22 Apr Forever Yours

Part I

Emmett Coleridge had stopped changing the calendar.

It still hung crooked on the side of the fridge, March 14th circled in red ink. Christina had written the note a week prior, reminding him they had dinner reservations. “No excuses, even if the firm is on fire,” she’d joked with a grin. He had smiled back, nodded absently, and muttered a distracted reply while already thinking about a case file spread open on his desk.

They never made it to dinner.

Now, three months later, her scarf still rested where she had last dropped it—draped over the back of the dining chair, as if she might return at any moment to retrieve it. The apartment had settled into a kind of stillness that resembled preservation more than order. Her coffee mug remained on the counter. Her hairbrush sat beside the bathroom sink. Nothing had been moved, as if the space itself had agreed to wait until Emmett gave it permission to shift. But he never did.

He couldn’t, because he no longer remembered how that last morning had ended.

The facts were clear enough: they had spoken, she had left, and the accident had occurred. He received the call at 3:47 p.m.

But everything else—the tone of her voice, the look in her eyes, the words they exchanged—had vanished. The absence of those final moments haunted him as deeply as the loss itself. His grief was complicated not only by her death, but by the fear that he might not have deserved to grieve her properly. What if they had argued? What if she left the apartment angry?

What if she hadn’t known he loved her?

That question lodged in his mind with the precision of a splinter, invisible but impossible to ignore. In the long, isolated hours after the sympathy calls had stopped and the last casserole dish had been returned, Emmett heard whispers about someone named Madame Seline.

She lived in a townhouse wedged tightly between two gutted brownstones on the west side of the city. The front steps leaned unevenly toward the sidewalk, the buzzer no longer worked, and someone had scattered a triangle of salt across the threshold as if to keep something out—or in. Emmett stood staring at it for nearly a minute before knocking.

Inside, the air smelled faintly of melted wax and dried roses. Shelves burdened by books leaned at uneasy angles, and sheer curtains muted the candlelight, which danced across the far wall in shifting patterns that didn’t seem to match the flame. At the center of the room sat Madame Seline, swathed in layers of embroidered shawls, her pale eyes still and unwavering.

She didn’t ask why he had come. Instead, she studied him in silence for several breathless seconds and then said, “You’re not trying to speak with her. You want to see her.”

Emmett hesitated. “I just need… one more morning.”

Seline tilted her head slightly. “And what if that morning isn’t what you need it to be?”

“I’ll know,” he replied quietly. “I’ll know what was real.”

She waited a moment, then nodded once.

Without another word, she led him into a narrow hallway that opened into a space which defied architectural logic. The room seemed too tall and too narrow for the building that contained it. Indigo cloth draped the walls, and warped mirrors hung at uneven intervals, their reflections subtly distorted. A ring of melted candles encircled a low table, and at its center lay a single, unmistakable object: Christina’s locket.

Emmett hadn’t brought it. He hadn’t even seen it since the day of the accident. Yet there it was—delicate, gold, and inexplicably warm to the touch when he picked it up. He chose not to ask how it had gotten there.

Seline gestured toward a low stool positioned within the circle. “Sit,” she instructed. “But not with hope. With eyes open.”

He obeyed without protest.

Her whisper began in a language he didn’t recognize, the syllables vibrating more than sounding. One of the flames bent backward, unnaturally resisting gravity. A mirror to his left clouded with mist. A chill ran down his spine, sharp and sudden.

And in the space of a breath, he was no longer in the room.

He stood in a kitchen that looked like his but felt different. The light here was softer, more golden. Morning sunlight spilled across the tile in gentle sheets. Somewhere nearby, a kettle began to hum.

Christina passed through his field of vision like a reel of film unraveling—her hair damp from the shower, tugging a sweater down over her arms as she crossed the room. She looked exactly as he remembered. Not like a ghost. Not like a dream. Like Christina.

Emmett couldn’t speak or move. He existed in the space the way a camera might: fixed, unseen, unable to interact.

She turned and laughed at something unheard—possibly a song on the radio, the same one they used to dance to while cooking together. She hummed a few notes under her breath, then leaned against the counter and sipped her coffee. A subtle sadness hovered behind her expression, carefully concealed beneath the motions of routine.

It devastated him.

He wanted to cry out her name, to tell her he loved her, to say he remembered now and that he was sorry. But the moment continued without him.

Christina stood in the doorway, her keys in one hand and her coat draped over the other arm. She glanced back at the apartment with an expression he couldn’t decipher and whispered something he couldn’t hear.

Then she stepped outside. The door closed with a soft click. The sunlight faded. The warmth drained from the space.

