“Forget me not,” she said, her eyes full of pleading. It was always this way with her, this old fashioned air. She seemed to exhale air from the past, another time when the streets weren’t quite so full of smog and the pollution was worst only in the river. “Forget me not,” she told me, and I felt the tears prick my eyes.
She stood before me, her hair pinned up in a bun and a flower perching precariously over one ear. She could have been a painting, standing still with her lips slightly parted. It was only the stream of warm air that came out of her mouth visibly in the freezing night that made my senses snap back into reality.
I didn’t know what to tell her. I could never forget her – I would never forget her. I knew this. But she didn’t. Four years, and yet she didn’t know this. She still had to ask me, almost to beg of me, that I wouldn’t forget. That, more than anything, broke my heart.
I gave a nod, or perhaps it was a shake – I can’t remember. Either way, I meant to convey that I would never forget her. It is only now that I wonder whether she understood or believed me.