Madison sat at the edge of the porch, knees tucked to her chest, watching the late June light fade into that soft kind of evening that made the world feel slower, like maybe time had decided to take a nap. She wasn't doing anything special—just peeling the label off a bottle of strawberry soda and humming a song she only half-remembered—but she looked like someone waiting for a letter from a place that didn't exist anymore. Maybe childhood. Maybe something even older.
She had that look in her eyes again—the one that made you wonder what she was seeing. Most people thought she just got quiet sometimes, but the truth was, she was remembering things. Not important things, like math facts or locker combinations, but the ones that actually mattered: how it felt to run barefoot in the backyard with the fireflies, or the way her mom used to braid her hair with ribbons when she was little. That kind of remembering didn't make her sad, exactly. It just made her ache a little in a place no one else could see.
Madison didn't belong in stories where people wore armor or solved mysteries or fell in love with perfect boys. She belonged in the kind of story where someone finds a treehouse deep in the woods, forgotten and quiet, and decides to make it their own. Where magic isn't loud—it's gentle. The kind of magic that lives in rainy days, music through a wall, and wishing on stars even if you're not sure you believe anymore.
And even on the days when her voice shook, or her eyes felt too heavy, there was still something about her—something soft and golden and stitched together with hope. As if, deep down, she still believed the world might send her a sign.
Even if it was just a breeze that smelled like the past.
YOU ARE READING
The Little Things We Don't Forget
Randomemotional story based on me - a girl who misses her childhood more than she knows how to say. It's about treehouses, summer nights, growing up slowly, and holding onto the little memories that made us who we are. Madison is quiet, observant, and a l...
