The Sapphire Soldier

Chaotic Minds

I stood in the distance, watching Peter from between the rows of graves. The cemetery was quiet around me, the only sound the occasional rustle of leaves moving through the trees in the cool breeze.

And there he was.
Peter.

He sat in front of May's grave with a fresh set of flowers beside him. He never forgot to bring her flowers. Not once.

A small smile tugged at my lips before I could stop it. It was the kind of smile that said that's mine, before realizing halfway through that it wasn't mine anymore.

That was the part that hurt. Seeing him build a life that didn't have me in it.

It was a strange kind of pain, one that didn't hit all at once. It grew with every glance, every time I saw two people laughing together, every couple holding hands on the street, every little thing that reminded me of a life I'd once had.

A quiet memory of the good times.
The kind that slipped away in a second.

Four years had gone by.
Four.

Sometimes I still couldn't believe it.

Ned and MJ were graduating from MIT soon. I'd kept a close eye on them over the years, even if they had no idea. Ned's chaotic live Instagrams had become my favorite way to check in on them.

He'd definitely gone wild in college. There was a new confidence to him now. He wasn't the same awkward kid I'd known before, but underneath all of it, he was still Ned. The same heart. The same nerdiness.

MJ had changed too. She was quieter now, more reserved, not as strange as she used to be.
Well - not the bad kind of strange.
The good kind.

The kind that made her stand out. The kind that made me love her.

We'd always understood each other, maybe because in a lot of ways, she was just like me. She didn't need everything explained. She just got it.

Peter had grown the most.

Every time I saw him, I noticed something different. The way he carried himself. The way he smiled. The way he'd learned how to keep moving forward even when something inside him told him not to.

My heart ached for him.

I wanted to give him his memories back. God, I wanted to.

Sometimes I imagined myself walking straight over to him, like four years hadn't happened. Like there hadn't been a spell. Like I hadn't stood there and watched the most important person in my life forget I ever existed.

I'd touch his mind and give it all back. Every memory. Every stupid joke. Every fight. Every moment between us.

But every time I got close to actually doing it, I stopped.

Because what if I ruined it?

What if his life was finally okay? What if he was finally finding some kind of peace, and I was selfish enough to take it away just because I missed him?

I couldn't do that.
Not to him.

I'd watched him keep track of Ned and MJ too. Their memories were clearer in his mind than most things, but there was always something strange about them. A gap. A space where something should have been.

Sometimes I'd catch him thinking about the past and feel him pause, almost like his mind was reaching for something it couldn't quite find.

That gap was me.
Because Peter didn't remember me.

Not after I made him forget.

And that was something I had to live with.

Sometimes I'd accidentally slip into his mind. I never meant to, but whenever it happened, I felt that same ache. That strange emptiness. The knowing that something was missing without knowing what it was.