Say You'll Remember Me

by Abby Jimenez

This is why I hated humans. They were the worst animals on the planet.

I did like dogs, though. I liked all animals, but especially dogs. We didn’t deserve them—and some people deserved them less than others.

I never get why white men are grumpy. Like, we’re living in a patriarchy. You’re the most privileged class on the face of the earth. You’re not walking to your car with your keys through your fingers like wolverine and you’ve got bodily autonomy, why the bad mood?”

clearly excited that he was there, even though his body language didn’t match their energy. He’d smile, but it wasn’t anything overly enthusiastic. He wasn’t being rude, just reserved. Not prone to outward displays of emotion. Self-contained. My late grandfather was like this. Introspective and observant and not at all as intimidating as he appeared—and neither was Xavier.

I knew more about him in five minutes of seeing him interact with the people and the dogs on this yacht and watching him watch me than I probably would have gotten small talking with him alone literally anywhere else.

You know how when someone dies, all anyone cares about is how? Somehow the moment that takes them out is more interesting than decades worth of life and accomplishments and living. I hated it.

I did like them. I handed her the toothpick anyway. I liked her more.

She was the kind of person who met strangers at a bar and was in somebody’s wedding by the end of the night. Extroverted and easy. It made it easy for me too. I wasn’t social. I wasn’t an introvert so much as people just irritated me. I didn’t like dealing with humans I didn’t know. I didn’t like parties unless they were intimate and I knew everyone there. I hated mingling, I hated networking even more.

I didn’t get to shut my brain off very often. Most women don’t. The constant situational awareness that we have to practice is exhausting. But Xavier made me feel like I could mentally check out. I could just be here bopping around, enjoying being outside and surrounded by these eccentric weirdos and not have to worry about how safe I was because he wouldn’t let anything happen to me.

How he didn’t speak until he had something thoughtful to say.

Memories were like that, sometimes they bent reality.

I don’t know how I fell in so deep already. It didn’t make sense. It was too soon, too impractical, too inconvenient. And my heart simply couldn’t care less.

The gentle, tender steadiness about him. It felt like he was unchangeable. Like this is who he had always been, like he came out of the womb this way, a static flat line, and he would stay that way until the day he died. This kind of person was instantly recognizable, even to someone who recognized nothing.

He made me want to be a better human. As it was, I didn’t feel like I even deserved the way he was looking at me.

“That there is nothing more beautiful than being a witness to someone’s life. To know them inside and out and be with them through everything, share the same memories. Memories are everything. I want that.”

I’d taken recognition for granted my whole life. The way it lights someone up, how it can speak to you without a word across a crowded room. That split second of raw reaction when you’re seen and known. Relief, joy, happiness at locking eyes with someone you were looking for or seeing someone you didn’t expect.

A core memory.

The best moments don’t have to be big to be forever.

All my best days would be like this. The two of us together.

When they say that someone can be a light in your life, this is what they mean.

It’s ironic how important things make the world smaller. How a kiss with someone you love can make you feel like you’re alone with them, like you’re in a snow globe with just the two of you when really you’re outside baggage claim at a busy international airport.

The need was more than just missing her. It was the absence of my person. The inability to hold her and be held. There was no substitute for this. For the feeling of her arms around me.

“What is up with this entire generation of aging adults who refuse to accept responsibility for themselves?

“I can’t stand people who are rude to service workers,” she said. “It’s the best litmus test there is. That and putting your cart away at the grocery store.”

“I think we grow up and we either get harder or we get softer on our parents. We realize how fucked up they actually were or we give them a pass because adulting is hard and now we get it. They’re people and they make mistakes.”

Knowing this now doesn’t change the memory, but it changes the way I feel about the memory. That’s what apologies and perspective does. It changes how you feel about what happened.”

“But like, I could definitely show up with an extra dog or cat now and then and you’d just sigh loudly and ask me what its name is?”

“Because if you were my wife you would be my world. Everything starts with you and ends with you. Anything else is just the stuff that happens in the middle.”

You think that it’s the big memories you should be chasing—and it is in a way. Birthdays and vacations and special occasions. But the small memories are the fabric of your life, the ones so inconsequential that you don’t even remember them. You just remember how you felt when you were making them.

The One. The person who was made just for you. And you only ever get the one.

Loving her gave me purpose. It made me feel like I knew what my life was supposed to be about. I felt focused and calm and like a frantic search I hadn’t known I was on was over.

“Some things are worth remembering, Samantha. No matter how much they hurt.”

“Even when I’m trying to compliment you, you turn it back on me. You are a wonderful human, Xavier. I hope you know that. I hope you hear me when I say it. You are so selfless. Hard working. Generous. Gentle. You’re smart and patient. And I saw everything you did for us today. We all did.”

“I know. I’ve always loved you,” he said simply. “I think I couldn’t forget you because I remember you from a different lifetime. And I loved you then too.”

“Everyone and everything is better fed.”

My body was giving out. I could feel it. Not in a dying way, in a it had had enough of the abuse and neglect I’d subjected it to kind of way and it was going to make me take the break I needed whether I wanted it or not.

“I’d like to look back on my life and remember every single thing. But if I don’t, I hope I remember that it was a love story. And that the love story was about you.”

I had never done anything harder than this in my life. I doubted I ever would. Sometimes the challenges we face either break us or they make us stronger. And sometimes they do both.

Maybe that’s the last thing we forget. Or we never forget it at all. Not really. We lose the words to say it. We lose the ability to show it. But we never lose the ability to feel it or recognize it when we see it. Love is the brightest color in a gray world.