Disclaimer: All the usual applies; not making any money from it, characters don't belong to me etc.

I have forgotten you.

I've forgotten the way I loved you, the way I was in love with you. I can't remember the way my stomach flipped and squirmed, or the way my heart leapt into my throat, as though looking for an escape. Perhaps it knew pain was imminent, and tried to run away. I've lay awake at night, trying desperately to remember how it felt to love you, trying to remember the exact sensation of lightning bolts when you smiled, but I can't. I've sifted through the carefully stacked memories in my mind, and not one of them is of you. No fleeting memory of a passing kiss, kind word, no snapshot of you laughing, no record of your slightly out of key singing; they were all destroyed in the fires and the flood, determined to erase you.

I can't remember the exact shade of your eyes anymore, were they silver, or more steel grey? Did they hold kindness, or passion? Did they hold rage, or love? I don't know if you had long or short eyelashes, did they elegantly sweep across your lids? I've forgotten how long your hair was, whether it hung by your chin or rested on your shoulders. I've forgotten how it was raven black and always perfect, the way you told me it 'Just grew naturally straight'. I don't remember that when you said that the rain was thundering around us, plastering strands of hair to your forehead, deafeningly loud (Was that really the rain? Or my own heart, beating a frantic tattoo against my chest?)

I can't recall your voice, or your bark-like laugh, I can't remember what it sounded like when you said my name. I've forgotten all the sweet things you said, forgotten the way you smelt of smoke and safety, and they way you hugged me, so close we didn't know where one person ended and where another began.

I've forgotten your birthday, and the gifts I bought you. I've forgotten the time we went to the zoo, peering through wire mesh at caged animals, pacing their pens, longing to be free (But then, don't we all long to be free?). I've forgotten the time you were nearly thrown out of school for being drunk, I've forgotten the picnic we had in the middle of winter, snow falling, settling in our hair and eyelashes.

I can't remember how it felt, when I saw you fall. I don't remember the stab horror and fear, I don't remember that in the second you arced towards death I loved you more than I ever had before.

I've forgotten your face, and I've forgotten your name.

I've forgotten you.

And the very worst thing, the unforgivable thing, is it's all a lie.

Sometimes we can't force ourselves to forget the things we can't bear to remember. Fifty per cent of this is fictional, the other half is a mixture of my own feelings, and those of people close to me; I'll leave you to decide which half is which. Thanks for reading.