When Emmett opened his eyes, the locket had slipped from his palm. The flame nearest him had gone out. Madame Seline was no longer in the room.

Somewhere in the back of his mind, a sensation stirred—subtle and quiet, like the tail end of a dream.

Something had remembered him back.

Part II

Emmett returned the following day.

He had not slept. Instead, he had spent the night replaying every detail of what he had seen, committing to memory the curve of Christina’s smile and the way her shoulders shifted as she reached for her coat. He treated those images like evidence in a trial he could not afford to lose—proof that she had been content, or at least not distressed, when she left the apartment that morning.

When he reached the top of the townhouse steps, Madame Seline opened the door before he could knock.

“You shouldn’t be here again,” she said. Her voice was not unkind, but it carried a distinct strain. Her eyes appeared duller, and her hands trembled slightly as she pulled back the curtain leading into the parlor. “Every time you look back, it takes something from you. You may not feel it now, but it happens all the same.”

“I need to see her again,” Emmett said. He stepped past her, already moving toward the back room. “I think I missed something.”

Seline stood silent for several long seconds. Eventually, she turned and gestured toward the ritual room with a resigned motion. Her voice held no trace of warmth. “Then don’t say I didn’t warn you. Every echo leaves a mark.”

The room had not changed in structure, but the atmosphere felt noticeably altered. The shadows clinging to the fabric along the walls had deepened, and the mirrors no longer reflected the room with precision. Emmett caught glimpses of movement in the glass that did not correspond with his own actions. He dismissed it.

The locket waited for him in the center of the candle ring, its surface cooler than before. Without waiting for instruction, he sat and picked it up. Madame Seline remained quiet, her hands clasped in front of her.

The flame nearest him twisted in place, and the mirrors grew cloudy once more. A pressure built behind his eyes, followed by the strange, dragging sensation of his awareness being pulled inward.

And then he was gone.

Once again, he found himself standing in the kitchen. Christina moved through the space just as she had before—graceful, efficient, her motions seamless. She stirred her tea, scrolled briefly through her phone, and hummed the same familiar tune.

But something about her voice felt different. The pitch remained unchanged, but the warmth had faded. Her smile emerged more slowly, and her eyes lingered on her reflection in the microwave door longer than felt natural.

She sat at the table and stared straight ahead, her mouth drawn tight in an expression that required effort to maintain.

Emmett tried to convince himself that the discrepancy was a trick of memory, that this was still the same morning. Nothing had changed.

When Christina rose and slipped into her coat, she paused in the doorway. Her hand tightened around the doorknob, and she glanced over her shoulder. Her eyes carried a searching quality, as if she were listening for a sound just out of reach.

Then she turned and walked out.

The door clicked shut, but this time, the sound echoed unnaturally against the walls.

* * * * * *

On the third visit, Emmett no longer felt the need to justify himself. Seline said nothing as she prepared the room again. Her movements had slowed, her limbs responding as if weighed down. The shadows in the mirrors moved in erratic patterns now, and he avoided watching them for too long. He kept his focus on the locket and the memory of Christina’s face.

But when the next loop began, it became clear that something had shifted again.

This version of Christina appeared more distant. Her sweater sagged at the shoulders, and dark circles framed her eyes. She no longer hummed while making tea. When she sipped it, her expression remained blank, unreactive.

Her actions felt hollow, stripped of nuance. She no longer touched the side of her neck the way she used to when reading messages, nor did she smile at her reflection. Each movement seemed like a rehearsal performed by someone who had forgotten why the motions mattered.

When she reached the front door, she did not immediately leave. This time, she turned her entire body to face the living room. She stood for several moments, unmoving, her lips parted slightly as if preparing to speak.

Then, without a word, she stepped outside.

* * * * * *

Emmett did not speak during his fourth visit. Nor did he say anything on the fifth. He simply entered the townhouse, moved into the ritual room, and sat down. Seline continued to prepare the space, but each time, she moved more slowly. Her breathing had grown heavier, and the color in her face had faded.

Just before the fifth loop began, she paused beside the circle and looked at him.

“You need to understand,” she murmured, “that every time you press into memory, it’s like driving a thumb into wet paint. You are leaving fingerprints behind. Even if you mean no harm, you are altering what was.”

Emmett did not respond. He had convinced himself that the changes in the vision were not distortions but signs of something deeper. He believed Christina was becoming more aware of him—that her hesitation meant she sensed his presence. Her prolonged glances and altered routines confirmed it.

Each shift in behavior, he told himself, was a step toward connection.

But during the sixth loop, it became impossible to ignore the truth.

