You spent the rest of the day with Kevin, walking around in Old Montreal, until you went back home, tired. He hugged you before you left, since he wanted to stay there a bit longer. His hug was a bit hesitant, but you didn’t say anything. He was probably reliving memories at the moment. So you just hugged him back and left. Without looking behind.

Two weeks passed before anything new happened. Since you felt strong enough to go to school, you had decided to do just that for classes you could do no matter the session, and you had quickly discovered that a certain class would probably bring its lot of problems; on Friday mornings, you had a PE class that was called ‘stress management’. It included yoga poses, a lot of tough exercises for your still a bit recovering body, and after the ninth week of the session, all classes would be spent learning how to massage someone in a way that could help get rid of the tension caused by stress. You had to remove your shirt and lie on your stomach in the middle of the class, yeah, but still, it was okay. It was in teams of two, and at first you were confident that you would have a girl partner, since three quarters of the class were girls.

The problem was, everybody had already chosen a partner, and you were an odd number of students in this class. The teacher had started suggesting alternative solutions, like inviting a friend so they could be your partner, when there were soft knocks at the door. The teacher went to open. She discussed for a few seconds with someone you couldn’t see from where you were, someone who gave her a paper, probably something like a doctor appointment paper or such, before she came back inside, the person following.

“Sorry I’m late everyone… I had a dentist appointment, please forgive me for disturbing the class…”

What.

What the.

What the heck was…

What the heck was Kevin doing there.

“Well, it’s okay, you had a reason. Now please sit with everybody.”

“Yes ma’am.”

He sat in a corner, not wanting to disturb anybody, and the teacher smiled at you.

“Well, seems like you’ll have a partner now!”
“…”

“Right, um… Kevin, is that it? Stay after class, I’ll explain you what you missed, but basically, we were talking about the massage classes that will start on the ninth week of the session. You all need to be in teams of two, and we had a problem because everybody was already teamed up except for her. You showed up at the right moment.”

He nodded respectfully, but kept silent. He didn’t seem overjoyed by this decision, but it wasn’t like any of you had a choice. Unless a team decided to disband and change partners, you’d be stuck together for this…

You were glad those classes weren’t starting right now.

When you came back home that night, you decided to clean things on your laptop a little. Not because your folders were messy, but because you had never had the motivation to empty your school folders of the things you had put in them before the accident. You started by doing this and, after a while, you were done. You decided to keep on cleaning things up a little, and so you deleted folders that didn’t have any use, like old song lyrics you had saved, or very ugly photos you had taken years before.

That’s how you ended up finding a folder that contained several photos and audio recordings. The photos were all of you and Kevin, most of the time squeezed together to take a selca together – you knew your friends called it a selfie, but you hated that word and you just thought that ‘selca’ made a lot more sense because it was ‘self camera’ – or, at times, the photos being of just one of you while the other one was obviously the one taking the photo. Kevin was smiling like a cute idiot on all of the photos, and you were also smiling on them, obviously happy. On one of them, he had pinkish fluffy hair and he was doing a heart with his hands, smiling. On another one he was also doing a heart, but he had honey hair. On another one, he was doing the heart with his arms instead, and he looked like he was overly happy. It wasn’t a place you remembered; probably a quarter of Montreal he had been the one to show you, and that you hadn’t visited without him. On your favorite photo of him alone, he was doing a double peace sign with his hands in front of an amusement park. He had sunglasses and he looked stylish as .

You frowned. It was the first time you really noticed those clothes, but you knew you had seen them elsewhere. You quickly went back in the photos.

On each photo in which you weren’t in, you supposed, his apartment, he was wearing those clothes. They were very stylish and you liked them a lot, but… they did seem like they were his only ‘date-dedicated’ clothes. He wasn’t kidding when he had said he didn’t have a lot of money…

You kept on going through the photos, smiling at how happy you both looked on them. You didn’t remember any of these, so you had no bitter feelings looking at them despite knowing that this guy was your ex. It was like looking at the photos of a random couple. It was nice seeing people being happy. The thing was that one of these people was you. It was a bit weird, but it still looked cute and fluffy as fudge.

You kept on wondering, though. Why had Kevin broken up with you? You couldn’t remember anything about him prior to the accident, so you had no idea of what had happened. Nobody has been able to tell you. Kevin was probably the only one who knew… and he probably wouldn’t tell you, would he?

You finished looking at the few hundreds of photos, deciding not to delete any of these since they were snapshots of precious moments you had forgotten about, and decided to go on to the audio recordings the next morning, since it would be Saturday. And you did, as soon as you woke up the next day. None of them was named, so you simply started the first one and closed your eyes, listening.

Silence, for two seconds.

Then your voice, then Kevin’s, then yours again, in a conversation.

‘What- oh, man, that’s so cool! Vinnie, look at this! My new cellphone can record stuff!’

‘Really? How much did it cost you?’

‘I don’t know, my parents bought it for me…’

‘I see! Well that’s pretty cool! Wait, are you recording?’

‘Yeah! I want to see if it’s any quality…’

‘It’s probably not a good quality if you want my opinion…’

‘But it’s better than nothing, right?’

*chuckle* ‘Right.’

‘Like this, I’ll be able to record your beautiful voice and fall asleep listening to it!’

‘Don’t say that, my voice isn’t that beautiful…’

‘Shut up, Vinnie, your voice is amazing! No wait- don’t shut up! Speak to me, Vinnie ~’

‘What do you want me to say?’

‘I don’t know, first thing that comes in your mind?’

‘I love you.’

‘Kyaaa ~’

‘What?’

‘You’re so sweeeeeeet ~’

‘I’m not… you just told me to say the first thing that… and… well… I just love you… so…’

‘Ugh, that’s what I’m saying, you’re too sweet ~’

‘If you say so!’

‘All right, I’ll stop the recorder for now ~’

Silence. End.

He sounded so adorable, and so young – it was a recording that was about four years old –, and so cute. It was making your stomach fill with butterflies, even with the knowledge that this guy was your ex, and he wouldn’t come back to you because he was obviously the one who had broken up with you. Anyway, you didn’t remember him. You wouldn’t go out with a complete stranger…

You opened another audio file and closed your eyes again.

Silence, for one second.

‘Vinnie? Vinnie honey?’

‘Yeah?’

‘Could you sing for me please? I want to record you singing.’

‘What do you want me to sing?’

‘What about this new song you keep singing when you’re happy?’

‘Oh, this song. Sure.’

Sound of Kevin clearing his throat.

‘You are the only one I want, you're the only one I love.

Then keep promise you this from the bottom of my heart.

On the good days and bad days and the times you need someone to lean on

I'll always be there for you.

You're my girl.’

Sound of Kevin chuckling.

‘Sorry, my voice isn’t at its best… it’s better if I don’t sing it completely.’

‘Aw, Vinnie, come on! Pwease?’

Sound of Kevin sighing.

‘Nah, sorry. I’ll sing for you when my voice will be at its very best. Okay?’

‘… all right, Vinnie. Thanks anyway.’

Silence. End

You were a little sad, listening to these recordings. Kevin sounded so much younger, but especially so much happier, so much more joyful. Much more than those times you had spoken to him after the accident…

What had happened between you two? You seemed to be getting along so well. Why would he want to break up with you? In those recordings he sounded like he loved you so much…

You were scared of what you had done…