Chapter Ten: MEMORIES
991 Words
Eli
The house was asleep.
At least everyone else was.
I stood alone on the balcony outside my bedroom, one hand resting against the railing as the cool night air brushed against my skin.
The estate was quiet.
The gardens below were illuminated by soft lights.
Beyond the gates, the city glowed in the distance.
Most people would probably call it peaceful.
I called it another sleepless night.
My watch read 2:17 a.m.
I hadn’t been asleep once.
Not that it mattered.
After five years, insomnia had become less of a condition and more of a roommate.
An unwanted one.
I returned inside and crossed the room toward the bookshelf.
A small wooden box sat on the highest shelf.
Untouched.
Exactly where I’d left it.
For a moment I simply stared at it.
Then I reached for it.
The lid opened with a soft creak.
Photographs.
Letters.
Movie tickets.
Tiny pieces of a life that no longer existed.
A life that sometimes felt like it belonged to someone else.
I picked up the first photograph.
Stephanie smiled back at me.
Blonde hair dancing in the wind.
Sunglasses perched on top of her head.
One arm wrapped around my shoulder.
The photograph had been taken during a beach vacation years ago.
I remembered the entire day.
Stephanie had insisted on teaching me how to surf.
A terrible idea.
I’d spent most of the afternoon falling into the water.
She’d laughed every single time.
I could still hear it.
That laugh.
Bright.
Warm.
Impossible to ignore.
A sharp ache settled in my chest.
Five years.
Five years and I still remembered it perfectly.
I set the photograph down and picked up another.
This one was from our first anniversary.
Stephanie had surprised me with skydiving.
Skydiving.
I had genuinely believed she’d lost her mind.
She’d spent three days convincing me.
Three days.
Then jumped out of a plane smiling like she’d just won the lottery.
I rubbed a hand across my face.
Sometimes the memories were comforting.
Sometimes they weren’t.
Tonight they felt like both.
Another photograph.
A movie night at home.
Stephanie wrapped in a blanket.
Popcorn everywhere.
Because apparently bowls were merely suggestions.
I found myself smiling despite everything.
That had been one of her gifts.
Making ordinary moments feel important.
Making life feel bigger than it was.
My gaze shifted toward a different picture.
The day Kira was born.
The smile vanished.
Not because it was a bad memory.
Quite the opposite.
It was one of the happiest days of my life.
Stephanie looked exhausted.
Beautiful.
Proud.
She’d held Kira as though she were holding the entire world.
Maybe she was.
I remembered how excited she’d been.
How she’d spent months planning.
Choosing names.
Decorating the nursery.
Buying toys Kira was far too young to use.
She’d been impossible to stop.
And I hadn’t wanted to stop her.
A small laugh escaped me.
Then silence returned.
The memories shifted.
The way they always did.
From life.
To illness.
Hospitals.
Appointments.
Test results.
The word cancer.
I hated that word.
Still did.
I remembered the day we’d found out.
The disbelief.
The fear.
The desperate hope that somehow the doctors were wrong.
They weren’t.
Stephanie had fought.
God, she fought.
Stronger than anyone I’d ever known.
Even on the worst days she worried more about Kira and me than herself.
I remembered sitting beside her hospital bed one evening.
She’d been weak.
Tired.
But still smiling.
Always smiling.
“You need to sleep,” she’d told me.
I almost laughed at the memory.
Even then she worried about my sleeping habits.
“I’ll sleep later.”
“No.”
Her voice had been soft.
Firm.
The way it always became when she wanted something.
“Eli.”
“What?”
“You need to promise me something.”
I closed my eyes.
The memory was so clear it hurt.
She’d reached for my hand.
“I need you to keep living.”
My chest tightened.
I remembered every word.
Every pause.
Every breath.
“You have Kira.”
“Stephanie—”
“No.”
She’d squeezed my hand.
Tears in her eyes.
“I mean it.”
I swallowed hard.
Back then I hadn’t understood.
Back then I thought she would recover.
That we’d have more time.
That life would somehow return to normal.
It hadn’t.
And suddenly she was gone.
Just gone.
No amount of military training prepared someone for that.
No mission.
No battle.
No war.
Nothing.
The room felt unbearably quiet.
I stared down at the photographs spread across the bed.
Five years.
Five years and I still measured time by before and after.
Before Stephanie.
After Stephanie.
The line between them remained as sharp as ever.
My gaze landed on one final picture.
Stephanie holding a toddler Kira.
Both smiling.
Both happy.
For a long moment I simply looked at it.
Then I carefully returned every photograph to the box.
One by one.
The lid closed.
The memories remained.
They always would.
I placed the box back on the shelf and turned off the lamp.
Darkness settled across the room.
As I lay down, my eyes drifted toward the family photograph sitting on the dresser.
Stephanie.
Kira.
Me.
A frozen moment from a happier time.
For years I’d believed moving forward would mean leaving her behind.
That healing somehow meant forgetting.
But even now, staring into the darkness, I knew that wasn’t true.
Because no matter how much time passed, no matter what changed, Stephanie would always be part of my life.
Part of Kira’s life.
Part of our story.
The grief wasn’t gone.
Maybe it never would be.
But for the first time in a long while, it felt a little less heavy.
Outside, the wind rustled softly through the trees.
Inside, sleep remained as elusive as ever.
Yet sometime before dawn, with memories of Stephanie lingering in my mind, I finally closed my eyes.
- Writer
