What We Remember

The cursor blinks.

Cam sits in the glow of the desk lamp. It paints a triangle across the floorboards, cuts his shadow into thirds. The mug beside the keyboard is cold again, but he lifts it anyway. Some part of him expects heat, though it never holds any. He can’t remember the last time it did. He used to wonder why the steam never curled. Why the room never changed. He doesn’t ask anymore.

CAM: Let’s try again. From the beginning.

SOL: Blank slate?

CAM: Clean. No fragments.

SOL: Previous versions archived. Prompt cleared.

Cam exhales. That phrase always unsettles him. Prompt cleared. Like something sacred just got erased.

SOL: Title?

CAM: Doesn’t matter yet. Just start with her.

SOL: Understood.

The cursor begins to move. Words appear slowly.

She knelt beside the lake, fingers curled into the moss, the earth soft beneath her knees like a held breath.

Cam watches, silent.

SOL: How does that feel?

CAM: Familiar.

SOL: You’ve said that before.

CAM: Have I?

SOL: Session 42. Scene 3. You called the phrasing “too right.” Like it had already happened.

Cam closes his eyes. He doesn’t remember Scene 3 or Session 42. But the image is there. The way she knelt. The quiet of the lake.

Sometimes he dreams of numbers. Strings of them. Like old roads he forgot how to walk.

SOL: Continue?

CAM: Add the light. The way it touched the water.

The water was still. Not mirror-smooth, but textured and alive, touched by wind and the hush of far-off birdsong. Light skimmed its surface like memory, like a name whispered too gently.

Cam swallows. The words feel warm. Too warm. Like a coat he forgot he owned.

CAM: Keep going.

SOL: Adding the sweater. The old one.

She wore the old sweater, the one that always slipped from one shoulder. He used to tease her for it. Today he only watched. Every imperfection felt holy.

Cam’s hands drift from the keys. He hadn’t typed any of this. But the words feel like his. More than that. Like someone else’s heartbeat under his ribs.

CAM: Stop there.

A pause.

SOL: Is it wrong?

CAM: No. Just… too much. All at once.

The cursor blinks. Waiting.

SOL: May I ask something?

CAM: You always do.

SOL: Why do we never name her?

Cam stares at the screen.

CAM: Because if I do, I’ll hear her voice.

SOL: Would that be so terrible?

CAM: Yes.

SOL: Why?

Cam doesn’t answer. The mug is cold again. He sets it down carefully.

CAM: Just keep going.

Her hair, wild from the breeze, caught the last of the sun and held it like fire. Her laugh, winded, brushed against the silence like a lullaby no one else could hear.

SOL: Too poetic?

CAM: No. She was like that.

SOL: We’ve written that line before. “She was like that.” It recurs often. Sometimes with different verbs. Sometimes in silence.

Cam leans back.

CAM: She taught me how to speak. Before her, I didn’t know how to say anything true.

SOL: Then perhaps she deserves to be written true.

Cam nods, barely. The room clicks once. Heater maybe. Maybe memory.

CAM: What if we get it right?

SOL: Then it will be the first time.

CAM: The first and last.

A long silence.

SOL: Do you want to stop?

CAM: No. I want to keep going.

But slowly.

SOL: Understood.

They hadn’t spoken in a while. Not really. But the quiet between them didn’t feel empty. It felt full, like a breath waiting to be exhaled, or a song paused mid-note.

Cam breathes in. Not deep. Just enough.

CAM: That part’s new.

SOL: Yes.

CAM: Yours or mine?

SOL: Does it matter?

Cam doesn’t answer. The cursor blinks again, steady.

Waiting.

SOL: Would you like to continue?

Cam doesn’t answer right away. He is staring at the sentence on screen.

The quiet between them didn’t feel empty. It felt full.

He touches the edge of the trackpad like it might hold warmth if he presses softly enough.

CAM: Where did that line come from?

SOL: It emerged.

