In Loving Memory

They had been dating for almost a year before she asked him to move in with her. He'd been hesitant, at first; it was a big step, after all. Eventually, though, he'd agreed. He loved her, so why shouldn't he make that next step? There were a few weeks left on his lease when she'd asked. He planned it with her, so that he would move in as soon as his lease was up.

The first few months together were just as wonderful as he'd imagined they would be. They sat in companionable silence many nights, with him reading a book while she graded papers for her history classes. He admired that she'd worked so hard to become a full-fledged professor. His own work seemed inconsequential in comparison, though she assured him it wasn't.

"Every job, no matter how small, is important," she would say, and he'd smile because the conviction in her eyes made him really believe that, almost as much as she did.

He had odd dreams from time to time, of places both near and far, scattered across time. He chalked it up to watching too many documentaries with her. They were pleasant dreams, for the most part, and she featured heavily in them. That was not surprising, since they spent so much time together. He knew everything about her, and she knew everything about him.

So when he discovered a dusty, leather-bound scrap book, the contents came as something of a shock. He saw himself staring out of the pages... except, it wasn't really him.

Not all of the pictures were photographs. The earliest ones were sketches and paintings. Papyrus, vellum, even delicate Xuan paper (she'd schooled him soundly when he'd called it rice paper, going on and on about how many types there were.) His face, his eyes, looked out at him. The hair style wasn't always the same, but the colors were right. The dusting of freckles across his nose and cheeks. His smile, a little shy but mostly playful.

Her impeccable handwriting was clear on every page. Location. Year. Name. Sometimes the gaps between pictures were small - perhaps thirty years or so. Sometimes there were much longer stretches of time. The longest he'd seen had been nearly a hundred and fifty years. In between, she'd included a note:

I didn't find him in time. I showed a sketch of what he should look like in every place I went to. By the time I found where he lived, it was too late. The fever took him, they said.

There were splotches on the paper, where he knew tears had fallen and smudged the ink.

He was still paging through the enormous album when she came home, startling him at the sound of the door closing. She stood stock still, her eyes wide and yet so sad. "You were never supposed to see that," she said, her voice strained.

Slowly he stood, turning to face her fully. "What is it?" he asked. "What does this even mean?"

She explained to him, then, about her curse. Immortality, she called it. He was inclined to believe her when she slit her wrist in front of him and he watched it heal within seconds. It dawned on him that she was such a brilliant history professor simply because she had actually lived it. Living forever, well, he could see how it could be a curse.

When she was through, the silence stretched. She shifted uncomfortably, nervous and looking ready to run. So he asked the one question that had been burning in his mind. "Why me?"

The woman he loved took the book from where he'd left it, her fingers brushing each picture as she turned the pages. "Because it's always been you," was her simple reply. "You just haven't remembered it yet."