Loved Twice
Werner Stejskal
If you had told me, back then, that I would one day taste a love so real, so consuming, so fiercely alive that it would ache inside my very bones, I would have laughed softly and admitted that yes, I dreamed of my prince someday finding me — but dreams were the only place such tenderness seemed possible. Reality, as I knew it, was colder, heavier… a place where such beauty felt forbidden.
And yet, against every expectation, I was gifted the unimaginable: a love that rose like a sunrise inside me, warm and bright and impossible to ignore. I loved with a depth that frightened me, and I was loved back with a strength that made me tremble. To be held in that kind of affection — sincere, unguarded, unbroken — felt like stepping into another world. A world where bliss was not a fleeting moment but a state of being.
We were inseparable, drunk on each other’s presence. Our hands searched for one another instinctively; our eyes met even when we tried to look away. Friends laughed and called us the lovesick ones, as if love were a fever we couldn’t shake. And perhaps it was — an exquisite fever that made our reality shimmer with wonder.
To them, it seemed unreal. To us, it was the only truth that mattered.
And never, in those early days when our hearts beat in perfect rhythm, did we imagine that such a love could ever fade. It felt eternal — written somewhere beyond time, where endings simply did not exist.
* * *
We were on our way to my parents’ house for Sunday dinner — a small ritual that had quietly taken root in the past weeks, ever since it had become clear to everyone, including ourselves, that Lukas and I were going to marry. My mother adored him, perhaps even more than she adored feeding him, though the two were very closely related. She would prepare her best dishes just to watch the way his eyes softened with delight, and he accepted every plate with a gratitude so genuine it made her glow.
I am Sorella, by the way — named “sister” in Italian, though I had no siblings. My parents always teased that I was their promise of something more, and that if fate had ever granted them a son, they would have called him Fratello, their long-imagined brother to my lifelong title.
Lukas was driving, one hand steady on the wheel, the other occasionally brushing against my knee, my fingers, my thigh — every touch light as breath but loaded with the quiet certainty of our future together. Every now and then he would glance at me, that sweet sideways smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. And each time, unable to resist, I looked back, mirroring him, falling in love with him all over again in the span of a heartbeat.
If only I hadn’t. If only I had told him to keep his eyes on the road. If only I had not returned that smile. I never stopped blaming myself for that moment — not then, not years later, not even now as I recount it. Because that one shared look meant he noticed the light too late.
We were already halfway through the intersection when Lukas’s expression shifted — confusion first, then dawning fear. The red signal glared above us like an accusation, but it no longer mattered. A truck came from the left, its massive frame hurtling toward us with a speed that turned the world into a blur. Seventy kilometers an hour, they told me later. Seventy — and Lukas was the one who took the full force of the impact.
Everything that followed was chaos compressed into a single heartbeat. The shriek of metal. The violent lurch. The sensation of flying and falling at the same time. And then — nothing. Darkness swallowed me whole.
When I surfaced again, the world was upside down. My head hung at an angle that didn’t feel natural, blood pounding in my ears. People were shouting outside, silhouettes bending toward the shattered remains of the car. Hands tugged at my door, voices calling to me, telling me to stay awake, to hold on.
But the fog was too heavy, too warm, too merciful.
And before I could even form Lukas’s name on my lips, I slipped back into unconsciousness.
* * *
I kept dreaming — falling, circling, drowning in the same nightmare that refused to let me go. Lukas in the car beside me, turning his head with that tender smile that always softened my entire world. Then, like a cruel trick of fate, the smile would dissolve into the blinding shape of the truck behind him, swallowing his face, swallowing everything — impact, darkness, silence.
Over and over, the moment replayed itself, each loop cutting a little deeper.
When I finally surfaced from that torment, my eyes opened slowly, as if the world around me were veiled in mist. Shapes hovered in the haze — figures, shadows, movement. I blinked until they sharpened into familiar forms: my parents, my aunt, two friends from childhood… all standing around my bed, their faces etched with worry that softened into fragile relief when they realized I was awake.
But I only had one thought, one name, one reason to breathe.
“Where is Lukas?” My voice was hoarse, frightened. “Where is he?”
I tried to sit up, tried to swing my legs over the edge of the bed, to run if I had to, but the room spun like a carousel gone mad. A nurse was suddenly at my side, firm but gentle, pressing me back into the mattress.
“You need to relax,” she said softly. “Your boyfriend is alive.”
Alive. The word hit me like a gasp of air after nearly drowning.
“I want to see him,” I insisted, breath quickening, heart racing toward panic. My mother rushed to my side, smoothing my hair, whispering reassurances. My aunt — who had always been like a sister to me — held my hand and said, “We’ll take you to him. Just breathe. Breathe.”
After sips of water and what felt like an eternity of coaxing, they finally wheeled me down the corridor. At the end of the hallway stood a room with a glass wall — a transparent boundary between hope and despair.
And there he was.
