You were nowhere near me that day. Even though I searched for you, even though I ran across the street with nothing but my heart in my sleeves and my tears serving penance. Maybe it was time, maybe it was fate, but I knew. Somehow, I knew well enough to rush through the early morning traffic, risking my own life to save yours.

And when I got to your house, I did not find any embers in there. Your traces still burned, but they were nowhere near as bright as they had been. The blue and red lights should have told me enough. I was not going to find you there. Not when you were long gone.

The sound of wheels rasping against the pebbles in your driveway was another clue, another trace of your last moments. Then, the car drove away with you in tow, and I knew. You would not be coming back. Not anymore.

I might have followed you, might have shed a tear with your parents whom you claimed never cared for you. But memories are fickle bitches, showing me nothing but black and white lines where a blanket of color should have been. I do not remember getting home, but I remember your warm hands in mine as we held each other in the fire escape. I do not remember seeing your face before the blanket covered it forever, but I remember the smiles you threw my way, no matter how fake they were.

I do not remember a lot of things about you, but I remember enough.

I remember you.

But I wonder—would that be enough? Because I remember the first time we met, the first time you walked up to me with your hand in the air. You said hi, and I remember thinking about why you did. "Thought I'd find you here," you said. "I always do."

Back then, it irked me to realize you have been looking for me. Now, I realized—I wanted to be found, even when I do not say it aloud. It was another thing that worked better on paper, and I have been too late to understand it. There are a lot of things I did not tell you, and now, I wish I did.

Regrets come later, when everything is already said and done. Knowing that fact at this point in my life...it was a regret too.

Even when I pushed you away, telling you everything that I did, you did not give up. You looked for me when I did not want to be looked for. You found me at the time I needed you, which leaves one question I never can answer—why did I not do the same for you? Why did I give up? Why did I stop seeing you?

When did I stop seeing you?

Because you saw me, even when I told you to not do it. And when you asked why not, I claimed I did not remember what I said, but really, I do.

Don't run into storms you know you won't survive.

In the end, I was right. You ran straight into my world, where a thousand things happened all at once and a million words swirling into one silent whirlwind. I warned you, but perhaps, I should have warned myself as well. Because no matter how you turn the tables to fight the tides, I was there, running with you. Together, we ran towards our end, the one already ascribed to us by the thing you never feared. Time and fate—both I believe to be as bad as memories now that they took you from me.

And even if I run towards nowhere, even if I jump into storms I know I will not survive, nothing can replace you. Nothing will be as perfect and imperfect as you. No one will be my ruin and my salvation as you have been.

You are a stranger who knows me too well, and even if I run and run for as long as I am able, you will always catch up to me. Your memory, what was left of you in this cruel world, will always find me. Even when I do not want to be found.

Like you, your memory will haunt me until memories fade and the silence becomes so thick I will not remember anything but it.