melancholy

Forget Me Not

Artwork by Quirubin Boqueo

“I loved you first,” she said through a soft exhale of smoke. Cigarette in hand, Elysia lay at the end of her bed, her neck arched over the curvature of the mattress so that her hair grazed the floor. Her eyes followed Leighton’s steady progress as he paced. 

The knotted wood of the floorboards creaked underfoot. Watching him watch whatever the hell it was rushing through his mind this time, she told herself to feel content. He ran his hands through his closely cropped hair before finally breaking his gait. Turning to her sprawled form, he said, “Do we have any bread left in the cupboard?” 

She took a drag without responding, longing for his eyes to meet hers, hoping he would catch her expression. Instead he left without waiting for a response. She closed her eyes and exhaled, imagining him moving through her cabin. 

He was barefoot, and the floor was cold, but he wouldn’t notice. Or at least he’d claim not to. She’d more than once awoken to him laying next to her wearing nothing but her favorite pair of wool socks, the bastard. He’d move through the house with ease, not bothering to turn on the lights. The house never got very dark anyway. Sometimes the sun streamed in like in a greenhouse, and other times it was lit with moonlight. She never closed the curtains. 

In the kitchen, he’d get distracted looking for the bread and make some tea. He’d choose the green mug for himself and the yellow one he’d painted for her, the one with the chipped rim. He’d take one in each hand and be halfway down the hall before remembering he’d come for toast. He’d go back, make a of couple slices, and balance them on the saucer. He never dropped them, he said, though she sometimes found crumbs on the carpet.

She opened her eyes and he stood before her, two teas in hand just as she’d imagined. She accepted hers wordlessly, shifting to make room for him on the duvet. They said nothing until the toast was in their bellies and the teas nearly gone.

“In the garden that day. I saw you sitting against that big tree,” she continued. 

“I was drawing the birds that flew by, and you interrupted by offering me a cigarette.”

“Which you refused,” she said, grinning. “Your hair was long when we first met.”

“Was it?”

“I remember because I wanted to cut it off.” She had wondered what it would look like, all those light strands against the dry summer grass.

“Now you see it cut.”

“But I never saw it being cut.” She sat up and reached for another cigarette and thought of the time. Somewhere in between that first summer years ago and this one, he’d cut his hair and returned to her without his characteristic locks. It was a reminder that they only ever had summer; the seasons between held the rest of their very separate lives. 

“Ely,” he said, pushing her tangled black hair away from her face. “This isn’t the last day.”

“But you know it is,” she said. “You leave again tomorrow, and it’s like none of this happened.”

“This is the last day until next summer, and the one after and after. And it is happening, Elysia. You’ve been happening to me for four years now.”

“And everything else has been happening all the rest of the time. When will you stay?” She hated her voice for breaking. 

“Hey now. It’s not like you wait for me,” he said softly. She said nothing, thinking of all the hours she’d look out the vast windows of her cabin, when no amount of sun or starlight could convince her that the last summer wasn’t truly their last.

“So you’re leaving?” she asked again, knowing the answer would not, could not change. Apparently Alaska only appealed to his artistic sensibilities in the summer, when wildflowers and cold streams adorned the landscape and she could go out in little more than a dress and chunky cardigan and not freeze. He slipped away each year with the shortening daylight, leaving her in the dark. “Back to your pretty winter Muses?”

“And I’ll leave you to yours.” That was how it had always worked—him traveling from state to state, girl to girl, her working on her never-ending thesis, telling herself that she wasn’t waiting for him, and telling him that she absolutely wasn’t. He said they were meant to bloom like Forget-Me-Nots, and weren’t they lucky to only ever have each other at their brightest? 

She took another drag and he looked on, frowning. At least once a summer he mentioned his disapproval of her habit. Today he pulled the remaining stub from between her lips and put it out against her nightstand. He’d decorated it for her last summer, when they’d hauled the old wooden thing out into the garden and she’d worked on a particularly dense bit of her research while he painted tiny wildflowers on the newly sandpapered surface. She’d been so focused on her work that afternoon—the migratory habits of a particular species of bird native to this region had never seemed so fascinating—but when she made the connection between two data points that had been bothering her for a week, and squealed happily at her discovery, Leighton had only glanced up for a moment before continuing his steady paintbrush strokes. 

The cigarette left a grey blemish against the wood, obscuring the tip of a painted petal. Elysia didn’t protest but something grew cold within her. 

“What if I don’t remember you?” she asked, sitting up straighter.

“Hm?” Leighton settled deeper within her pillows, crossing his arms behind his head. 

“What if you come back next summer and I say, sorry, I don’t think we’ve met?”

He laughed. She grew colder still. “What would you do? What would you do if next summer you come here and I’m gone?” And what would winter be like if I wasn’t waiting for you?

“Where would you go?” he asked lazily. 

“Anywhere. Everywhere. The point is you’d never see me here again.”

“Could I see you elsewhere?” he said, playing along. 

“Only if you’d follow me.” 

He was quiet for a while. Eventually he said, “You don’t have to stay here.”

“And you don’t have to go.”

“Come with me then.” He sat up, looking at her. “Elysia, come with me. We’ll have the year. The seasons. As many as we want.”

The ice within her threatened to melt. How many times had she hoped he would ask her this? How many dreams had begun with the two of them jetting off to foreign lands, navigating the narrow backstreets of ancient cities and bathing in waterfalls as they chased, purposefully, unitedly, whatever they fancied? 

She clambered off the bed and began to pace. “But I live here.” Among open windows and colorful walls. In years of three-quartered solitude. Waiting. 

His eyes followed her movements. “Elysia, don’t make me leave you.”

“I’ll probably be here,” she conceded, stopping to face him. “But I won’t love you last.” 

—

Francesca von Krauland is a Miami-born Cuban and Austrian writer. She is a lover of cappuccinos, cats, and conversations that go on for hours.

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