Christina’s appearance had deteriorated. Her skin had lost its natural tone, taking on a muted, grayish cast. The color had faded from her lips. Her eyes, once sharp and expressive, looked glassy and distant.

She moved through the kitchen as if submerged in water, her limbs sluggish and her motions forced. She did not acknowledge the tea’s heat, nor did she glance toward her phone or the mirror. Her actions felt like an imitation—precise in form but lifeless in execution.

When she reached the doorway, she did not put on her coat. She stood silently, facing the window.

After nearly a full minute, she turned her head—not toward the hallway or the door, but directly toward Emmett.

Her gaze locked onto the space he occupied.

According to everything Seline had told him, it should not have been possible for her to see him. The ritual was not meant to allow that level of presence. He was supposed to be a passenger, a silent observer.

But Christina looked at him with unmistakable intent.

Her eyes narrowed, and a flicker passed across her face—an expression he could not clearly identify, something between recognition and revulsion.

Then, without moving her lips too much, she whispered, “Why are you still here?”

Her voice barely rose above the hum of the room, but he heard every syllable.

Before he could react, she turned and walked out the door.

This time, the latch closed with no echo at all.

When Emmett awoke, Seline had already left the room.

He remained seated within the circle for several minutes, his eyes fixed on the crack running through one of the candles. The mirror closest to him had fogged over again, though the air remained dry.

He said nothing. He did not cry.

But when he reached for the locket, his hand trembled.

Part III

By the time Emmett returned again, Christina no longer appeared entirely real, even within the surreal logic of the memory loop. Her presence had begun to resemble a wax figure—recognizable in shape and motion, but unnatural under close observation. The subtle gestures and unconscious habits that once defined her had vanished, replaced by movements that felt copied and replayed with diminishing accuracy.

When she prepared her tea, she stirred the cup the same number of times, always in the same direction. The spoon never tapped the ceramic, as though the sound had been erased. She followed the same route from the bedroom to the kitchen, but a slight, almost imperceptible stutter had emerged in her gait.

The way she spoke disturbed Emmett more than anything else. Although her mouth formed the words and her voice remained audible, her tone no longer matched her meaning. Laughter came without light in her eyes. Her lips parted, her throat moved, but the emotional resonance had gone hollow. The sound resembled something mimicked—an impression of joy recited by someone who had never felt it.

Her sentences repeated themselves with increasing frequency. It was not just the general content but the exact phrasing that returned. One line resurfaced with unsettling consistency: “It’s supposed to warm up today.” She said it even when no radio played and no weather report prompted the comment. The words hung in the air long after she had left the room, as if they were tethered to the space rather than to her.

Emmett began to notice breaks in continuity. Once, Christina reached for the kettle only to realize it had already been filled. She stood for several seconds, holding an empty mug, staring into it as though expecting the water to appear on its own.

Her eyes no longer blinked in a natural rhythm. Sometimes she blinked one eye before the other, and other times she didn’t blink at all for long stretches, as if her body no longer required such maintenance. On two occasions, her lips continued to move slightly after her voice had already stopped, like a puppet whose mouth lagged behind the ventriloquist.

The most disturbing moment came when she dropped a teaspoon.

The utensil clattered to the floor, and Christina crouched to retrieve it. Her hand extended halfway, then stopped. She remained frozen in that posture, her fingers twitching as if she had forgotten what the motion meant. Emmett leaned forward instinctively, momentarily forgetting that he could not interact with her.

Then her head began to turn—slowly, unnaturally—until her gaze aligned with the space he occupied.

Her eyes narrowed, and once again, she whispered, “Why are you still doing this?”

This time, her voice carried no softness. It scraped along the edges of the moment, stripped of warmth and shaped into accusation. The tone suggested not confusion, but weariness and reproach.

Before she stood again, the loop dissolved around her.

Emmett returned to the ritual room gasping—not from exertion, but from the weight of what he had just witnessed. The emotional cost had begun to transform into something physical. A tightness clutched his chest, and a persistent ache throbbed behind his eyes. The pain had not been there before.

The candles had burned lower than seemed possible for the amount of time that had passed. Their bases had begun to collapse into warped puddles of wax.

Madame Seline stood in the doorway. Her arms were folded tightly across her shawl, and her expression revealed nothing.

An uncomfortable silence followed.

Emmett finally broke it. “She spoke to me again. That makes twice now.”

Seline pressed her lips together, but her posture conveyed no sense of encouragement. “She isn’t speaking to you,” she said. “She’s unraveling in your presence. The threads are fraying, and what’s left is beginning to bleed through the gaps.”

