Chapter Text
“You’re too young to be this forgetful!” I was often told by the people around me. They would shake their heads in disbelief, wondering how someone my age could misplace an item that I was just holding, or confuse someone’s words for something else. They often laughed and teased me for it. There were times that I hated the fact that I was so forgetful.
But when it came to you, I thought the opposite.
Because for some reason, for some goddamn reason, I remember everything. The way you laughed, tilting your head back to look up at the sky. The way you smiled, quirking your lips ever so slightly before grinning with your perfect white teeth. The way you danced, if you could call it dancing, twirling around and around before flopping down onto the sofa. I could go on for ages. The way you talked, the way you hummed, the way you fidgeted with your glasses when you were nervous. I never forgot them. How could I? You planted it deep within my brain, and the roots have grown so much that it reached all the way down and wrapped itself around my heart.
I hate you.
It wouldn’t have been like this if you hadn’t gotten me so attached. If you hadn’t been so beautiful. I wouldn’t be the mess I am right now if I had never even met you. People often say that it’s better to have loved than to have never loved at all. I don’t agree. If I had never loved you, I wouldn’t feel this hollow ache in my chest. I wouldn’t feel my body aching all over when the memories play through my head again. Again, and again, and again.
I want to forget you. But I can’t. I don’t know how.
I’ve tried. Every single time I thought of you, I tried to forget you. Yet each time, I failed. Because everything just reminds me of you.
Our photos on the wall? I took them down and put them in a box, hoping it would help. It didn’t, it just reminded me of that time we built a fort with cardboard boxes together. Your mixtapes? I hid them in a drawer. Didn’t matter, because every time I picked up my guitar I remembered how you used to sing as I played. Your drawings? I kept the sketchbook in the attic, but it didn’t change anything. If anything, it reminded me of how you thought the attic was haunted. Every time I tried to forget you, I’d remember something else.
You’ve cursed me. You left me, and I thought after a while it’d get easier but it never did. It’s almost as if everything just got worse. Is this what you wanted? To see me broken? To see me shattered to pieces, trying to put myself back together but failing each time because I get hurt whenever I pick the glass up?
Why did I have to love you?
…
…You used to ask me that. I remember that too. When we cuddled, when you cried, when you were weak and in pain, you used to ask me that. “Why did you have to love me?” I remember it well.
Of course, I remember it. How could I forget? I would always answer the same thing every time.
“You didn’t give me any other choice.”
Just like back then, when I had first loved you, I didn’t have a choice. I fell and that was that. But I had a million other times to choose to stop loving you, yet I never did. I didn’t want to.
Just like now. That’s why I can’t forget you. Even if I had a million other times to choose to forget you, I never did. I never could, because I never wanted to. Even if every moment I spent remembering you feels like a hammer is being pounded into my chest breaking me bit by bit, I’d never forget you.
I don’t hate you, I hate the fact that you’re gone. I hate the fact that the only time I ever get to see you laugh and smile is through pictures and videos. I hate the fact that I’ll wake up every morning to silence from the kitchen, not hearing you humming as you made me breakfast. I’ll hate the fact that no one is trying to push me off my side of the bed. I’ll hate the fact that no one will complain about the hot water not flowing and call me in to fix it for her because the water is “as cold as the North Pole”.
I hate the fact that the only time I’ll ever get to give you flowers is when I lay them by your gravestone.
I don’t hate you. You know I never could, because I loved you. Even when we found out you had cancer, I still loved you. Even when you tried to push me away to protect my own heart, I still loved you.
Until now, even when you’re gone. I still love you.
I won’t forget you. I love you too much to do that. After all, how could I forget?
You didn’t give me any other choice.