Lukas lay still, frighteningly still, his beautiful face partly hidden under bandages. A breathing tube rested between his lips, rising and falling with a mechanical rhythm that broke my heart. Machines blinked and whispered around him, cold and clinical, nothing like the warmth he had always carried with him.
I reached out instinctively, only to stop when the nurse held up a hand.
“I’m sorry. You can’t go in.”
The words shattered something inside me.
Lukas’s parents stood nearby, their faces pale, their eyes swollen from crying. They tried to speak to me — to explain, to comfort — but the hallway tilted beneath me, my pulse roared in my ears, and suddenly I was back in a wheelchair, my mother’s hands steadying me as the world dimmed around the edges.
The doctor later explained that they needed to keep me overnight for observation. My own concussion wasn’t severe, but the shock had overwhelmed me.
Then he spoke of Lukas.
He was in an induced coma, not because he was dying, but because his brain needed silence — stillness — to heal. The doctor’s voice was calm, factual, but I felt the weight of what he didn’t say.
It had been touch and go. The impact had been brutal. And Lukas’s injury — his concussion — was more severe than they had wanted to admit.
Only later would I learn how close he had come to slipping away.
But in that moment, staring through the glass at the man I loved, I made a silent promise — one born of fear and devotion woven into a single breath:
I won’t leave you. Not now, not ever.
* * *
The next morning, after the doctor’s round of soft-spoken reassurances, I was finally allowed to leave. But before I stepped out into the world again, I returned to Lukas.
He had been moved into a private room — quieter, calmer, filled with the hushed rhythm of machines and the pale morning light drifting through the blinds. For the first time since the accident, I was allowed to sit beside him. I reached for his hand, warm but unmoving, and let my fingers rest lightly against his skin. I whispered his name, telling him I was there, telling him he wasn’t alone.
My father arrived a little later to take me home. I didn’t want to go — every instinct pulled me back to Lukas — but there was nothing more I could do. His healing belonged now to time, and to a part of medicine I could not touch.
The next day, I forced myself to return to work. The hours passed like a muted dream, slow and heavy, as though the world had lost some of its color. I answered emails, spoke to colleagues, performed tasks I barely remembered doing. Everyone spoke softly to me, as if afraid I would shatter with a single wrong word.
But every evening, without fail, I went straight to the hospital.
And on weekends I stayed with him for hours, sometimes reading aloud — books he loved, books I hoped he might love, anything that carried the sound of my voice to him. Other times I simply sat with his parents or with the few friends who visited regularly, sharing stories about him, laughing quietly, crying quietly, waiting.
Weeks stretched like long shadows, and the hospital became my second home. I learned the rhythm of the nurses’ shifts, the soft hum the machines made when the room was silent, the way Lukas’s face looked at sunrise, at dusk, under fluorescent lights — still beautiful, even in stillness.
After about four weeks, the doctor finally decided it was time. They would begin slowly, carefully, bringing him back from the induced coma.
The news hit me with a mixture of hope and fear so intense it made my knees weak.
From that moment on, I spoke to him constantly. Softly, gently, as if weaving a bridge between unconsciousness and life. I told him stories — our stories. How we met. How he made my mother laugh. How he proposed in that clumsy but charming way only he could have managed. I told him about our plans, our dreams, the little details of the wedding we had barely started to organize.
“Lukas,” I whispered, brushing a lock of hair from his forehead, “when you wake up, I’ll tell you everything all over again. And we’ll still have that future. I promise.”
If he could hear me — if any part of him floated close enough to catch my words — I wanted his first steps back into the world to be guided by love, not fear. By us. By the life waiting for him.
* * *
And then the call came.
I had just stepped out of the shower when my phone rang, and the moment I heard the nurse’s voice — bright, breathless, — I felt my heart leap against my ribs.
“Lukas has woken up.”
The world around me vanished into a blur. I barely remember grabbing my bag, barely remember the frantic drive with my father beside me, urging me to breathe, to stay calm. How could I? After weeks of praying, whispering, hoping, he was finally awake. My Lukas. My love.
When we reached his room, his parents were already there, standing close but uncertain, as if afraid to touch him and shatter the miracle. Lukas’s eyes were open — unfocused at first, then darting around the room with the cautious curiosity of someone stepping out of a long, dark tunnel. The doctor stood near his bedside, murmuring gentle questions.
I pushed through the doorway just as Lukas lifted his head. Everyone stepped aside, making space for me without a word.
My heart felt too full, too tight. I moved closer, my smile trembling with joy and relief. “Welcome back to the world, darling,” I whispered.
But the expression on his face did not change. No spark. No recognition. Nothing.
The doctor placed a hand on his shoulder. “Lukas, can you tell me if you recognize the people in the room?”
Lukas blinked slowly. His voice was calm when he answered, detached from emotion.
“Yes… my mother. My father. My brother. My friend.”
Then his eyes settled on me.
