She used to paint the sky in colors no one else could see. I remember standing behind her, watching the way her fingers smudged blues into purples, gold into twilight. She was brilliant—too brilliant for a world that forgot too easily.

I never forgot.

Even when she faded from everyone else’s mind, slipping through their memories like sand through fingers, I held onto every stroke of her brush, every moment we shared as children. She was my only softness in a world that demanded precision, my only warmth in a life of cold expectations.

I found her again, years later, hunched over an easel in a dimly lit room, her once-bold strokes faltering, as if even she was beginning to believe she was meant to disappear.

I refused to let that happen.

"Do you still remember me?" I asked, stepping into her world like I was meant to belong there.