“I think she knows I’m there,” Emmett said, still holding the locket.

“She does,” Seline replied. “And it’s harming her.”

Emmett looked down at the photo inside the locket. Christina’s face was still visible, but the image had begun to fade. The lines had blurred, and the color had drained from the paper.

“I didn’t get to say goodbye,” he said quietly. “I can’t even remember if I told her I loved her that morning. Maybe I was short with her. Maybe we argued. What if she died thinking—”

He stopped, unable to complete the thought.

Seline walked to the far end of the room and extinguished one of the remaining candles with a breath. The flame vanished instantly.

“Then your burden is regret,” she said. “Not unfinished love. You want her to forgive you, but it’s not forgiveness she needs. It’s release.”

Emmett’s voice cracked. “I don’t want to lose her again.”

“You already lost her,” Seline replied. Her voice was calm, but her words carried an edge that cut deeper than if she had shouted. “You just haven’t allowed yourself to accept that yet. So you’ve tethered her to your grief. But grief is not a vessel. It cannot hold anything steady.”

Emmett looked up, his eyes searching hers. “You make it sound like I’m doing this to her on purpose.”

“No,” she said. “But you are doing it. You are holding her here. And each time you go back, you carve away another piece of what remains. Memory was never built to withstand this pressure. Now, she’s beginning to show the strain.”

He opened his mouth to speak, but the words refused to come.

Seline stepped closer, the candlelight painting shadows across her face. “You’re not communing with the dead,” she said. “You’re inhabiting an afterimage. The more you enter it, the more you shape it to your needs. You’re not speaking to her soul. You’re speaking to your own recollection. But memory can rot.”

The idea struck Emmett harder than he wanted to admit.

He had believed Christina was fading because of time, because of absence, or even because of her own unfinished business. But now he understood the possibility that it was his own persistence—his refusal to let her remain gone—that was wearing her away.

“If I stop,” he asked, “what happens then?”

“She might be able to finish dying,” Seline said. Her voice had dropped in volume, but her words carried clearly through the silence. “But that cannot happen as long as you keep dragging her back.”

Emmett sat down slowly, his strength hollowed out. He realized he had not eaten since the day before. The ache behind his eyes had expanded into a dull throb.

“I still don’t remember what I said to her that morning,” he muttered. “I need to remember that.”

Seline’s expression remained unchanged. “Why?”

He raised his head. “Because maybe she hated me when she died.”

“Then that is your guilt to carry,” she said. “Not hers.”

Emmett had no response.

The temperature in the room seemed to shift. The candle flames began to flicker in patterns that bent inward, as if responding to a force at the center of the circle. The mirrors had begun to fog again, though there was no source of moisture in the air.

Seline turned toward the hallway. Her voice no longer held compassion. “You are not remembering her anymore,” she said. “You are possessing her. And possession, no matter how loving it claims to be, is still theft.”

Emmett looked down at the locket.

He did not offer Seline a thank-you. He did not say goodbye.

He walked out.

And as the door closed behind him, the nearest mirror fractured. A single crack split from its center, spreading outward like ice blooming across glass.

Part IV

Emmett waited three days before returning to the townhouse.

He told himself he needed time—to reflect, to consider Madame Seline’s warnings, to weigh them against the ache that still lived inside his chest. But in truth, the delay came from fear. He was no longer afraid of Christina, or even of what he might see. He had become afraid of who he was becoming in the absence of her presence.

On the fourth morning, he climbed Seline’s steps with the locket clenched so tightly in his hand that the metal left faint impressions across his fingers. He did not knock. The door opened just before he reached it, swinging inward with a slow, reluctant creak, as though the house itself had been waiting.

Seline did not meet him at the threshold. She was already seated inside the ritual room when he entered. The candles had nearly burned themselves to nubs, and the mirrors no longer reflected anything clearly. Their surfaces had darkened, dimmed by a film that shimmered faintly in the low light.

Her shawl had fallen from one shoulder, revealing a lattice of hair-thin veins glowing faintly beneath her skin, as though something within her had been fed too long and had begun to grow restless.

“I won’t stop you,” she said. “But if she takes you this time, I will not pull you back. I won’t interfere again.”

Emmett gave a single nod. There was no need for ritual language or formal acknowledgment. He stepped into the circle, sat down, and placed the locket in front of him.

When he closed his eyes, the room collapsed inward.

This time, he did not arrive in the kitchen.

Instead, he stood in the living room, where morning light filtered through the window in a pale, diluted haze. The brightness reached the floor but offered no warmth.

Christina sat on the sofa, already dressed. Her hands were folded in her lap, and her body remained completely still.

