ing stirs with­in him, one that aches with the desire to feel some­thing tan­gi­ble, some­thing real. He hopes—almost prays—that she is touch­ing him, even if only in the small­est way, bridg­ing the space that sep­a­rates them. The mem­o­ry of a past moment resur­faces, one in which her fin­gers had gen­tly brushed his face under the qui­et glow of moon­light, an unspo­ken con­nec­tion that made him feel seen in a way he had nev­er felt before.

As he clings to that mem­o­ry, his thoughts shift toward music—the one lan­guage that had once allowed him to express the emo­tions he could nev­er find the right words for. He had spent years search­ing for some­thing with­in music, the aching beau­ty that exist­ed between the notes, a feel­ing so raw and ungras­pable that it had often felt just beyond his reach. Now, he real­izes, he has become that space between the notes. Sus­pend­ed, weight­less, filled with long­ing but unable to move for­ward. It is an irony that is not lost on him, a cru­el twist of fate that has left him hov­er­ing in uncer­tain­ty, a silent melody trapped with­in his own body. Where once music had been his escape, his way of giv­ing mean­ing to the inex­press­ible, now he finds him­self caught in its silence, unable to play, unable to move, unable to speak.

Then, just when he believes he might remain trapped in this void for­ev­er, Cassidy’s voice cuts through the still­ness, soft but steady, car­ry­ing with it the weight of every­thing he can­not say. “I’m not sure what you know about your fam­i­ly and what you don’t, Wyn­ton,” she says, her tone care­ful, delib­er­ate. “But I need to tell you that we’re okay, you and me—we’re okay.” The words are sim­ple, yet they are the first thing that tru­ly reach­es him, ground­ing him in some­thing more sol­id than the haze of uncer­tain­ty that has con­sumed him. He clings to them like a life­line, their warmth break­ing through the fog that has dulled his sens­es. He doesn’t know every­thing, and he may not yet under­stand the full truth, but in this moment, her words are enough.

As her voice fades, so does the over­whelm­ing scent of flow­ers, as if the very air around him is shift­ing, chang­ing. The flo­ral fra­grance, once so con­sum­ing, now dis­si­pates, leav­ing behind a hol­low space that mir­rors the strange empti­ness set­tling with­in him. It feels as though some­thing has end­ed, as though this frag­ile, in-between moment has reached its nat­ur­al con­clu­sion. But even as silence returns, it is no longer heavy with iso­la­tion. Instead, it is filled with qui­et under­stand­ing, with the unspo­ken promise of some­thing more. For the first time in what feels like for­ev­er, Wyn­ton does not feel entire­ly alone. Cas­sidy has left him with a thread of connection—thin, del­i­cate, but unbreak­able. And though he can­not yet grasp what it means or what lies ahead, he knows one thing for cer­tain: in a world filled with uncer­tain­ty, this sin­gle moment of clar­i­ty, this frag­ile con­nec­tion, is some­thing worth hold­ing onto.