“I love you,” she whispers. More heat swells through my body. “I love you. I know it’s so hard, but don’t forget, okay? I need you to remember.”

“I will,” I promise, even though I know it’s not a promise I can keep. “I could never forget you.”

HALEY

Ever since I was a kid, I liked to listen to the local news. Half-listen, really, since I don’t pay full attention to whatever they’re saying. In the evenings they run out of crime stories pretty early on and move to human interest pieces. Last week I saw one about a woman who was turning a hundred years old and had lived in the same house for over half a century. Tonight, they’re interviewing a man who lost his house in a fire and ended up buying a food truck. Now he drives around to different towns and sells people lunch after the local farmer’s market.

Maybe I’m a busy body, maybe I just want to know how much bad there is compared to how much good. I’m not sure.

I take a sip of my wine, cuddled up on my sofa, and scroll on my phone. I’m not really paying attention to the online shopping I’m doing, either. New art for my office, maybe. The abstract piece I’ve had in there could use a change. There are hundreds of prints to choose from.

A landscape could be good.

This is a habit of mine I’m aware has its pros and cons. Mindlessly scrolling, half paying attention, unwinding with a glass of wine and then I sleep, deeply and soundly.

I flip through different prints of the countryside on some art site that came up as an ad. A painting of a lake catches my eye. Oh—the artist has done a ton of different paintings at all times throughout the day and night.

The sound from the food truck segment cuts off as I take another sip of my wine.

“We’re interrupting our previous segment to bring you breaking news.” There’s a tension in the anchor’s voice that isn’t usually there. My body stills. I’ve never seen this particular anchor get shaken up over anything, but now she stares into the camera like she’s trying to hide her shock. “The body of a man was discovered early this morning by members of the local police department. Darell Hunt was found⁠—”

Darell Hunt. They flash his picture up on the screen. It’s a headshot taken at his most recent job—not the school I went to, but a different private school. He still looks the same in the photo. Perfectly recognizable. He aged around his eyes and has more gray to his hair… but when I look at him, the memory of what he used to be is all that I see.