They lingered — for a heartbeat, perhaps two — searching my face the way one searches the contours of a stranger they feel they should know.
And then: “Who are you?”
The air left my lungs so suddenly that I felt my knees weaken. I swallowed, tried to smile again, but the edges of it broke like glass.
“I’m Sorella,” I whispered. “Your fiancée, Lukas. It’s me.”
His brow furrowed, confusion clouding his features. No warmth. No recognition. No flicker of the love that once tethered us so fiercely to each other.
I felt something inside me collapse.
The doctor stepped in, speaking gently but with the firm tone of someone who had delivered this news many times before.
“Memory loss — especially recent memories — is very common in cases of severe concussion and prolonged coma. Lukas’s older memories seem intact. The newer ones… may come back with time. We must be patient.”
Patient.
How could I be patient when the man I loved looked at me as though I were a stranger who had wandered into his life by accident?
But as I stood there — my heart breaking in ways I had not known were possible — I forced myself to nod.
Because even if he did not remember me…
I remembered him. I remembered all of us. And I would hold our memories gently, carefully, patiently — until the day he found his way back to them.
* * *
After four long weeks of drip feeding, Lukas finally began learning to eat solid food again. It was a slow and often frustrating process — his muscles had weakened from so many days lying motionless, and even holding a spoon felt like a challenge at first. The physiotherapists were patient, kind, encouraging him through every small victory, but I could see in his eyes how much it humbled him to relearn what once had been effortless.
He stayed another full week in therapy. And every afternoon, when visiting hours began, I came to sit beside him, telling him stories about us. Not to force memories on him, but because silence felt like surrender. I told him about the silly moments we shared, our Sunday dinners, how he once tried to impress my mother by cooking pasta and nearly set the stove on fire. I hoped — every day, with every word — that something would flicker, spark, return.
When he was finally discharged, I made a decision that surprised even myself. I stopped working. Without hesitation, without regret. I wanted — needed — to be there for him completely. His parents welcomed me into their large, warm home, grateful for an extra pair of hands and a familiar presence. I told myself that if Lukas saw me each day, if I was woven into the fabric of his routine, perhaps memory would follow. Perhaps love would follow.
At first, he treated me with polite distance, the way one treats a guest who has stayed a little longer than expected. He listened to my stories, nodded at the right moments, but his eyes carried only confusion, never recognition. He had lost several years of his life — our years. Everything that mattered most to me was blank space to him.
It was the hardest time I had ever lived through.
I longed to touch him the way I once did, to wrap my arms around him, to kiss him softly at the end of the day. But he wasn’t ready. And I didn’t dare push him away by pushing too hard.
His parents and friends told him often how deeply we had been in love. They showed him photos — birthdays, trips, the little selfie we took with pasta sauce on our cheeks. He looked at them with a strange mix of curiosity and guilt. Guilt, because he couldn’t feel what everyone insisted he once had. Guilt, because he saw my pain and didn’t know how to ease it.
As the weeks passed, desperation crept in. I lay awake night after night, wondering what else I could do. What gesture, what memory, what tiny detail might spark something? I felt myself unraveling quietly, hopelessly.
Then, one evening, as I was brushing my hair before bed, a simple thought came to me:
People fall in love for reasons. Reasons that don’t vanish just because memories do.
If Lukas could love me once, perhaps he could love me again. Not because of the past — but because of who we still were.
So the next morning, I changed my approach. I stopped quizzing him gently about whether he remembered this place or that moment. I stopped clinging to fragments of the life we’d had. Instead, I focused on being present. I cooked with him. Walked with him. Laughed at his jokes. Listened to his thoughts. I let him rediscover me — not through memory, but through experience.
And gradually, almost imperceptibly at first, something shifted.
The way his eyes lingered a little longer when I entered the room.
The way he began asking me questions — not about the past, but about myself.
The way his smile softened when he caught me looking at him.
Tiny things. But unmistakable.
A response was beginning to grow. Not a memory — something new, tender, fragile.
And for the first time since the accident, I felt a small flame of hope warming my chest.
Maybe he would fall in love with me all over again. Not because he remembered our love — but because he felt it returning in the present, slowly, breath by breath.
* * *
When Lukas finally regained his strength — his steps steady again, his smile returning in small, hesitant pieces — another reality settled over us: he could not simply return to the life he had before. His memory loss had stripped away not only the last years with me, but also much of his training and education. The skills he had once mastered were now shadows without shape.
It was a painful truth for him, and I saw it in the way he stared at old workbooks or tools, trying to force familiarity where none remained. Lukas’s father, a successful businessman with more than enough resources, reassured him that money wasn’t a concern. But purpose… purpose was something no parent could give. It had to be found, chosen, lived.
We talked late into many evenings about what he wanted — whether he should wait and hope for memories to return or rebuild something entirely new. Each option carried its own fears. He worried about disappointing me, burdening his family, losing the man he had once been.
