Chapter 12: A Day Without Her
The morning felt wrong.
Not in a loud way — not like thunder, or heartbreak, or breaking glass. It was quiet wrong. Like waking up and realizing something in your bones was missing.
She was gone.
I checked every room. The bed was cold, the blanket folded. Her notebook still sat on the nightstand, but the page for today was blank.
No message. No trail. No hint.
Just… gone.
I sat on the edge of the bed and whispered into the silence:
"Come back. Even if you don't remember me today. Come back."
---
I went to the places we used to walk.
The streetlamp. Empty.
The river bench. Silent.
The tree with her initials carved into the bark. Still.
I waited until sunset. The sky turned orange, then bruised purple. She didn't come.
I walked home with the kind of heaviness that makes your legs forget how to move.
---
That night, I played the tape.
Her voice came through, warm and quiet:
"If I forget you, remind me gently. If I forget me, remind me kindly. If I forget both — sit with me anyway."
I let it loop.
Again.
And again.
Until I fell asleep with her voice as my lullaby.
---
The next morning, I found a letter at the door.
Different handwriting. Not hers.
It was from a woman named Elise — her nurse.
"She wandered out of the facility. We found her a day later, safe, but confused. She asked about you. Said she was supposed to meet someone who always comes when it rains."
I wept into that letter.
Because even through the forgetting, some part of her was still looking for me.
---
I visited the facility.
They let me see her.
She was sitting on a window bench, reading a book upside down.
When I stepped in, her eyes flicked up.
Nothing. No sign of recognition.
But she looked at me like I mattered anyway.
"Are you… someone I used to love?" she asked.
I swallowed the lump in my throat.
"I still do," I said.
She blinked.
Then smiled softly.
"I think that counts for something."
---
I brought her flowers.
She forgot they were from me ten minutes later.
So I brought them again.
And again.
Each day. The same kind.
Yellow daisies. Her favorite.
Eventually, her room was filled with them.
And even when she didn't know my name, she started calling me:
"The boy with the flowers."
---
One day, I brought the notebook.
She flipped through it, confused.
"This is my handwriting," she whispered. "But I don't remember writing any of it."
She turned the pages like a stranger reading someone else's life.
Until she landed on one that made her pause.
My words, next to hers:
"You're still Spring. Still the girl who stopped the night from feeling empty."
She touched the ink like it might burn her.
"He loved me," she said.
I smiled, holding back the ache.
"He still does."
---
We sat in the garden behind the center.
She watched the wind move the trees.
"Do you think people live in pieces?" she asked. "Like… scattered moments? And if someone loves you enough, they hold the missing ones until you come back?"
I nodded.
"That's exactly what love is."
---
That night, I kissed her forehead before leaving.
She didn't stop me.
But as I turned away, she whispered:
"Don't give up on me. Even if I do."
And I promised — in a voice only the night could hear:
"Never."
---
Quote from Spring (Chapter 12):
"Do you think people live in pieces? And if someone loves you enough, they hold the missing ones until you come back?"
Quote from the Protagonist (Chapter 12):
"Even through the forgetting, some part of her was still looking for me."