He reached out, almost without thinking, and touched her hand. The contact was light—an accidental brush—but it felt like a greeting, a promise, a plea. Those few inches of skin carried every ordinary intimacy they had built: the shared coffee at dawn, laughter over burnt toast, the long conversations that accompanied car rides, the arguments that resolved into softer silences. The touch was not dramatic; it needed no fireworks. It was an affirmation that he remembered how it felt to be near her.
