The moment someone asked me to imagine a future, I realized I couldn’t.
Because my heart had already made a promise when I was seventeen.
A promise I had never consciously chosen to break.
And dancing became impossible.
It wasn’t that I hated dancing.
I loved it.
But whenever music started playing at a wedding, I remembered Michael’s hand in mine.
So I stopped.
The Girl in the Parking Lot
Last Tuesday, I was leaving the grocery store when a young girl approached me.
She looked about sixteen.
Maybe seventeen.
She was carrying a canvas bag and seemed nervous.
“Excuse me,” she said.
I stopped.
“Do I know you?”
She shook her head.
“No, ma’am.”
Then she reached into her bag.
She pulled out a small wooden box.
My heart began beating faster.
“I was told to give this to you.”
“To me?”
She nodded.
I opened the box.
Inside was a tiny dried flower.
A boutonniere.
White petals.
A little faded.
But unmistakable.
My hands began shaking.
I recognized it immediately.
Michael’s boutonniere.
The one his grandmother had made.
I couldn’t breathe.
“Where did you get this?”
The girl looked at me.
“My grandfather gave it to me.”
“Your grandfather?”
She nodded.
“He told me that if I ever found you, I had to give you this.”
I stared at her.
“Who is your grandfather?”
She hesitated.
Then she said a name.
“Michael Carter.”
The world seemed to stop.
I grabbed the side of my car.
“No.”
The girl looked confused.
“Are you okay?”
“Michael Carter?”
“Yes.”
“That was my boyfriend.”
Her eyes widened.
“You’re the woman in the photograph.”
“What photograph?”
“My grandfather has an old photograph of you two at prom.”
I could barely stand.
“Is Michael alive?”
The girl swallowed.
“Yes.”
I closed my eyes.
For forty-one years, I had imagined this moment.
And yet I was completely unprepared for it.
“Where is he?”
“He’s in a nursing home.”
My heart broke.
“Why?”
“He had a stroke a few years ago.”
I looked down at the boutonniere.
“Why didn’t he come back?”
The girl looked at me sadly.
“I think that’s what he wants you to know.”
The Truth About Prom Night
She told me that her grandfather had disappeared that night because of an accident.
Not one caused by me.
Not one caused by another girl.
Not because he had stopped loving me.
He had been walking behind the hotel when he was struck by a car.
The driver panicked.
Michael suffered a severe head injury.
He was taken to a hospital in another town because the nearest emergency facility was overwhelmed that night.
For days, he couldn’t remember his name.
When he finally began recovering, he had fragments of memory.
He remembered my face.
He remembered our prom.
He remembered that he loved someone.
But he couldn’t remember my name.
