REMEMBER ME TWICE

Nia The first photograph ever taken of me was taken three minutes after I was born. My mother was crying. My father was smiling. And I was asleep. I had no idea that I had just entered a world that would one day ask me to remember things I desperately wanted to forget. "That baby is me...Nia Monroe, I'll be talking a lot on here so just try to recognize my rants when I start to talk about myself or to myself. NOW, back to my story.. ahem(clears her throat) According to my mother, I was the easiest baby in the world, And to my father, wellll I was only quiet because I was already tired of everybody." My childhood was ordinary in almost every way, and I was the only child. I had birthday cakes with too much frosting, I hated vegetables but pretended otherwise when my mother was watching, I loved rainy afternoons, stuffed animals, and the sound of my father’s old radio playing downstairs on Saturday mornings. I learned to walk, read, ride a bicycle after falling off it approximately fourteen times. I learned that my mother cried whenever she watched emotional movies. I learned that my father couldn’t cook. I learned that home was supposed to feel safe, and most importantly I learned to be kind, to love, and be there for one another. Childhood has a way of making small things seem harmless. A misplaced toy, a forgotten promise, a name that refuses to stay in your head, none of it feels important when you’re young. For a while, my parents treated my forgetfulness the same way they treated everything else: with patience, then amusement, then quiet concern. It was only when the gaps began appearing in places they couldn’t explain that they stopped laughing. I would remember a conversation that had never happened, or insist I had been somewhere I hadn’t. I could walk into a room with a thought perfectly formed in my mind and, seconds later, stand there wondering what had brought me in. Sometimes the memory returned. Sometimes it didn’t. And sometimes, the most frightening part wasn’t forgetting something. It was not knowing that I had forgotten it at all. “Nia,” my father would say, standing in the middle of the living room with his hands on his hips, “where are your shoes?” I would look down. One shoe would be on my foot. The other would somehow be missing. “I don’t know.” “You were wearing them five minutes ago.” “I know.” Her father would shake his head. Her mother would laugh. And I would laugh too. At six, forgetting was funny. At eight, it became annoying. At ten, it became something her parents started noticing. At twelve, it became something nobody laughed about anymore. One afternoon, I came home from school and walked into the kitchen. My mother was standing at the counter. “Nia, how was school?” “Good.” “How was your math test?” I stopped. “What math test?” my mother’s hand froze. “The test you studied for yesterday.” I stared at her. “I studied yesterday?” my mother didn’t answer me immediately. I could tell something was wrong. I looked down at my backpack. There was a folded piece of paper sticking out of the front pocket. I pulled it out. At the top, written in my own handwriting, were the words: MATH TEST — THURSDAY. I looked at the paper. Then at my mother. “Oh.” my mother smiled. It wasn’t a happy smile. It was the kind adults used when they were trying not to look worried. “You’re okay,” she said. I nodded. “I know.” But she didn’t. Not completely. That night, I sat on her bedroom floor surrounded by notebooks. I began writing everything down. Important dates. Names. Homework. Things my parents told me. Things I wanted to remember. I even wrote down little things that seemed silly. Mom likes strawberry ice cream. Dad snores. My favorite song right now is... I just... you know.. stopped. I couldn’t remember. My pen hovered over the page. After a moment.. I got tired of thinking then I wrote: I’ll remember later. but I didn’t, sadly.. By the time I was fourteen, my parents had become experts at pretending they weren’t worried. They didn’t ask too many questions. They didn’t hover. At least, they tried not to. But I noticed the little things. The extra reminders. The notes stuck to my bedroom mirror. The calendar on the refrigerator. The way my mother sometimes repeated the same instructions twice. And then there was school. That was where everything changed. my parents didn’t think I was ready for a normal high school. But I disagreed. “I can do it.” my father sat across from me at the dining table. “Nia—” “I can.” “We know you can.” “Then why can’t I go?” my mother sighed. “Because we don’t want you to struggle.” “I already struggle.” Silence. I looked between them, with tears in my eyes “So you’re embarrassed of me?” my mother’s face immediately changed. “No.” “Then let me try.” my father leaned back in his chair. Nobody spoke for several seconds. Finally, he said, “What if we start slowly?” I frowned. “How slowly?” “A tutor at home first.” “I don’t need a tutor.” “Just for a while.” And God!, how I just hated that word. For a while. It always seemed to mean longer than anyone admitted. But I agreed. So while other teenagers were walking through school hallways, meeting new classmates and complaining about homework, I sat at home with tutors. I studied, worked, wrote everything down, tried harder than anyone knew. And every time I forgot something, I tried again. Because I had decided something. I wasn’t going to let forgetting decide who I became. Jayden Across town, Jayden Carter had no idea that a girl named Nia Monroe existed. And if someone had told him she would eventually become the most important person in his life, he probably would’ve laughed. Jayden’s life was different. Not perfect. Just different. He had always been the kid who talked too much. His mother called it confidence. His teachers called it a problem. His friends called it entertainment. He preferred the third option. At fourteen, Jayden had already mastered the art of getting into trouble without technically doing anything wrong. He could make his friends laugh during class without the teacher noticing. He could convince someone to give him their last piece of candy. He could turn a boring afternoon into something interesting. He wasn’t the smartest student in school. He wasn’t the most popular either. But people knew him. And Jayden liked it that way. His best friend, Marcus, once told him he could probably become friends with a brick wall if he tried hard enough. Jayden had taken it as a compliment. “You talk too much,” his mother told him one morning. Jayden grabbed a piece of toast from the kitchen counter. “You’ve said that every day for fifteen years.” “Exactly.” He grinned. His mother pointed toward the door. “Don’t be late.” “I won’t.” “You said that yesterday.” “I was technically only six minutes late.” “You were twenty.” “Details.” She shook her head as he walked out. Jayden stepped onto the sidewalk and adjusted his backpack. Another school year. Another set of classes. Another collection of teachers who would eventually learn his name for all the wrong reasons. He didn’t know that this year would be different. He didn’t know that somewhere across town, a girl was preparing to walk into the same school. He didn’t know her name. He didn’t know her story. He didn’t know that she had spent years writing things down because she was afraid of forgetting them. And he definitely didn’t know that one day, she would forget him. For now, Jayden was simply Jayden. A boy walking to school. A boy laughing with his friends. A boy who believed his life was already beginning to make sense. Nia The day finally came. My mother stood outside my bedroom door. “You ready?” I looked at myself in the mirror. New uniform. New backpack. New school. New beginning. I checked the notebook in my bag, I had written everything I needed. My schedule, classes, my mother’s phone number, my father’s phone number, and my address. Also I had one sentence written at the bottom of the page: You are Nia Monroe. You are okay. You can do this. I smiled. "I was terrified. But I didn’t want anyone to know." But I turned towards my mother. “I’m ready.” my mother smiled. “I know.” I walked downstairs. Outside, the morning air was cold. The world felt enormous. For the first time in years, I was stepping into something I had been told I wasn’t ready for. I tightened my grip around my backpack strap. Then I smiled. Nothing was going to ruin my day. I was going to be fine. I just didn’t know that somewhere inside that school was a boy named Jayden. And before the year was over, I would know his laugh. His favorite food. The way he smiled when he was trying not to. The way he looked at me when he thought I wasn’t paying attention. I didn’t know that he would become my best friend. my biggest argument, safest place and first love. Of course I didn’t know any of that yet. For now, he was just a boy I hadn’t met. And I was just a girl walking through the school gates for the first time. Neither of them knew it yet. But their story had already begun.