Sano didn't seem surprised when she suddenly jerked away, and it was Charlotte who was instead startled when she turned her gaze to his. He was staring at her like he was remembering the exact same thing, staring at her like he was hurting the same way she was hurting, and although she knew it was impossible, knew that it could be nothing but impossible—-
"How?" Charlotte whispered. "How can something like this happen?"
His lips twisted, and this, too, was so, so much like Land that it made her heart race and ache at the same time.
"I think I was three when my parents started taking me to all sorts of doctors. Neurologists. Pediatricians. Psychologists. Psychiatrists. They were genuinely worried about me. They wanted to know why I was so quiet, and why I didn't seem inclined to play with toys or other kids. But every test they made me take came back fine. There was nothing wrong with me. I was just...odd."
The wealth of emotion in that one word made Charlotte curl her fists. She had the craziest urge to wrap her arms around him, but fear of the unknown held her back. She wanted him to be who she thought he was. But she still needed to hear more.
"I was seven when it first happened. A woman had come to our school, and I just ran to her and hugged her. She was shocked, of course. But she was nice about it, since I was just a kid. I only recently found out that lady was my aunt—-"
Charlotte could feel herself paling. "Are you talking about—-"
"Aunt Thelma."
Oh God.
Thelma was the younger sister of Land's dad, and the older woman had still been in her late teens when she left the ranches of Texas for the snowy mountains of Niseko upon marrying a Japanese businessman.
"But since I didn't know that then, it freaked me out. And after that, countless other odd things had followed. I'd be humming a song while I'm doing my homework, and my parents would freak out because as far as they knew, I had never heard any of Debbie Gibson's songs. When we had our first vacation in America, I insisted on taking them to this shawarma stand in New York, and when they asked me how I knew of it, I didn't know what to say either."
Charlotte fought to keep her hands from shaking as she slowly reached for her coffee. It probably wasn't a good idea to take even a sip with the way her heart was already pounding, but she just needed something to do to calm herself.
Everything Sano was telling her was about her. About them. She had been a huge (secret) fan of Debbie Gibson ever since she was a kid, and it was on their first trip to NYC that they had come across the shawarma stand he was talking about.
But for him to remember such things when he was still a kid—-
How could that be possible?
How could Sano "remember" such things that were happening in real time, and she and Landon had still been together?
"By the time I hit my teens, I was the one pushing my parents to find more doctors for me to see. I was tired of questioning my sanity, of feeling like my whole life was this endless chain of déjà vu. Throughout the day, no matter what I did or who I was with, I would feel strangely...incomplete. And when I hit eighteen—-"
Charlotte's fingers started shaking so badly she was forced to place her cup back down. Sano at eighteen was ten years ago, which was the same year Landon...went away.
"That was when I started dreaming of you."
Charlotte's breath caught.
"But of course, I didn't know who you were at that time. And the dreams were hard for me to remember completely every time I woke up. I'd only remember snatches, and they were never enough to help me find you. We never spoke either. It was always like I was watching you from a distance. There were times I'd dream of you as a girl, and you were excitedly opening your bento box for lunch. Other times I'd dream of you as a woman, and you'd be at our front door, just standing there. Crying."
Charlotte stared hard at her barely-drank cup of coffee. She might be crying in his dreams, but she was not going to cry now. You got that, Charlotte? No crying in public!
"It pains me to admit this now, but you turned out to be my tipping point. All the other crazy stuff I could handle, but every time I dreamt of you, it just messed me up. I didn't even know if you were real or if I had lost my mind. And when none of the doctors could still find anything wrong with me, I was at the end of my tether and I knew I had to make a decision."