Can I Be Your Memory?

Chapter 19

They sat there in silence, swinging slightly, watching two kids, a boy and a girl down the slide. Erelin waited for a response from Brendon, waiting patiently to hear what she has been desperately wanting to hear. The silence was killing them both slowly. Brendon was scared to tell her what he wanted. There was so much he wanted to tell her. Yet he couldn’t scare her. He didn’t want to lose her. Either way it was a lose, lose situation.

Finally, the silence was broken…

“You know you use to bring me here all the time. I still remember exactly what happened when you first did,” he said.

Erelin looked over at Brendon as he stared intently at the woodchips. It was as if he was waiting for them spark and fire would appear.

“What do you mean?”

“Well I was in Chicago one day when I was on tour and that day you showed me this place. You told me it was your secret place that you would come to think about things. I thought what better place to talk to you is your secret place.”

Erelin kept her stare at Brendon as if he was sort of crazy. Was he making it up? Erelin seemed to not believe him. Why would she show him a place that was so secretive to her? She shrugged it off and waited for more answers. Yet he still kept silent. So she decided to break it instead.

“I still don’t understand how this plays into how we met…”

“It showed how you let your guard down on me. I… We sorta didn’t talk when we first met. We had to let other people do the talking for us. When it was finally just us, I really got to know the true you.”

Erelin felt warmth grow inside of her. She was letting in what Brendon was saying. She looked over at him and smiled, but she could see the very sad look on his face. She did not like what she was seeing.

“What’s wrong?”

“Well… the first time you brought me here, I told you a story of a girl that meant so much to me. I had fallen in love with her, and I ended up losing her. She was the greatest friend in the world, but she started to become more than that for me. She was something special. But, I had to screw it up for us. I was too blind to see that she had felt the same thing as well, but I was too selfish. I thought she didn’t feel the same way so I tried to move on. I did something stupid to lose her. Then one night, she was gone, up and left. She made me the person I am today. I missed her. You were the only one who knew how I felt about her…”

“Where is she now?” Erelin said, interrupting him

She was desperate. She wanted to know if it was about her or not.

“I don’t know where she is. I think she’s close by, but who knows. She’s still alive in my memory though. I remember back home in Vegas, and we would walk home from school together. And one day, I picked a carnation from a neighbor’s yard and gave it to her. She couldn’t help but smile.”

“Well who wouldn’t? Carnations are amazing!” Erelin said with a giggle.

“Yea…”

Brendon then looked up at her for the first time. If someone looked very closely, anyone can see the hurt and sadness in his eyes. He was longing to tell her everything, yet he couldn’t. He knew he would lose Erelin if he told her everything. Yet to Erelin, she felt that there was more that meets the eye. She knew that he had more to say but was closing himself off from her. Plus this wasn’t getting her anywhere. It seemed like this wasn’t how she wanted it to start. This didn’t seem like to her that this was what really happened when they first met. To her she felt like they had met before the park. Erelin was so lost in her thoughts that she didn’t notice Brendon kneeling down infront of her holding her hand into his.

“Erelin… I need to ask you something very important. Are you sure you don’t remember me? Nothing? No dreams or flash backs or premonitions?” Brendon asked as he hungrily looked at her for answers.

She was scared to answer. She wished with all over might that she could say yes, but sadly nothing ever came to her. She didn’t want to break their hearts even more, but she had no other choice…

“No… I don’t,” she said quietly, looking at their hands intertwined.

Erelin could see the sadness showing more out of the corner of her eyes on Brendon’s face. That’s when a tear started to roll down her face.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered as she started to choke a bit.

Brendon sighed, wishing that she wasn’t crying. He didn’t want to see it because he could feel her pain. Their pain was the same. Their feeling was the same. Yet, no one could understand except themselves. Yet, they could not at times. Brendon wiped away her tears and kissed the top of her fore head.

Erelin got up from her swing and wanted to run back home, but she felt Brendon’s grip on her hand even stronger. He pulled her back and wrapped his arms around her. He kissed her fore head again as she wrapped her arms around his body.

“Don’t worry. We will figure something out… somehow we will,” he whispered.

In their minds, they wished that it will happen fast. Because who know what could happen next. Just in a matter of minutes, their lives could change… just like it did before.