Chapter Three: The Memory That Hunts
517 Words
Chapter Three: The Memory That Hunts
Mariah didn’t leave the bar for hours. She sat there long after the stranger disappeared into the rain, her untouched whiskey sweating against the cracked counter.
The words clung to her.
You can run again, Mariah. But I’ll find you. I always do.
It had to be a trick.
A game.
A sick attempt at control.
But something in her bones whispered otherwise.
Something old.
Something she didn’t want to remember.
She walked home with heavy steps, the rain easing into a cold mist that clung to her skin. Her apartment was as she’d left it—quiet, half-packed, as if she already knew she wouldn’t be here long.
She never stayed anywhere long.
She locked the door, but the walls felt paper-thin. The air felt full of him. Like the rain had let him in.
She dropped onto her couch and pulled out the box she always kept in the back of her closet. She didn’t even know why she still had it. Old photographs, ticket stubs, scribbled notes from people whose names she’d forced herself to forget.
And then, at the bottom, the one thing she never looked at.
The thing that still made her stomach knot in ways she couldn’t explain.
A photo.
Frayed edges. Water-stained.
It was of her, but younger. Fifteen. A little softer around the eyes, a little less guarded.
And standing beside her—an arm draped lazily over her shoulder—was him.
The same dark eyes. The same half-smile.
But that wasn’t possible.
That boy—she barely remembered him. Just flashes. A summer she could never piece together. A friend she thought she’d made up. A boy who had always been just out of reach in her memory, like a half-forgotten dream.
No.
It couldn’t be him.
She flipped the photo over, hands trembling. In faded ink, written in her own handwriting:
"You always find me."
A sharp knock shattered the silence.
Three slow, deliberate taps.
Her heart slammed against her ribs. She rose, her body on autopilot, her steps soundless as she approached the door. She didn’t look through the peephole.
She already knew.
When she opened it, he was there.
Soaked from the rain. Unapologetic. Inevitable.
“You left something behind,” he said softly, holding up a small, worn bracelet.
Her bracelet. From when she was fifteen. From the summer she couldn’t remember.
Mariah couldn’t breathe. “I don’t understand.”
“You will.” His eyes flickered with something that felt like regret. Like longing. Like this wasn’t the first time he’d watched her forget him.
"Who are you?" Her voice cracked.
He stepped forward, carefully slipping the bracelet into her palm. His touch lingered for a breath longer than it should have.
"I’m the one you always run from." He paused, his voice breaking at the edges. "And the one you always come back to."
Before she could speak, before she could ask him the questions clawing at her throat, he turned and walked into the night.
And this time—
She didn’t want to run.
- Writer
