Then You Are Gone

t w o

DECEMBER 10, 2016

10: 02 PM

hey, hannah. the charmander plush i left at your door? i bought it on my first day in boston. our car passed the only pokemon center in the country, and i kept shouting about it, threw a tantrum over it although i was old enough not to throw one, but hey, i got what i wanted. we drove back to the store and when i saw that charmander plush, i remember saying something like "hannah would love this."

you've always loved charmander. they're orange, which is the closest to your favourite color, and they're easy to use as a starter. and yeah, haha remember the day we've cried to the story of ash's charmander when they aired it on tv? you called me a wimp that day despite the fact that you got tears in your eyes too. yeah, yeah, i know, i was crying harder than you, but still.

anyway, during my first week there, a bought a vaporeon plush so when we would play our plush toys i'd have a type advantage, and a dozen of pokemon cards pack. i guess i should have been suspicious right there and then. it wasn't like my parents to buy me such things in a short period of time, but i thought they were just making up for the nintendo ds i left at your house. when we left texas, i cried so hard because of it. i regretted letting you borrow it the night before we left. i wanted to play soulsilver while we were on the road.

in retrospect, i would have been crying harder if i knew that would be the last time i'd be seeing you. no wonder they told me we were just going for a vacation.

11: 41 PM

you know, when you took the charmander plush on your door together with the bouquet of yellow and red roses, i thought you'd at least keep the plush toy with you.

i hope you know it hurt when you threw the charmander on the garbage can.

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AUTHOR'S NOTE

Just wanna say thank you, since Then You Are Gone won Best Short Story at The Fiction Awards 2017. Thank you to everyone!

- John