Back at her apartment, Kate peeled off her clothes and threw them in a corner before crawling into her twin sized bed. She stared up at the ceiling, her eyes painting it with lush green trees and soft wood trails. It had been six years since she left, but she could still smell the clean mountain air. She could still feel the leaves slapping against her arms as she and her cross-country team ran through the woods. She could still hear the soft fireflies zipping through the quiet of the night, and taste the fresh raindrops that would fall softly onto her face. And she could still see her little sister, in her bright yellow swimsuit, smiling at her from the shallow end of the lake, her face partially blocked by the blinding glow of the setting sun.
Kate remembered the first time her memory of Emily had started to fade a little. It was a little over two years after Emily died. Up until then, every detail of Emily always lingered at the periphery of her brain. She didn’t even need to conjure it up, it was just always there. Every freckle on her face, the sparkle of her bright blue eyes, the softness of her lush blond hair. The smell of the vanilla sugar body splash she wore every day.
But then suddenly, on an otherwise ordinary day, Kate woke up and, for a few seconds, Emily’s face was fuzzy. Her memory did not have its usual depth and clarity. Kate had trouble feeling Emily’s silky hair through her fingers.
The memories returned in full force a few moments later, but the shock of it had engulfed her like a tidal wave, pulling her down into a deep depression. It was the first time Kate realized that her memories of Emily would not always be as strong and clear as they originally were. That over time memories would take a new form. They would become more like looking back at old photographs or home movies, rather than the very real feeling of Emily standing right there in front of her.
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