Chapter Four: The summer I Forgot
696 Words
Chapter Four: The Summer I Forgot
Mariah didn’t sleep.
She lay on the couch, turning the bracelet over and over in her palm. The frayed threads, the chipped beads—it was hers. She remembered wearing it once, but the memory was like fog. She remembered liking it. She didn’t remember where it came from.
Or who gave it to her.
But now, a face sat behind the fog. His face. His voice.
I always find you.
She’d spent years convincing herself that summer had been just a blur. A lost season. Some childhood story that didn’t matter.
But it did.
It mattered more than anything.
And it terrified her that she had no idea why.
The next morning, she skipped work. Left her phone unanswered. Packed a bag like she always did before leaving a city.
But this time, she wasn’t leaving to run.
She was leaving to find him.
It started with her mother’s attic.
Mariah hadn’t been back in years. The house still smelled like old wood and lavender polish. Her mother was out of town—perfect.
The attic door creaked open as she pulled herself into the dust-thick space. Boxes and bags, brittle photo albums, things no one wanted to remember.
Until now.
She dug through piles until her hands landed on something familiar. A faded scrapbook.
Summer, Age 15 written across the front.
She flipped through page after page, her throat tightening with each photo.
There were pictures of her at the lake, at the fair, sitting on a fence rail with that same boy—him—always by her side. His arm slung around her shoulder like it belonged there.
But something was wrong. His face was in every photo, but there were no names written beside his. No mention of who he was. Almost like her mother—or someone—had tried to erase him.
On the last page, a folded note slipped free.
Her own handwriting.
"I’m scared I’ll forget him. I’m scared I already am."
The next line wasn’t hers.
The ink was different. The handwriting was sharper, rougher.
"If you forget me, I’ll find you. Every time."
A cold ache spread in her chest.
Why couldn’t she remember him? Why had she buried him so deep?
Suddenly, another memory broke through—a flash of a fight.
Screaming.
Someone pulling her away from him.
A promise he made.
And her mother’s voice: “Some people you are better off forgetting.”
She shoved the scrapbook into her bag and fled the house, her pulse thundering as she called Vince. He picked up on the third ring.
“You saw him again, didn’t you?” Vince’s voice was calm, but there was something under it—something like guilt.
Mariah blinked. “What?”
“The man from last night. This isn’t the first time you’ve met him, Mariah. You’ve been doing this for years.”
“What are you talking about?”
Vince sighed heavily. “Every time you start to remember, he comes back. And every time, you forget him again. You call it running. I think it’s more like… a loop.”
“A loop?”
“Yeah.” Vince’s voice dropped lower. “Some kind of… curse. Or something worse. I don’t know. But it’s not the first time you’ve called me crying about a man you swear you’ve never met.”
Mariah’s knees nearly buckled. “How long?”
“Since you were fifteen.”
Her throat tightened. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because you always forget.” His voice broke. “And when you forget, you ask me not to remind you. You beg me not to tell you.”
The weight of it crushed her. The photo, the bracelet, the way the man knew her favorite drink, her patterns, her walls.
She wasn’t just running from him.
She was running from remembering him.
But now—now she wasn’t going to forget.
She hung up, heart pounding, and whispered to herself:
“I’m going to find you this time.”
And for the first time in her life—
She was running toward him.
- Writer