I held his hand and told him the truth: “You’re still Lukas. You’re still the man I love. Memory or not, your life isn’t gone. It’s just… restarting.”
For the first time, he seemed to believe those words.
Still, to break free from the heaviness that surrounded the past, we needed a shift — something warm, something alive, something untouched by hospitals or sorrow.
“Let’s take a holiday,” I suggested one afternoon, as sunlight spilled across his parents’ terrace. “Just the two of us. Time away might help us… normalize things. Or at least breathe again.”
He looked at me, hesitant but hopeful. “Where would we go?”
“It’s summer,” I said with a smile. “A beach. Somewhere quiet, peaceful. Somewhere we can be just Sorella and Lukas, without expectations.”
His lips curved into a small, almost shy smile — the kind I had not seen since before the accident. “A beach sounds… good.”
A step forward — not into our old life, but toward whatever new future we were beginning to build together.
* * *
Now let me return to the question of why Lukas fell in love with me the first time. Of course, I can only guess — after all, I am not inside his mind — but if I know myself even a little, I’m fairly certain that one of the main reasons must have been my exasperating nuttiness.
I’ve always been… different. A bit wild, a bit theatrical, a bit too much for the world at times.
In school it was practically a problem. I could never resist stealing the spotlight — an instinctive show-off. Honestly, if fate had nudged me only slightly to the left or right, I might have ended up on a Burlesque stage, draped in feathers, tossing winks at the audience. It was simply in my nature — to challenge the people around me, to stir the air wherever I walked. Some laughed, some rolled their eyes, some whispered that I was strange.
And then there was my imaginary friend.
Yes, I admit it openly: I talk to her — sometimes aloud, sometimes passionately. I discuss problems with her as if she were flesh and bone. People often thought I was talking to them, which made everything far more confusing for everyone involved. I make faces too — expressions I don’t even realize I’m making, odd movements that come from nowhere, bursts of emotion that leap out like sparks.
And… I am very jealous. Oh, painfully jealous.
Whenever Lukas spoke to an attractive woman, that little green monster inside me didn’t whisper — it screamed. I reacted far too dramatically, as if the world were ending and someone had dared to steal my sun. It was ridiculous, yes, but utterly authentic.
I remember once overhearing a petite little girl ask Lukas, with a scrunched nose and far too much confidence, “She is a strange girl, isn’t she?”
And Lukas, dear sweet Lukas, answered calmly: “Yes, she is. Very strange. But that’s why I love her.”
I smiled so broadly I thought my face might crack. When I returned to the table and the girl had vanished, he told me exactly what she’d said. I laughed and told him, “She hasn’t seen strange yet!”
And then — of course — I proved it.
I slid onto his lap, wrapped my arms around his neck, and kissed him with all the passion in my heart, right there in the middle of the restaurant. People stared, forks paused in mid-air, a few jaws dropped in pure confusion.
When I stood up, I lifted my arms high and called out to the entire room:
“I love him so much! What can I do?”
The crowd erupted in laughter and applause. Some clapped because they thought it was a performance; others because they were moved by the sheer absurdity of it all.
But it was real. Utterly, gloriously real.
Yes — this is me. And nothing, not memory loss, not time, not anything on this earth, will ever change that.
* * *
The moment the topic of booking a hotel came up, Lukas turned into that very specific version of himself I adored — half-professor, half-panicked teenager. And considering we were in Türkiye, where hotel rooms are a whole situation, he was clearly trying to formulate the right question without saying anything too obvious.
He rubbed the back of his neck.
“Ehm… Sorella, I was wondering… will you throw one of your strange tantrums when I ask you something?”
“Ask what?” I gasped dramatically, already grinning inside. Watching him twist himself into knots was one of my favourite hobbies.
He cleared his throat. “I meant… should I book one room… or two?”
Oh, I knew perfectly well what he wanted to ask. But why ruin such a beautiful moment of torment?
I put on my most innocent face.
“Well, you always talk about saving money. So logically… one room makes more sense, doesn’t it?”
His eyes widened slightly. “So… you don’t mind?”
“Mind what?” I asked, blinking sweetly, refusing to throw him a life raft.
He opened his mouth, closed it, sighed, paced half a step — and finally gave himself a push, like a man about to jump into cold water.
“I mean… we had all this love, right?”
“Yes?” I said, encouraging him like a teacher guiding a nervous student.
“Well… I was wondering… with all that love… did we… make love?”
There it was. Out in the open. Floating between us like a startled pigeon.
I gasped softly, placing a hand on my chest.
“How can you ask such a thing! We are not married yet. What would my parents say if they knew?”
I looked down, pretending to be embarrassed to the point of fainting.
“We slept in the same bed, yes… but we did nothing improper.”
Lukas swallowed hard, clearly distressed.
“Oh. I mean… if you prefer… I can book two rooms. Of course. Absolutely.”
He was so adorably flustered that I almost took pity on him.
Almost.
