THE HEART REMEMBERS WHAT THE MIND FORGET
1355 Words
Kristine closed her eyes, the tears slipping down between them. “You’re not. But sometimes, I feel like one.”
Silence stretched, tender and painful.
Then Banjo kissed her.
It was slow at first, a trembling meeting of lips that felt like finding the edge of a lost dream. Then it deepened... desperate, aching, filled with years of absence and everything left unsaid.
The world flickered around them like film burning in slow motion, light bending, sound dissolving.
Kristine clung to him, her fingers gripping his shirt, her body pressed against the familiar warmth she’d dreamed of and denied. Every heartbeat screamed that this was wrong, impossible, dangerous... and yet every breath whispered that it was right.
When the kiss broke, she was crying. “Why does love always feel like dying?”
“Because it’s the only thing strong enough to wake the dead,” he murmured.
The glass lake began to crack beneath them, spreading like veins of ice. The warmth dimmed.
Kristine looked down, panic flashing in her eyes. “It’s happening again!”
Banjo pulled her close. “Then hold on to me.”
“No,” she said, shaking her head, tears spilling fast.
“If you hold me here, you’ll be trapped, too. You don’t belong in this place, Banjo. You’re still alive.”
“So are you,” he said fiercely.
“Half,” she whispered. “Half alive, half somewhere else. That’s what this place is. It’s where the lost pieces meet before they choose.”
“Then choose me,” he said. “Choose us...”
She smiled weakly. “If I do, Rico’s promise dies. But if I go, your love dies.”
Banjo cupped her face, his thumbs brushing her tears away. “Then let me carry both. Let me love what he loved, too. Let me be the man who holds every version of you.”
She stared at him, breath shattering. “You’d do that?”
“I already have,” he said. “Since the day you came back.”
The cracks reached their feet. The light split, half gold, half white. A hum filled the air, low and deep like the sound of the earth turning.
Kristine reached out both hands again. One toward him, one toward the light.
“I can’t hold both,” she said softly.
“Then hold on to what’s real,” Banjo whispered.
Her lips trembled. “You.”
The moment she said it, the world convulsed. The light shattered, flooding everything in brilliance. Banjo felt the ground give way again, but this time, instead of falling, he was pushed upward, through air, through sound, through the memory of her name...
* * * **
Banjo woke up to the sound of rain. The compass lay shattered beside him. The house was still.
He sat up, heart pounding, eyes darting across the room. “Kristine?”
At first, only silence answered. Then, from the far side of the room, a whisper. “I’m here.”
Banjo turned, breath catching. She stood by the doorway, her hair damp, her eyes luminous. The same eyes he kissed goodnight years ago, and yet... different. wiser and softer.
He helped her rise, every muscle of them trembling. “Is it really you?”
Kristine smiled, tears in her eyes. “I don’t know which "me" made it back. But I remembered something before I opened my eyes.”
“What?”
She stepped closer until their hands almost touched. “You said once that love doesn’t die. It just finds another way to breathe.”
Banjo’s breath caught. “I meant it.”
She placed his hand over her heart. The beat was steady. Real. “Then listen,” she said, smiling through tears. “It’s breathing now.”
Banjo pulled her into his arms, holding her as if the world might split again. But it didn’t. This time, it held.
Outside, the rain fell harder... washing the mist, the echoes, the ghosts... until all that was left was the sound of two hearts finding their way back in sync.
And for the first time since death took her, Banjo felt it again. Life. Love.Home.
But in a second...
The brightness dimmed, and the house began to breathe again.
Kristine stood there, completely still, her heart racing in her chest as the air around the kneeling figure seemed to shimmer. The mist pulled back like a receding tide, revealing walls that had only existed in her mind, until just one remained, the old living room, drenched in a soft, half-light, where Banjo used to sit and play the piano.
She recognized the curve of the keys, the scent of aged wood, the faint hum of electricity even when nothing was turned on.
And him.
Banjo knelt by the window, his hand clutching something, her old locket, the one she’d worn the night of the accident. His head was bowed, shoulders trembling.
“Banjo…” she whispered.
He looked up.
For a brief moment, neither of them moved. It felt like time itself had paused to capture that instant, his gaze locking onto hers, a mix of disbelief and yearning colliding in a silent burst of emotion.
“Kristine?” His voice broke, barely audible, like he was afraid the sound would make her vanish.
“I...” she tried to step closer, but the floor rippled beneath her feet like water. “I don’t understand… I saw you, but everything keeps changing...”
Banjo stood, stumbling a little. He crossed the space between them, his hand outstretched, desperate and trembling. “Don’t move. Please. I thought I’d lost you again.”
When his fingers brushed hers, the world came apart in light.
Memories flooded through her... flashes, like film reels out of order. Laughter over breakfast. His arms around her in the rain. The scent of his shirt when she buried her face in his chest.
Then... the pain, cold water, the shattering sound of glass, her voice calling his name before the darkness swallowed her whole.
She gasped. Her knees buckled, and Banjo caught her.
“It’s you,” he whispered, holding her close, his voice breaking on every syllable. “It’s really you. You came back.”
Kristine’s breath hitched. “I don’t know who I am anymore, Banjo. I remember you, but it’s like I’m watching someone else’s life.”
He pulled back enough to look at her, those eyes, still soft with love but shadowed by everything they’d survived. “You don’t have to remember everything. I just need you to feel this.” He pressed her hand against his chest, where his heart beat fast, hard. “This is where you’ve always been.”
For a long moment, she just listened... to the sound of his heartbeat, the warmth of his skin. It was too real. Too alive...
And yet, something inside her ached. “Banjo… the man in my dreams... he’s you. But there’s another version of you. He lives in the place where I go when I close my eyes.”
His expression darkened. “I know. I’ve seen him too.”
She blinked. “What?”
Banjo nodded slowly, his jaw tightening. “Every night, after you died… I started dreaming of a house in the mist. You were always there, but you couldn’t see me. You’d reach for someone else... a shadow, another me. I thought I was going insane.”
Kristine felt the world tilt again, a tremor in her chest. “What if we’re both real? What if we’re… overlapping?”
He smiled sadly. “Then maybe love doesn’t die. Maybe it just forgets where it belongs.”
His words settled deep into her bones. She wanted to believe them. But something still lingered... a pull, a whisper from the other world calling her name.
“Banjo…” she murmured. “What if the other me... the one from before... is still trapped there?”
He reached up, brushing her hair back, his fingers tracing her jaw. “Then we’ll find her. Together.”
His lips met hers.
- Writer
