Another unremarkable day passed, the sun rose and set as it always did, and yet, she felt that something wasn't right. She tucked her son beneath his goose-feather sheets, sang a lullaby when the teen begged - for old time sake, and kissed the boy on the forehead when his big brown eyes had finally fallen shut. He was safe and sound under the glistening plastic stars, and yet, she felt that something wasn't right.
The carpet between her painted toes was soft and the air about her tanned skin warm as she tiptoed away from where her boy slept. A certain sense of security enveloped her entire home, and yet, something still wasn't right.
As the young mother ran an ivory comb through her auburn hair, a few disobedient strands whipped harshly against the healing wound on her temple, refreshing the memory of her brush with death. She lay down to sleep in an empty bed, the other side as cold against her skin as the reminder of the car crash - the crash that could have taken both her life and her son's. But that wasn't it. Both memory and harsh realization were not what plagued her as she slept in that king-sized bed alone. Something was missing. Something, she came to realize as an empty weight pressed down against her chest, that wouldn't be recovered by just anyone filling that space beneath her sheets.
She dreamt of a stranger that night, a kind-hearted man with anguished eyes - the man who had rushed her to the hospital after his car collided with hers. Something about that man sent sirens screaming in her sub consciousness. Something about him just seemed right. But before her sleeping mind could piece together the insoluble puzzle of something lost, sunlight kissed her lids apart, and the dream was gone with the dust that drifted in the sun's rays.
It happened a few years later, as the woman made an unceremonious visit to the seldom-used storage closet. Ben's old baseball glove and other miscellaneous objects inside would make her a pretty penny at the community yard sale. She pulled a board game that was missing a few pieces, an old scarf, and the sunglasses she'd been missing for quite some time. She restacked the old boxes and moved to close the door on the past for another two years until something small clattered against the wooden floor. She wouldn't have noticed - if not for the pain it brought when her foot found the shattered glass first. Full lips turned down, mimicking the dip of her brow as she bent down to clean up the mess. A small picture frame lay broken with its face to the floor, its back covered in a thin film of dust. Lisa lifted the frame and sighed, trying to remember where she had put the dustpan as she turned the wooden frame over in her palm.
The wrinkled paper wedged within the frame caught her eye and stole her breath, setting heart and mind aflame. With one glance, the void was filled. That "something" she had unknowingly been searching for flooded the canals of her memory and drowned her mind in a ceaseless sea. She focused on the picture, wide-eyed and still-lipped, staring into her own passion-filled eyes as her image stood beside the man from her dreams - the supposed stranger who had saved both her life and her son's.
Memory upon memory of a life lost and found threatened to wash her away as each recovered puzzle piece pounded against her skull. Finally the pressure grew too much to bare and as her son rushed to her side, the turmoil erupted from her parted lips in the form of a single name:
"Dean."
A/N: Eh. I literally wrote this in 5 minutes on my lunch break at work so don't hate if it's shitty. Heh, this is just me wondering, "What would have happened if Dean forgot to get rid of all the pictures of him and Lisa together after he erased her memory?" So ya. Leave a review please so I know if I should go back to not writing anything ever again.