She turned off the lights, the house falling into a perfect, silent order. She walked toward the bedroom, toward her stable life, but for one fleeting second, she let herself get lost in the heat of the memory, knowing that some fevers never truly break.

She whispered the words to herself: "Ich will immer wieder... dieses Fieber spür'n."

"You're thinking again," Thomas said softly, placing a hand on her shoulder. "You have that look." "Just the rain," she lied, leaning into his touch.

But as the rain streaked against the windowpane, a rhythm began to thrum in her mind, unbidden and restless. It wasn't a song she had heard on the radio recently; it was a memory.

But as soon as he turned to head to bed, she felt the phantom chill. She remembered the way he used to look at her—not with Thomas's gentle affection, but with a desperate, reckless hunger. They had been fire and gasoline. It had been toxic, exhausting, and entirely unsustainable. They had burned out in a spectacular crash of broken glass and silent phone calls.