Forget-me-not

Seungmin

I never told her how much she meant to me. I didn't tell her the things I liked about her. I told her, but it was never enough. I wish I could take everything back. If I could turn back time, I'd do things differently. How do I go back? I want to go back.

I never used to like the sun. Summer is always too hot. I don't like going outside and sweating. The way sweat drips down my back and the moisture outside disappears. The occasional rain is the only comfort among the overbearing brightness of the sun. Summer is suffocating and it makes me feel like I can't breathe.

I thought comparing people to inanimate objects was silly. I never understood it until I met Cynthia and she compared me to the moon. The first time I heard her say it, I scoffed. The concept of me being compared to the moon was abnormal, but she was right.

I dream upon shooting stars with sparkling eyes, according to her. Sometimes life gets to me and I'm weighed down by the overwhelming weight of the world. She compares that to evening clouds covering the moon. Eventually, they drift away and the moon comes back out in all its glory.

She told me she liked the moon because it lit up the world in the dark. Everything would be pitch black without the steady supply of moon beams. She joked that I was her personal moon; I lit up her darkness.

After that, I started to see her as my sun; a big ball of bright energy. Her positivity is enough to cheer up desolated villages. She melts hearts with that smile. She could heal the world, if she wanted to, with her optimism alone. Every time I felt like giving up, she was there cheering me on. Even in my toughest moments, she nurtured me and loved me as I was.

How does the moon survive without the sun? I guess we really are the sun and moon now. We're two people just out of each other's grasp. We can't reach each other like this. Maybe the moon was always supposed to chase the sun. The sun burned brighter by itself anyway. It was always too hot to touch, too bright to look at, too large to keep caged.

The moon lights up the sky at night, yes that's true, but the sun is the one who provides life for all. There's a reason that solar panels run on sunlight and not moon beams. There's a reason why humans are more active during the day and sleep at night. The moon is a comfort for the lost and the hindered, but the sun is the sole provider for all.

It wouldn't rain without the sun. No evaporation for clouds, no water cycle, no rain, no food, no warmth. Humans take the sunlight for granted until after it's gone. I've never met a person who doesn't long for the sun, at least once, amidst the colder seasons.

The moon doesn't light up without reflecting light from the sun. How am I supposed to live without Cynthia? Lately, when the guys are all out at work, I scream all the time. There's a lingering ache without her and it's funneled into anger. I don't know how to turn off the pain. I think this is the worst I've ever felt in my whole entire life. How am I supposed to recover? How does the moon function without the sun?

Seungmin stared at the words in his journal. His pencil slipped from his grasp as he reread the last sentence. He sniffled and blinked trying to stop his tears from falling. Crying didn't do much anyway.

He tugged the back of his navy sleeve over his hand and brushed away the dew drops threatening to fall. His eyes slipped shut and he sucked in a shaky breath. How long would this pain linger? How long would it go on until he felt like he could breathe again?

He glanced up from the hickory desk he was slouched over. The bouquet of forget-me-nots stared back at him. A splash of bright yellow sat in the middle of each flower. A single tendril of dove white smeared into the powder blue that saturated the rest of the petal.

The last bouquet of forget-me-nots he gave Cynthia was almost a week before the car accident. Cynthia was making lunch on a Saturday when he dropped by the flower shop mid-morning. By the time he got home, he was greeted with the scent of simmering vegetables. Cynthia was making some sort of vegetable soup.

When she turned around from the stove, her eyes went to Seungmin's and then down to the bouquet of flowers. Buying her a bouquet every week became a ritual. Every time she looked the same; soft eyes, a smile that began creeping up on one side of her face, and deep dimples. God, how he missed the way she looked at him.

He sniffled again and pulled out his phone. He hadn't received a text message from Cynthia. He didn't even know if her phone survived the car accident or not, but he didn't hesitate. He pulled up their text thread and began to text her.

'Please come back soon, I miss you.'