Then I decided enough was enough.
I jumped up, laughing, flicked him lightly on the shoulder, and cried:
“Oh, who knows what could happen! One room is perfect, darling!”
He blinked. “Perfect?”
“Perfect.”
The way his relief washed over him — like a man saved from the gallows — was priceless.
And just like that, the problem was solved.
To be perfectly truthful — brutally, deliciously truthful — Lukas and I had made love before. Not once. Not twice. Often. Enthusiastically. With the kind of joy and abandon that makes you forget which way is up.
But why should he know that yet? Where is the fun in that?
After all — who gets the chance to have two first times with the same man?
Life had handed me a strange, painful gift… but a gift nonetheless.
A reset button on intimacy. I wasn’t going to waste it.
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So I kept my little secret tucked away like a mischievous jewel. Let him believe I was the modest, innocent girl protecting her virtue until marriage. Let him worry about propriety, about my parents, about doing things “the right way.”
Meanwhile, I was planning our beach holiday with the kind of excitement that made me hum to myself in the shower and dance while folding laundry.
We were heading to the Black Sea coast — lush, green, humid, and full of life. A place where the air itself felt like a warm hand on your skin.
A place perfect for healing.
For easing a man back into himself.
For letting memories, or emotions, creep into him the way sunlight creeps over a morning hillside.
I kept imagining him seeing me in my swimsuit for the first time — again.
Would his eyes widen the same way they did the first time?
Would he feel that spark he once did?
Would something inside him stir, whispering: You know her. You love her.
Or would I have to help him discover everything all over again… which, honestly, sounded like a charming, electrifying task.
I was really looking forward to this holiday. Because somewhere between the sea breeze, the laughter, and my ridiculousness — which always made him shake his head and smile — I hoped I might do more than help him rest.
I hoped I could rekindle him. Memory by memory. Feeling by feeling. Kiss by kiss.
And maybe — just maybe — his heart would remember even if his mind could not.
* * *
After quite a long time of driving eastward — past rolling hills, sleepy towns, and those endless sweeps of green that announce you’re getting closer to the Black Sea — we finally pulled into the resort. It wasn’t one of those enormous, flashy places with marble columns and fountains; it was more like a modern seaside hideaway with wooden walkways, blue umbrellas, and the smell of salt already drifting through the reception lobby.
Check-in was quick. Lukas handled the paperwork with that polite, slightly stiff efficiency he had adopted since the accident — still him, but missing that soft, teasing warmth he used to show me. I stood beside him, swaying impatiently like a child waiting for ice cream, humming a tune only I seemed to know.
Then: keycards, a welcome smile, and off to the lift we went.
Inside the elevator, I leaned against the mirror and glanced upward dramatically.
“Do you think there’s a camera in here?” I asked in a hushed, conspiratorial tone.
Lukas blinked, surprised by the question. “Uh… probably,” he said.
I grinned wickedly. “Great.”
Before he could prepare himself, I launched into his arms — a full hug, my legs slightly lifting, my chin on his shoulder as I planted a quick kiss on his cheek. He tensed for half a heartbeat, then relaxed with a breathy laugh that warmed me more than the humid Black Sea air ever could.
The elevator dinged for our floor, but I didn’t move.
The doors slid open.
I was still wrapped around him like an overly affectionate koala.
From somewhere behind us, a baffled voice asked, “Going down?”
I twisted just enough to look at the man waiting outside.
“No,” I announced proudly. “We’re exactly where we need to be.”
Then, still clinging to Lukas, I shuffled us out into the corridor. The doors closed behind the confused stranger, and Lukas finally let out a real laugh — his shoulders shaking, his eyes bright, the kind of laugh I hadn’t seen since before the accident.
“That was… dramatic,” he said.
“I’m dramatic,” I replied. “It’s part of my charm package. No refunds.”
He shook his head — but he didn’t let go of me. Not right away.
And in that tiny moment, in that quiet corridor smelling faintly of fresh linen and sea breeze, I felt it again: a shift. A spark. A small piece of the old Lukas glimmering through.
* * *
The moment we’d tossed our bags into the room, I was already tugging at Lukas’ sleeve like a child who’d spotted the ice-cream truck.
“Beach,” I declared. “Now. Immediately. My skin has been deprived of sunlight for months. If I don’t get into that water, I might start to wilt.”
He smiled — still a careful smile, a little uncertain, but real. “Okay. Beach first.”
I had been waiting for this moment.
Planning for it.
Preparing for it like a general prepares for battle — only my battlefield was soft golden sand, and my weapon was a strategically chosen, very tiny bikini.
The last time Lukas had seen me in something like this, he’d been the old Lukas — the one who used to pull me into the water, kiss me until my knees forgot their duties, and tell me I was trouble in human form.
Since the accident?
Nothing. Not a spark. Not a blush. Not even a confused eyebrow raise.
Well. Time to change that.
