Forgotten

“Does it seem strange to you?” Annie remarked as she pulled a scarf around her neck. It looked as if she had got a shudder from deep within herself instead of the cold November weather.

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Ben looked at her focusing and directing his gaze to the pavement scattered with gold and light brown dried leaves. It was now almost an hour since they were walking next to each other and were walking on the empty streets of their childhood neighborhood. It was almost unrecognizable as if it had been recolored, that time had happened in a very subtle but profound way. Once upon a time, they used to live there too in a place that was now nothing more than an empty house, shut and haunted just like most of the things they had once been.

“What is strange?” Ben put the question to her knowing fully well her focus was on him.

“Us. This.” She waved her hand around at the street, the air, and the dead leaves that had been pushed on their way. “I think I must have been here last about a hundred years ago. It seems to me such a distant memory, more like a nightmare you feel after waking up just about.”

Ben slowed his steps, watching her face, the way her eyes roamed as if piecing together fragments of something she’d lost. She actually appeared as though she had something to add to the conversation but appeared to be struggling to find the right words to express her thoughts.

“What can you recall?” he asked, almost coaxing her to speak more.

She expelled a deep breath. “A few things here and there, you know? Like, I remember that swing by the park where we used to sit. But I don’t… feel it anymore. Not the way I thought I would. I thought it would mean more, coming back here, but…” She halted, as if her thoughts had become too slow to produce any more immediate words.

“Well,” Ben began awkwardly, “well, let us say that some things may not be remembered in such a manner.” After taking a breather, he ran his hand across his head. “Perhaps they are simply still, nowhere to be found. Not because they are absent from us, but because we are absent from them.”

She turned toward him in surprise at the idea. They were quiet for a while and took a few steps, their breaths visible in the frigid air, wondering how much they hadn’t even realized they were letting go.

The house was revealed with a glance around the corner, its outline quite recognizable but with a slight bend. They both stood there for a minute taking in the sight. The building appeared to be not as large, its panes dulled and coated. The larger picture was cloaked in a fine yeasting.

Annie gave a laugh, but it was dry and devoid of any humor. “I suppose it seems about as good as we left it.” She walked ahead, eyes scanning the walls, the porch, the overgrown bushes that encroached upon the yard.

Ben trailed behind her and as they both stood at the stairs, they looked at the place where they had constructed several quarters of their lives. Many quarrels and several make-ups have all been captured in these decaying structures.

“Do you ever think about… what went wrong?” Annie asked, finally breaking the silence. Her voice was tentative, as if afraid of the weight of the answer.

Ben shifted uncomfortably. He didn’t answer right away, rather, his eyes were glued to the fractured window on the front door. “I would mull over it several times,” he confessed, his tone quieter than he intended. “But I do not know whether it is any single one thing. It was more like… a gradual amnesia. Little by little, we forgot each other until there was too little to remember."

She was quiet for a long moment, letting his words sink in, her face unreadable. Then, slowly, she nodded, a small, almost imperceptible gesture. “Yeah, I guess that’s about right.”

They stood in silence, two people separated by more than just time and space, connected by memories they could barely grasp. They hadn’t spoken like this in years, hadn’t shared something so raw, so real, in what felt like an eternity.

“Remember when we planted those hydrangeas over there?” Annie gestured to a patch of withered plants beside the porch. “You were so sure they were going to bloom.” She shook her head, a faint smile playing on her lips. “You didn’t listen when I said they needed sunlight, and we planted them in the shade anyway.”

Ben laughed, the warmth in his laughter increasing this time around. “Yes, I remember. They were my mom’s favorites, but I could never keep anything alive. I think you did most of the work, really. ” He glanced at her, feeling a pang of nostalgia. “I guess I thought I could fix things by doing… I don’t know, anything. But I never really listened to what was actually wrong.”

Annie looked at him, and for the first time in years, he saw a glimpse of the woman he’d fallen in love with. She seemed softer, less guarded. Vulnerable, even. “We both made mistakes,” she said, “It wasn’t just you.”

“Do you often think… ” Annie spoke but paused mid-sentence, allowing silence to take control of the floor. “Do you ever wonder what could have happened if we hadn't… parted ways?”

There was a silence in him, the pain slowly creeping in gradually. He then looked at her, as if he was looking at her for the very first time. So much had been left without an answer. “Sometimes, yes,” he said in barely a whisper. “But maybe in some ways, it is for the best. Maybe it is time for us to be blind to one another. Perhaps that is the only way we can cling onto the good parts.”

She nodded, but there was a sadness in her eyes, a wistfulness that he recognized all too well. They were standing on the edge of something neither of them fully understood, a place where past and present mixed up in such a way that the dividing line between the was and the could have been was extremely thin.

They walked away from the estate, hearing their footsteps as they walked back down the street. No words were exchanged between them, but there was closure that neither ever knew they wanted.

When they reached the end of the block, Ben hesitated, looking back one last time. The house stood there, unmoved, unchanged, a silent witness to everything they’d left behind. He felt a strange sense of peace, a quiet acceptance that settled over him like a gentle weight.

“Bye Annie,” he whispered as though talking to himself while securing his gaze away from the house.

“Bye Ben,” she responded, and there was such warmth in her voice that made him think, just for a moment, that they’d left a piece of themselves here, something they could carry with them, even as they moved forward.