She did not move when Emmett entered the space.

For the first time, he sensed that he was no longer just observing the loop. He had become part of it. He no longer hovered on the edges like a detached memory fragment. He stood fully present, though whether he had been pulled forward or pulled down, he could not say.

Her eyes met his, and the illusion of memory shattered.

“You loved me,” Christina said. Her voice was clear, but her tone held no warmth. “But you don’t know me anymore.”

Emmett opened his mouth. He did not speak to defend himself or to argue. He only wanted to explain.

“I didn’t get to say goodbye,” he said. “I didn’t know it would be the last time I saw you. I’ve been trying to return to that morning—to remember it, to see it again clearly.”

Christina did not soften. She continued to watch him without blinking.

“You weren’t trying to say goodbye,” she said. “You were trying to rewrite it.”

The living room began to flex around them, the air tightening like fabric pulled across a frame. The walls curved inward slightly, and the ceiling bowed.

“I just wanted to see you again,” Emmett said. “I needed to know that we mattered.”

“To prove what?” she asked. “That I forgave you? That you were worth holding onto? That your grief gave you permission to keep me?”

He moved toward her, but when he reached out, his hand passed through the space she occupied. Her form wavered, blurred, and then settled back into place.

“You’re keeping me here,” she continued. Her voice grew louder, no longer dispassionate but strained. “Every time you drag me back, there’s less of me to return. I wasn’t meant to stay. But you built a cage and gave it the name love.”

“I wasn’t trying to hurt you,” Emmett whispered. “I just wanted one last moment.”

Christina’s face changed. The sadness melted away, replaced by something colder—something devoid of humanity. Her voice, dropping into an unfamiliar register, no longer sounded like her own.

“Then I’ll take you with me,” she said.

The world fractured.

The living room broke apart in cascading layers. Space buckled, and multiple versions of the room blinked into view.

One showed Christina pouring tea on a loop, her hands repeating the same arc without pause. In another, she paced while muttering the same six words over and over. A third version sobbed into her palms while a fourth stood motionless, her mouth forming silent accusations.

The light no longer obeyed the hour. It shifted rapidly from dawn to dusk and back again, each flicker casting long, spiraling shadows that twisted along the floor.

Emmett saw himself scattered across the room—versions of himself watching from corners, screaming with no sound, running in place but going nowhere.

Voices overlapped, layering over one another with jagged rhythm:

“I love you, I love you, I—”
“It’s supposed to warm up today…”
“You weren’t listening again, were you?”
“Why are you still doing this?”
“Don’t leave it like this. Please.”
“Please.”

Then a new sound broke through them all—shattering glass.

Christina stepped forward from the chaos, her form no longer fixed. She flickered between states: alive, dead, grieving, enraged, unrecognizable. Her hands stretched toward him, their edges blurred. Her face shifted between a smile and a grimace, unable to decide which belonged to her.

“Stay with me,” she said. Her voice was layered now, carrying more than one tone at once. “If you won’t let me go, then come with me instead.”

The walls pulsed in rhythm, the entire construct throbbing.

And then, a burst of light cut through everything.

Emmett came back gasping for air, as if he had been pulled from deep water.

The room reeked of smoke.

All around him, the candles had burned down to blackened stubs. The table bore a scorched ring where the locket had rested. Every mirror had cracked. Their surfaces spiderwebbed outward from a single, central point, as though something inside had pushed against them until the glass gave way.

Seline stood slumped against the wall. Her face had grown gaunt, and her eyes remained fixed on the edge of the ritual circle.

She said nothing.

Emmett stepped forward and lifted the locket from the ashes. The metal had cooled, but the clasp still worked. He opened it slowly.

Inside, the photo was gone.

Where Christina’s image had once lived, there was now only an empty oval.

She had left it behind.

* * * * * *

Two days later, Emmett followed the gravel path that led to her grave. The cemetery stood quiet, the wind combing through tall grass around the headstones in waves.

He knelt beside the marker. The inscription remained simple: her name, two dates, and the words Forever Yours.

He placed the empty locket at the base of the stone.

“I kept you too long,” he said. “I thought I was preserving something, but I wasn’t. I’m sorry.”

There was no whisper in the breeze, no change in the light. But he had not expected a reply.

He stood and turned away from the stone, walking home without glancing back.

That night, while brushing his teeth, Emmett noticed the bathroom mirror.

It had always been clean, unremarkable, free of damage.

But now, a single crack stretched across its surface, branching outward like frost from within.

He did not reach for it.

He turned off the light and left the room in silence, leaving the mirror behind—unanswered and, finally, still.