When we reached the beach, I picked a perfect spot: not too crowded, not too isolated. I spread the towel carefully, like a stage manager preparing a set, and then —
I dropped my sarong.
Just… let it slide off slowly, dramatically, like in one of those music videos where the woman pretends she isn’t aware of the entire world watching her.
I turned to face Lukas. His eyes widened. Not exaggerated, not polite — instinctive. A flicker. A spark.
Hello, old Lukas. Nice to see you again.
But I didn’t stop there. No, no. I’d come prepared.
Without a word, I raised my arms, rolled my hips, and launched into a belly dance.
A real one — smooth, fluid, hips swaying in circles, stomach rippling, hair tossing over my shoulder.
And I hummed. A sultry, playful melody my grandmother used to sing at family parties when she got a bit tipsy.
Lukas sat cross-legged on the towel, eyes locked on me, looking like someone had switched the world from black-and-white to full color. “You… you have many talents,” he said slowly, almost reverently.
Some families nearby had turned to watch.
Phones were subtly — or not so subtly — raised. Someone gasped. A child clapped. A woman whispered something to her husband that made him choke on his drink.
So I did what any normal, extremely modest, unbelievably shy woman would do.
I threw my arms wide and yelled, “YOU’RE ALL GETTING A FREE SHOW!”
A few people burst into laughter. One man whistled. A woman shouted “BRAVO!” It was glorious.
And Lukas… He just stared at me with a look I recognized. A look I had missed.
A look that said: Oh. Oh wow. I remember this… even if I don’t remember remembering it.
He blinked slowly, as if trying to process all the layers of madness and charm in front of him.
“Sorella,” he murmured, breathless, “you’re… something else.”
I dropped dramatically onto the towel beside him, still giggling, sand clinging to my legs.
“Stick around,” I said. “I have more surprises.”
His lips curved into a smile that wasn’t polite or uncertain anymore. It was warm. Slow. Laced with something dangerously close to desire. And just like that — one dance, one bikini, one utterly ridiculous moment — I felt him coming back to me.
* * *
I splashed into the water like a creature who’d finally returned to her natural habitat. The Black Sea was warm and restless, curling around my hips, tugging at my ankles like it already claimed me.
I flipped my hair back, kicked my legs, and cried out dramatically, “I am a mermaid! Come and catch me, human prince!”
Then I dove under with an elegant swish — at least in my mind it was elegant. In reality I probably looked like a dolphin with identity issues, but it didn’t matter. The water felt glorious, my body slipped through it like silk, and when I surfaced a few meters away, I saw Lukas wading in after me.
He didn’t swim straight. He didn’t chase like someone flirting. He pursued me with this focused intensity, like I was something precious he might lose in the waves.
My heart did a strange little somersault. I swam away again — slowly, theatrically, doing a little tail-flick with my feet. I wanted him to catch me. I needed him to. My whole body was buzzing with anticipation, like each drop of water had turned into a tiny spark.
He reached me faster than I expected.
I squealed, tried to dart aside, but he grabbed me around the waist.
His arms wrapped around my slippery, dripping body, warm against the cool water, strong but careful — as if he wasn’t entirely sure how much of me he was allowed to hold.
The moment startled me so much I swallowed half the Black Sea.
I choked, spluttered, and spit in the most ungraceful mermaid performance ever.
“I need — ” cough cough “ — resuscitation!” I cried dramatically, clutching my chest like a heroine in a bad pirate movie.
Lukas laughed — actually laughed, not the polite post-accident version. A real, deep, amused sound straight from his chest. Then he leaned in, still holding me afloat, and pressed his mouth to mine.
A wet, salty kiss. The kind that makes your lips sting a little and your heart thump a lot.
Honestly? The best way I’ve ever tasted salt.
His hand slid behind my back, steadying me, pulling me just a bit closer. My legs floated up and brushed against his. The water’s movement made our bodies sway together, slow and natural, like a dance neither of us had to think about.
I broke the kiss with a grin. “I love being a mermaid,” I said softly. “Especially when the prince catches me.”
His forehead rested gently against mine. “You make it very hard not to,” he murmured.
My chest tightened sweetly. A warm flutter spread through me, the kind you only get when something old, familiar, and beloved starts finding its way back home.
“Again?” I teased, wriggling in his arms as I prepared to ‘escape’ once more.
But he held me a little tighter.
“Sorella…” he said quietly, voice low enough that the waves nearly stole it away. “I think I’m starting to understand why I loved you so much.”
The world wobbled. Not from dizziness. From happiness.
* * *
Dinner that evening felt like drifting into a dream — one of those warm, shimmering ones where everything tastes better, sounds sweeter, and the person across from you is lit by candlelight in a way that makes your heart tilt sideways.
We showered off the salt, dressed up a little — Lukas in a crisp shirt that made him look disarmingly handsome, me in a dress that shimmered when I walked — and headed down to the seaside restaurant. The air smelled of grilled fish, garlic butter, lemon, and the faint sweetness of the sea. We feasted on prawns, calamari, sea bass — each dish better than the last — and shared them the way couples do. Or… the way couples used to. I was determined to get us back there.