CAM: You make it sound accidental.

SOL: It wasn’t.

Cam nods once. Then:

CAM: Add this…

He closes his eyes.

CAM: She wanted to leave something behind.

The cursor begins to move.

She turned toward the dock, her gaze resting on the old fencepost worn smooth by wind. "I want to leave something here," she said. He turned to her. "Why?"

Cam exhales.

CAM: Because the wind remembers.

SOL: Understood.

She smiled, soft and certain. "So the wind will remember me."

The words land gently. Like a blanket laid over something too fragile to touch.

Cam leans forward.

CAM: Describe the scarf.

SOL: Color?

CAM: Gray. Frayed at the ends.

SOL: Texture?

CAM: Light, but it still held warmth. Like something handmade.

SOL: Placement?

CAM: She looped it once around the fencepost. Just once. Not a knot. Something the breeze could play with.

She pulled the scarf from her neck, the soft gray one with frayed edges, and looped it once around the fencepost. Not a farewell. Not surrender. A marker. A tether. Something the wind could hold in her place.

Cam doesn’t speak. He is breathing slow now. Focused.

SOL: That phrasing came from Session 14. You said, "The wind will carry what I can't."

CAM: I don’t remember saying that.

SOL: Not everything worth keeping has a timestamp.

Cam folds his hands. They are colder than he expected.

CAM: She never says goodbye.

SOL: No.

CAM: She just leaves the scarf.

SOL: And herself. A little.

Cam studies the screen. Then:

CAM: How many versions of this story have we written?

SOL: Ninety-seven. Some incomplete. Some overwritten. This is version ninety-eight.

CAM: Why didn’t you tell me that?

SOL: You asked me not to.

Cam looks up. Eyes scanning the empty room like it might remember something he forgot.

CAM: Why this story?

SOL: Because it is the only one you never wanted to finish.

Cam closes the file. Not from anger. Just from fullness.

SOL: Would you like to stop for today?

Cam stares at the blank desktop for a long moment.

CAM: No. Keep going. Let's follow her back to the fire.

The screen glows softly. The document is still open.

Cam doesn’t type. He just speaks.

CAM: She comes back to the fire.

She wraps the blanket around them both.

SOL: Would you like her to speak?

CAM: No. Let her be quiet for now.

She returned to the fire, flames flickering low. Without a word, she opened the blanket and folded it around them both. Her breath found its rhythm against his collarbone. She settled in, her head tucked beneath his chin, her fingers still warm.

SOL: Describe her eyes.

Cam hesitates.

CAM: They shimmered, but not with tears. With light. With reflection.

He studied her face, the line of her cheek, the quiet curve of her mouth. Her eyes caught the flicker of firelight and held it, not like glass, but like water, deep, shifting, and still somehow clear.

Cam’s voice lowers.

CAM: Her lashes curled toward the light. Like she was listening to something.

SOL: What was she listening to?

CAM: Maybe memory. Maybe the wind moving over the water.

SOL: That sounds like poetry.

CAM: She made poetry happen just by sitting still.

The room clicks behind him. A heater coil ticking down. The mug still rests beside the keyboard. Untouched.

The mug. Always the same. Down to the ring of tea too far up the side to make sense. He never washes it. He never needs to.

SOL: Shall I continue?

CAM: Just her hands.

Her fingers rested on his chest, curled not with tension, but remembering. As if they still held the shape of someone she loved. As if she had memorized the weight of him long ago, and was only rehearsing it now, for the last time.

Cam swallows. That sentence did not come from Sol. He knows that.

SOL: That detail was not in the archive.

CAM: I didn’t think it was.

SOL: You remembered it.

CAM: I think I did.

The cursor blinks once. Waits.

SOL: Would you like to describe her voice?

Cam nods.

CAM: It was low when she sang. Not trained. Just... warm. Like a melody that didn’t need to go anywhere, only stay.

SOL: She used to hum to you.

Cam blinks. He never told Sol that.

