Inspired by the song Next Time by Kina Grannis
She always remembered the green man. She figured he was why she was locked in an asylum because he was real to her but no one knew who she was talking about, no one knew a man with scales and rotting teeth and black fingernails and a giggle that always made her smile. But she knew he was real, she knew he was out there somewhere with the cup that she couldn't remember getting chipped and a spinning wheel that made magic.
In the asylum she would get extra food the longer she went without mentioning the green man. The nurse would mock her, call him a leprechaun, a lizard, so she stopped talking about him. That didn't stop her from thinking, though, and it didn't stop her from wondering what happened to him, where he was, why he left her, why he had been so mad at her.
She knew it was all her fault, that she knew for sure. He made her leave or left her or was never even hers to begin with—she didn't know which one it was—and it was her fault.
It had always been just her and the green man and the nurse, but now there was the gun man who shot her and the cane man and the nice man who all weren't anything like her green man and the nice ladies and the doctor man who weren't anything like the nurse.
But when the cane man came to her, tried to talk to her about magic, healed her with magic, something that the green man had always talked about, she didn't know what to do. The nurse always told her she was crazy, that none of it existed, and now there was proof, proof right in front of her that magic was real and maybe the green man was out there somewhere but since he didn't come looking for her she knew he didn't want her, he didn't need her like she needed him.
And then the cane man had the cup, the cup that she knew was important but she didn't know why, and he was saying it would make her remember, but she didn't want to remember. She didn't want to know why the green man hated her and didn't come looking for her. She didn't want to know why he had yelled at her and shook her and snarled in her face. She didn't want to know if he had been hers and she lost him.
So she threw the cup. It broke her heart—she knew she loved the green man even though he didn't love her—but she threw it because she didn't want to know.
The cane man had looked broken at that. She didn't know why he was acting like the cup was his—it wasn't, it wasn't even hers, it was the green man's—or why he cared what happened to her—the only man she wanted to care didn't—so she made him leave.
The green man came to her in dreams like he always had, but it was a new memory this time, about him spinning to forget, and for the first time, she understood.
He was as broken as her.
They both wanted to forget and they wouldn't be able to forget together so he pushed her away, made her leave, made her forget.
She wished she had a spinning wheel too so she could forget him completely. She wasn't in the cell anymore, she didn't need the green man's ghost to keep her company, keep her sane.
She wanted to forget.