After dinner we wandered to the bar, where a small band was playing. Soft lights, strings of lanterns, the murmur of conversation drifting like warm smoke. Lukas ordered drinks — mine fruity, his something dark and mysterious — and we settled in.
The music was lovely, but I felt the familiar itch under my skin.
The kind that said: Sorella, stay normal… OR — do something outrageous.
Well. I’ve never been good at “normal.”
I slid off my chair, smoothed my dress, and marched toward the band. Lukas tilted his head like a confused puppy. He probably thought I wanted a selfie with the musicians. Oh, sweet innocent amnesia-boy.
The bandleader listened to my request, raised his brows, then grinned. He nodded.
When the music began, there was a long, deliberate, theatrical pause — one I lived for. Then I stepped toward the microphone.
And I sang.
My voice filled the bar, warm and rich, gliding through the melody with the ease of someone who has been singing forever. I saw people put down their forks. Conversations paused. Heads turned. A waiter stopped in the middle of pouring wine.
And Lukas… Oh, Lukas.
His eyes went wide.
As if someone had peeled back a curtain he didn’t know existed.
Not recognition. Not memory. But enchantment.
When the final note hovered in the air, the room — this little seaside bar — burst into applause. A few people even stood up. Someone whistled.
I made a theatrical bow — because of course I did — blew a kiss to my new admirers, and hopped off the stage, practically floating back toward Lukas.
“You’re a professional,” he said, stunned. “You… you’re full of surprises. Constantly.”
I winked. “You’ve seen nothing yet.”
Just then, the manager approached — smiling as though he had just won the lottery.
“Miss,” he said, “your performance was wonderful. Truly. If you would like… we could offer you free board for the rest of your stay in exchange for performing a few songs each night. The guests would love it.”
I gasped, delighted.
Lukas blinked at me, baffled but proud. And we both agreed.
And just like that — our holiday became more than sun and sea. It became magic.
I got to perform. To be myself. To show Lukas pieces of the woman he had once loved so fiercely.
And he? He watched me every night with growing wonder, like someone slowly uncovering buried treasure. Piece by piece. Song by song.
* * *
After that first day, and with my final song echoing softly as the bar closed around us, we walked back to our room, hearts brimming with anticipation. At least mine was — I already knew what was about to unfold. Poor Lukas, however, was still caught in doubt after our earlier conversation. He had expected me to be coy, to hesitate, but I felt no room for hesitation anymore.
I slipped into my silk pajamas, the smooth fabric a comforting contrast to the fluttering excitement inside me, and settled into bed. Soon after, Lukas joined me, his eyes searching, waiting, uncertain of what would come next. I couldn’t bear to let him suffer in that quiet suspense, and truthfully, my own need had grown too intense to be ignored after all those long, lonely months.
Gently, I placed my hand over his chest, feeling the steady beat of his heart beneath my palm. I whispered softly, “My prince, your captured mermaid needs you. Come to me.” The words hung between us like a spell, and I invited him to rediscover what he had long forgotten but what I still remembered vividly.
Our connection was tender yet urgent, a dance of rediscovery fueled by longing and the raw intensity of shared desire. As we moved together, the walls of doubt began to crumble, replaced by a flood of emotion and sensation. And then, at the peak of our union, when the moment of bliss washed over him, something extraordinary happened.
The sudden pleasure unlocked a door deep within his mind, and memories — millions of fragments — rushed in, overwhelming and vivid. Scenes from forgotten times played out in his eyes, a cascade of moments from our shared past flooding back all at once.
As his final release came, his voice broke through the silence with a desperate cry: “I remember!”
In that instant, my heart soared. This was, without question, the happiest moment I could have ever imagined — when love, memory, and the present collided, binding us closer than ever before.
* * *
For a moment after he cried out, everything was still. I lay on his chest, listening to his racing heartbeat, and I felt my own breath shaking. Lukas held me so tightly, as if he was afraid I would slip away again. His whole body trembled. I stroked his arm, waiting, not wanting to break the spell too soon.
Then he lifted his head and looked at me. And the look… it almost broke me right there. His eyes were suddenly full of light and memory and certainty. Not confusion anymore. Not that careful politeness he’d had these last months. No — this was my Lukas. The one I had missed so painfully.
“It came back,” he said. His voice was rough. “Everything came back. You… us… the hotel in Bodrum… your laugh… the way you always push your hair behind your ear when you pretend you’re not nervous…” He swallowed hard. “I remember it all.”
I felt tears running down my face before I even noticed them. I touched his cheek.
“Oh Lukas… finally.”
He nodded, almost helpless, and pulled me into him again. This time the embrace was different. Not urgent like before but warm and full and absolutely sure. He kissed my shoulder, my neck, the corner of my mouth, as if he was relearning me piece by piece.