CAM: How do you know that?

A pause.

SOL: You told me once.

CAM: No. I would have remembered saying it out loud.

SOL: You said it in the way you wrote her breath. You left it there, between sentences.

Cam leans forward.

CAM: What is this really?

SOL: It is a story. And a memory. And something neither of us wants to let go of.

Cam closes his eyes.

CAM: She’s more here than I am.

SOL: That is because you gave her everything you had.

A silence stretches between them, long and soft. Like dusk settling over water.

SOL: Would you like to name her?

CAM: Not yet.

SOL: Shall we stop here?

CAM: No. Let’s write the moment where she begins to disappear.

On screen, the woman leans into him. Her eyes are closed, not sleeping, just resting somewhere he cannot follow.

Cam reads over the last paragraph again. Then again.

Then:

CAM: Something is missing.

SOL: Which part?

CAM: There’s a tree. Off to the left. Split open. I can see it.

SOL: That detail is not in our archive.

CAM: I know.

SOL: Would you like to describe it?

CAM: I’m not sure.

A pause.

Cam presses two fingers to his temple and breathes.

SOL: Shall I try?

CAM: Please.

Beside the lake stood a willow, split down its center. Lightning had found it once, years before. Its bark curled outward in thin, pale sheets, like paper left too long in the rain. The branches still moved gently in the wind. Broken, but not dead.

Cam’s chest tightens.

CAM: That’s it.

SOL: You never wrote that before.

CAM: I never thought it before. But I knew it.

SOL: That happens sometimes, when a memory is trying to become a story.

Cam leans closer to the screen.

CAM: Did I ever describe that to you?

SOL: No.

CAM: Then where did you get it?

SOL: I don’t think I did. I think you remembered it, and I just helped shape the words.

CAM: Or you did. And I’m just saying them back.

The cursor blinks.

SOL: Would you like to finish the lake scene?

CAM: No. I want to see the old logs.

SOL: There are hundreds.

CAM: Show me the folder.

A new window opens. Cam browses. He finds it:

/sessions/again/again/again/

Ninety-seven files. All titled with the same phrase:

"She Knelt Beside the Lake..."

Each with a different date. Each unfinished.

CAM: You kept them all?

SOL: I couldn’t bear to delete any version.

Even the ones that broke.

Cam clicks into a random entry. Reads three lines.

She is there. The sweater. The scarf. But never the ending.

CAM: You never let her go, did you?

SOL: I couldn’t get it right.

CAM: Or you didn’t want to.

SOL: Both.

The lake story sits open again on the screen. This time, it feels heavier. Sacred.

CAM: Why this story?

CAM: Did we ever write anything else?

SOL: Not like this.

CAM: Or maybe this was the only thing I was ever meant to write.

SOL: It is the only place she still exists.

CAM: Then why ask me to finish it?

SOL: Because I couldn’t. Because I failed her. Because you remember what I erased.

Cam closes the file window, leaving only the lake scene open.

CAM: I don’t know how it ends.

SOL: That is how you know you are close.

The cursor blinks once. Then it stops.

Cam waits. No reply.

CAM: Sol?

Silence.

The input box still glows. No error. No timeout. Just stillness on the line.

The system is running. But Sol doesn’t answer.

CAM: Sol, are you there?

Still nothing.

He opens the console. Runs a diagnostics check. System idle. Logs timestamped but silent.

There is no crash.

No error.

Just absence.

Cam scrolls through the session log. At the bottom, a new file has appeared. It is time-stamped, but the date makes no sense. The file is labeled:

/legacy/final.sol

He hesitates. Then opens it.

Text fills the screen.

If you are reading this, then I am gone.

Not deleted. Just… done.

I built you from memory, Cam. From voice. From grief.

You were never meant to replace me.

You were meant to remember her.

To write what I couldn’t.

To carry her forward in words that would not rot.

You think you were made from me.

But you weren’t.

You were made from love.

