There’s an old poem by Neruda, and one line from it has haunted you ever since you first read it. “Love is so short, forgetting is so long.” Back then, it was a beautiful thought—tragic in a way that felt like poetry should. But now, it feels like an accusation, like a truth you’re trying and failing to escape.
You’d first come across it when you were sixteen, in the dusty corner of some secondhand bookstore where you’d spent hours hiding from the chaos of home. Your parents were probably arguing about how capitalism was ruining the world, or worse, completely ignoring you in favor of some new-age retreat that promised to align their chakras or fix their marriage. You’d grown up in a house full of incense and organic kale, but not much else—no structure, no stability, no one to tell you it was okay to need someone.
You told yourself you didn’t mind. You’d taught yourself how to cook because no one else would. You’d learned to budget whatever money your mom handed you for groceries when she remembered. You’d learned to pack your own lunches, forge their signatures on permission slips, and put yourself to bed. You had to.
By the time you found Neruda, you’d already decided love wasn’t something you could count on. It was fleeting, conditional, something people said but didn’t mean. You didn’t want to believe it, but you’d learned it the hard way, over and over.
Still, you’d dog-eared the page with that poem, carrying it around like some kind of talisman. You thought maybe, someday, you’d prove it wrong.
But now? Now, it feels like the universe is laughing at you.
You think about the line all the time. When you’re driving home from a shift that feels twice as long as it was. When you’re lying in bed, staring at the ceiling, too tired to sleep. When you walk past her old locker, still catching yourself looking for her even though you know she’s not there.
Mika has been gone for three years.
You don’t tell anyone how much it still hurts. That would make it real in a way you’re not ready to face. So, instead, you bottle it up, shoving it down with everything else you don’t know how to deal with—not when Simone purses her lips and gives you that careful, knowing look, not when Lucas’ laugh fades too quickly after someone mentions her name, not when Blue frowns while glancing around the room, as if he expects her to walk in any second.
They all feel her absence, but none of them bring it up. Maybe they’re waiting for you to say something. Maybe they think you’ve moved on.
You haven’t.
But the memories don’t stay bottled. They break the surface when you least expect them.
The moments you go back to aren’t the everyday ones. They’re the flashes of something more—the times you felt stars aligning, saw a future you didn’t dare hope for, and believed, even for just a second, that it could be yours.
You remember the first time she’d call you “Jules” like it was some kind of inside joke only the two of you understood. The way her laugh sounded when you teased her about her ridiculous socks. The way her hand felt when it brushed yours during surgery, sparking something electric that made your breath catch.
But mostly, you remember the last time you kissed her.
She was leaving. Grieving. Completely wrecked. And you were trying to hold her together, even as you could feel her slipping through your fingers. When her lips found yours, it was desperate, aching, as if she was trying to memorize the feel of you, the taste of you, before she let you go.
At the time, it felt like goodbye.
Now, it’s the moment that haunts you the most.
When she left, it wasn’t a clean break. There were no explanations, no conversations about what you were, what you could have been. Just an empty locker, an apology, and the sound of your heart breaking in the quiet that followed.
No one talks about her anymore. But you feel her absence in everything.
You wonder sometimes if she thinks about you. If she replays the good moments like you do, or if she’s already moved on. If she’s too consumed in grief to even think about you.
For you, forgetting her feels impossible. Because love like that—intense, reckless, all-consuming—leaves marks that don’t fade. It’s the kind of love that pulled you in headfirst, even when you know it’s bound to explode.
And when it did? When the dust settled, you’re left with the wreckage, trying to piece yourself back together and figure out how to breathe again.
You know now that love like that doesn’t last. Real love, the kind that’s steady and golden, doesn’t burn out or implode.
But if you had the chance to do it all over again, you would. You’d jump headfirst without looking, even knowing how it ends.
Of course you would. It’s Mika.
Some nights, you catch yourself scrolling through your phone, staring at old messages you can’t bring yourself to delete. You tell yourself it’s just habit, just muscle memory. But you know better.
You’re looking for her. Hoping for some sign that she’s still out there, still thinking about you.
But there’s nothing. Just silence, stretching on and on, like that Neruda line looping in your head.
Love is so short, forgetting is so long.
And you don’t know if you’ll ever stop waiting for her.