“I can’t believe I forgot you,” he whispered.
“You didn’t forget me,” I said softly. “Your head was injured. But your heart remembered anyway.”
He made a small sound — relief, maybe — and rested his forehead on mine. His hand slid over my hair, so familiar, and the feeling of it almost sent me over the edge again, not with desire, but with something deeper.
“I remember the last morning before the accident,” he said quietly. “You were standing on the balcony and you said you felt like a mermaid waiting for the tide. And I told you that you were mine.”
“And today,” I murmured, “I said it again.”
He smiled weakly. “My captured mermaid.”
“My prince,” I whispered back.
We lay like that for a long time, wrapped in each other. I felt his breath calm, his body soften around me. The room was dark and warm and quiet, and for the first time in so many months, I felt whole again.
When sleep finally came, it came gently. Safe. With his arms around me exactly the way they used to be.
* * *
Our holiday took on a lovely rhythm after that. We slept in every morning and wandered down to breakfast whenever we felt like it, usually late and still a bit sleepy. If the weather wasn’t too hot we walked into the old town, hand in hand, stopping for ice cream or laughing at little souvenir stalls. On the really warm days we stayed on the beach. I loved teasing him in the water, pretending to be a mermaid again, and he loved pretending to catch me. And every evening after dinner I sang my songs at the hotel. It felt good — natural, almost like I had been doing this my whole life but had somehow forgotten.
When the holiday ended and we were back in Istanbul, I didn’t want to lose the momentum. I contacted an agent with the recommendation of the hotel manager, and suddenly doors began to open. I started getting booked in small clubs. At first it was scary, but the moment I stepped on stage I felt that same excitement as in the resort. People listened. People cheered. And slowly it became my new life.
Because my days were free, I started a YouTube channel. Every second or third day I uploaded another song, nothing fancy — just me, a mic, and a bit of heart. During my evening gigs in the clubs, I handed out little cards with the channel information. “If you want to hear more, find me online!” I said countless times with a grin. And people actually did.
Over time I accumulated many subscribers, much more than I ever imagined. Eventually the income from YouTube became steady enough that I could reduce my nightly commitments. Singing until midnight every day wasn’t ideal for us anymore, especially because Lukas and I had married by then. We were living in our own apartment, building a proper life together. He was back at work, I was chasing my dream, and for the first time everything felt stable.
And yes — we wanted to extend our family. That thought alone made everything else feel even more meaningful. So I slowly shifted my singing to fewer nights, focused more on YouTube, and we started dreaming about the next chapter of our lives.
* * *
And then it happened in the most ordinary, silly way — exactly how my life with Lukas tended to unfold.
One morning I woke up feeling… wrong. Not sick, just off, like someone had replaced my stomach with a small, gently rocking boat. Lukas looked over at me and said, “Are you okay, Sorella? You look like you lost a fight with your pillow.”
“Well thank you, darling,” I grumbled. “Very romantic.” But he kissed my forehead anyway.
I shrugged it off at first, but the feeling stayed. Two days later, after another club-free evening and another morning of this strange floating sensation in my belly, I stood in the bathroom staring at a little white stick in my hand.
I had bought it secretly — not because Lukas wouldn’t have loved the idea, but because I wanted to be absolutely sure before I told him. My heart thumped so loudly I thought the neighbours could hear it. I watched the little window fill… and then I saw it.
Two lines.
I blinked once. Twice. The lines stayed.
“Oh no,” I whispered — and then I started laughing. “Oh yes. Oh yes, yes, yes!”
Lukas heard the commotion and knocked on the door.
“Sorella? Did you fall in?”
Stay out!” I squeaked. “I need… privacy!” Which of course only made him more suspicious.
Finally I opened the door just a crack, stuck my hand out and placed the test in his palm.
He looked at it, confused. “Is this… is this positive?”
“Yes.” “Positive positive?” “Yes!” “As in… we’re…?” “YES, LUKAS!”
And just like that, his face changed — first disbelief, then shock, then this soft warmth that made my heart melt like butter. He lifted me off my feet and spun me around until I squealed. He set me down gently, held my face with both hands and whispered, almost reverently:
“A baby… our baby.” “Yes,” I said. “Our baby. Our new chapter.”
We stood there for a long moment, wrapped around each other, feeling the weight and miracle of it. All our struggles — his memory loss, my worries, the long road back to each other — suddenly felt like threads weaving into something whole.
And that was how our story turned: from pain to healing, from forgetting to remembering, from lovers rediscovering each other to parents-to-be.
The next months would bring their own chaos, of course — doctor visits, cravings, my singing taking on a softer pace, Lukas reading baby books like his life depended on it. But that first moment, that tiny test between us, that breathless joy in our little apartment…
That’s when I knew: We had made it. We had built a life together. And our future was already knocking from the inside.
The End — or maybe just the beginning.
