It's been decades.

She doesn't remember him.
Not his face.
Not his name.
Not the way she once typed
"I miss you"
like it might break her.

To her, it was just
a teenage blur.
A boy on a screen.
An almost.
She's too old now
to carry such things.

Her hair is silver.
Her house is wide,
filled with maine coons
who sprawl in sunlit corners.
She spends mornings
feeding birds in the yard,
afternoons
reading books she forgets
by the next week.
Her life is simple.
Gentle.
Complete.

And him—
he still remembers.
He had to change names,
change places,
learn to pass as someone new.
But memory doesn't fade
like a face in the mirror.
Not for him.

He remembers her voice
through the static.
The way her jokes carried pain
like glass wrapped in cloth.
The way she loved him once,
even if she doesn't anymore.

For her,
it's been too long to remember.
For him,
it's been too short to forget.