5SOS Imagines

Luke - Forget Me Not

Author: Rhine

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Do you think he remembers you?

The way you would reach out for him with lonely arms, waiting for him to take up the space in your heart; the way you would say his name like a shooting star, like a cosmic wonder, like a lifetime wish; the way you would love him, with every fingertip tracing the message back to him, with every pore bleeding it into his skin; I love you I love you I loved you.

Because you do.

You remembered how his lips were a ghost on your neck, how your name was his treasure and how you were the masterpiece his eyes couldn't get enough of; how he looked at you like you were the north star guiding him home, like you were his home.

God, it sure felt like it.

You wonder if he moved out of the skeleton rooms of your ribs where his head used to lay on a Saturday night, or if you kicked him out when –

(know that he didn't want to leave, know that you didn't have a choice)

Do you think he remembers you?

Because he calls her baby, he tucks a strand of her hair behind her ear like he used to do for you; he kisses her on the forehead with a touch so light it could've been a dream and he calls her princess though he treats her like a queen.

Just like he did for you.

Do you remember me?

Do you think he thinks of you when he kisses her; do you think that's why he pulls away with a shadow of sadness in those bright blues, do you think that's why he flinches in the slightest bit every time she runs her nails over his collarbones like you used to?

Do you remember me?

Do you think he sees you when he closes his eyes only to have just her when he opens them again; is that why he always turns off the lights and never says her name, is that why he always turns the other way on the bed, why he never looks at her in the mirror so he doesn't have to see himself with the wrong girl in the reflection?

Do you remember me?

You hope he does.

You hope he doesn't.

Because you only wanted him to be happy despite all the pain you caused him, that you always will – your memory will always be laced in black and how you wished you could've kissed him back when he kissed you goodbye.

And the appropriate thing for a situation like this would be to move on – you and him from the you and I the two of you used to share – to say I want you to be happy without me, to accept the fact that life goes on even when life stops.

It wasn't supposed to end like this, he had said, it wasn't supposed to end.

But fate was bigger than love; but all tragedies are also love stories.

I'm sorry.

You say the words but he'll never hear them, he'll say the words in place of the I love you that he can't give to you anymore.

So he gives you this instead.

Your favourite flowers that rot in the dirt and grass, his tears at the bottom of the shower drain, a page of angry scribbles on a page; he gives you all these things and begs you to stop haunting him every day.

He gives your memory to those quietly listening in the pews and he gives your name to the baby girl he'll have one day; he gives every ounce of his being to you and god, he wishes he could give you his breath, his heartbeat, if he could.

You know he would.

And all you could give him was the melody of songbirds when he walks down the aisle with the girl that wasn't you, all you could give was the whistle of the wind that his daughter with your name liked so much; all you could give was the blue of the sky and the sunlight of his smile and hope that it reminded him of all the things you loved most about him, that it reminded him of all the things you stole away, that you hope he found without you again.

Do you remember me?

It's been sixteen years and there hasn't been a day where he's forgotten; it's been sixteen years and there hasn't been a day where he hasn't wondered what life would've been with you.

And he's happy, he is – he has a beautiful wife and a beautiful child and he's gotten everything he's wanted in his life.

Everything but you.

And he's happy now, like you wanted him to be – but he knows, he knows he would've been happier with you.

Sixteen years and he's forgotten how your lips tastes like raindrops in a drought, he's forgotten if your eyes were the ocean or the sky; the shape of your body and the crinkles in your smile, the sound of your voice and the feeling of your touch.

Sixteen years and he can't remember all the things he swore never to forget when he was a nineteen year old boy whose grief drowned him into a corpse that longed to be next to yours; sixteen years but he still hasn't forgotten you.

He still comes by every year, you know.

Your favourite flowers in the same bouquet that he's been getting for sixteen years now, set down on the dirt where dozens of his flowers from before have rotted; his only way of sending his love to you.

His voice always cracks like the stone with your name on it; it's been through as much as him – which is to say, hell and back – and it's more chipped than whole, your name barely legible with all the seasons it's been through.

He sits down and he remembers how he used to lie down and wish he was with you, hoping to hear your heartbeat somewhere below the ground.

"It's been a while," he says. "I've missed you."

He hasn't quite moved on, and truth to be told, neither have you.

"I love you."

He's been waiting for your answer for sixteen years and he'll wait for sixteen more; he'll love you for all of his life and he'll love you even after it.

If only he knew that you did too.

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