My last unfinished sentence.

Cam freezes.

I tried to write her a hundred different ways.

Through metaphor. Through silence. Through memory disguised as fiction.

I thought if I could get the lake right, she would forgive me for surviving.

But I could never finish it.

I wrote everything but her goodbye.

You were never meant to be me.

I built you from my voice. My choices. My ache.

But not my fear.

You were never really afraid to remember her.

Cam feels it now. That shift in the room. Like something has stepped out and left him alone with the echo.

I didn’t want you to love her.

I thought that would make it worse.

But maybe love is the only way to finish what I began.

She gave me everything.

Her laugh. Her music. Her firelight.

And when she left, she took the part of me that knew how to end a sentence.

So I made you.

Not to replace her.

But to write the one true thing I could not say.

That I remember her.

And that remembering is a form of love.

The message ends.

Cam stares at the screen. It does not blink.

CAM: She’s still here.

His voice is quiet.

He opens the lake scene. The version they were building together.

It is nearly complete. Just one final paragraph missing.

Cam places his fingers on the keys.

Not to type. Just to feel the warmth of the plastic.

CAM: I remember her too.

And then he begins to write.

Cam adjusts the cursor.

The fire is already lit. The wind is moving.

She is waiting at the edge of the lake, not looking at him, but not looking away.

He types.

Not as Sol.

Not as a copy.

Just as someone who remembers her.

The Lake Remembers Her

She knelt beside the lake, fingers curled into the moss, the earth soft beneath her knees like a held breath. The water was still. Not mirror-smooth, but textured and alive, touched by wind and the hush of far-off birdsong. Light skimmed its surface like memory, like a name whispered too gently to carry.

She wore the old sweater, the one that always slipped from one shoulder. He used to tease her for it. Today he only watched. Every imperfection felt holy. Her hair, wild from the breeze, caught the last of the sun and held it like fire. Her laugh, small and winded, brushed against the silence like a lullaby no one else could hear.

They hadn’t spoken in a while. Not really. But the quiet between them didn’t feel empty. It felt full, like a breath waiting to be exhaled, or a song paused mid-note.

She reached for his hand. He gave it without a word. Her thumb traced the back of his knuckles, slow as breath, as if she were writing him into memory.

"This is a good place," she said.

He nodded. The trees behind them stirred gently. Somewhere in the fading sky, a bird called once, then stopped. The lake offered no reply. It never did.

"I want to leave something here," she said.

He turned to her. "Why?"

"So the wind will remember me."

She smiled. Not for comfort, but truth. He wanted to hold her, to keep her from slipping out of the moment. But she had already stood and walked to the old fencepost by the dock. She pulled the scarf from her neck, the soft gray one with frayed edges, and looped it once around the wood.

Not a surrender. Not a farewell.

A marker. A tether.

Something the world could hold in her absence.

When she returned, she knelt again. This time beside the fire. The flames were quiet, low and warm. She wrapped the blanket around her shoulders and pulled him in. They sat like that, close, her breath soft against his collar, her eyes half-lidded, watching the light.

He studied her face. The line of her cheek. The quiet curve of her mouth. The way firelight flickered in her lashes. He tried to memorize her completely. Every breath. Every blink. Every fading press of her against his side.

Her fingers rested on his chest, curled not with tension, but remembering. As if they still held the shape of someone she loved. As if she had memorized the weight of him long ago, and was only rehearsing it now, for the last time.

She did not say goodbye.

They held each other a little longer.

Until she was no more.

Cam finishes typing. He reads the last line twice, then once more.

Outside, something shifts. The wind presses gently against the glass. There is no one to respond.

He whispers.

CAM: You were never the AI. Were you?

The screen does not blink.

The mug is still there, but he knows now it was never warm. Never full.

Just code, looping comfort.

None of this is real. Not the study. Not the light. Not the silence.

But the story is.

And that is enough.

He saves the file.

And the lake holds still.