PrudenceRV

[...]It begins slowly. A laugh, heard distantly and completely, utterly wrong.Searching for something to remember, something to single her out from the thousands of people he has seen and will see. Something to make her special, to make her memorable, to make her his, even though she isn't and never was. And so he begins to see red in the corner of his vision. Whipping, flipping, shaking with laughter, a dark crimson one.It's out of focus, as if the memories themselves fraying around the edges. He knows it's because he's getting older and he can only remember so much, but, oh, how he wishes it wasn't true.She is his constant shadow, his ghost girl, the scarlet letter that no one but him can see. He has long since given up on trying to get rid of her. She is a permanent fixture in his life, more eternal than she ever could have been when she was actually present. But there is an emptiness about her that hangs above them like a dark cloud.She's not there.At some point, he will be okay with that.…