Forget-me-nots, more than just flowers

The last bell of the day rang like a dull whisper across the corridors of Hallowridge High, yet the weight it carried felt heavier than the thousand echoes of footsteps and chatter that followed. The prom was only three days away, and an air of anticipation gripped the students like a brewing storm waiting to crash. But Elira didn’t feel it. The storm had already broken inside her.

Two days ago, she had asked Darian the question that had taken her weeks to gather the courage for:

“Will you go to prom with me?”

And in response, he had said… nothing.

Not a yes. Not a no. Just silence.

The silence wasn’t loud—it was brutal. The kind that wraps itself around your ribs and squeezes until breathing feels like a task. She remembered standing there, her voice trembling with a thread of hope, her eyes locked on his. But Darian, who for the past six years had always met her gaze like it was the only truth he knew, had looked away.

That moment lingered in her mind like a wound that wouldn’t stop bleeding.

She hadn’t spoken to him since. And for the first time in six years, she hadn’t tried.

Darian didn’t text. Didn’t call. Didn’t come to find her like he always did whenever they fought. And that was how Elira knew something in him had changed. There was no miscommunication. No accident. Just distance. Cold, raw distance.

In those two days, Elira wasn’t just sad—she was silently sinking. A part of her kept reaching into the past, asking the little moments they shared if any of it had been real. She scrolled through old photos, messages, the ink stains from the play script they’d practiced in 10th grade where Darian had whispered “I love you” on stage—and her heart ached at the memory. He’d never brought that moment up again. She’d thought it was part of the act. But maybe it wasn’t. Maybe it was too real, too raw for him to say it out loud again.

Darian finally came to her two days before prom. His face was pale, his eyes darker than usual, tired.

“I’m not going,” he said.

Elira looked at him. He didn’t meet her eyes. He never did when he was trying not to cry.

“I’m passing. I’ve got some things… to do,” he added, his voice barely audible.

He wasn’t passing. He just didn’t want to go.

And she didn’t ask why. She wanted to scream, to ask if it was about Elina—the quiet, timid girl from the 10th-grade drama club. The one who barely spoke, but somehow, unknowingly, carved a place into Darian’s heart. A soft infatuation, maybe. Elira had always known. She saw the way Darian would look at her when she was reading alone under the tree or how he paid just a little too much attention to her lines during rehearsal.

But even if he liked Elina, Elira had believed she was still the one he ran to first. The one who saw him. The one who healed him. But suddenly, it didn’t feel that way.

What she didn’t know was that Darian had stood outside the florist’s shop that very morning. He’d chosen Forget-Me-Nots—not because they were beautiful, but because they meant something. They meant remembrance, true love that refuses to fade, and pain that survives silence. They reminded him of her. Of all the times he forgot to tell her just how much she meant, and all the times she still stayed.

He’d bought the bouquet, wrapped in soft brown paper, a note tucked inside it that said:

“You’ve always seen me when I was invisible. I don’t know if I deserve that, but I do know… I never want to forget you.”

He never gave it to her.

Because by the time he reached the hallway, he saw her there—frozen like a photograph in motion.

Josh Merrin, the boy everyone called "The Golden Brain" of Hallowridge High, was kneeling in front of her. His posture perfect. His eyes sincere. In his hands—Forget-Me-Nots.

The same flower.

The world seemed to tilt.

Josh had loved Elira for years. Since sixth grade, when she threw a paper airplane at his head in class and laughed like she had galaxies inside her. But he never said a word. Not because he wasn’t brave, but because Elira was always with Darian. They were the golden duo. The ones who knew each other’s answers without asking questions. So Josh watched from a distance, hiding his feelings beneath perfect grades and polite smiles.

But that day, two days before prom, he decided it was time. He wore his best blue blazer, matched it with his glasses, and waited for her near the lockers with a quiet storm in his chest.

“Elira,” he said.

She turned. And before she could respond, he knelt down and said, “Would you go to prom with me?”

The hallway fell silent.

Everyone turned.

She blinked.

Forget-Me-Nots.

He was kind. So kind. And handsome. And brilliant. But he wasn’t Darian. And that thought was the sharpest dagger of all.

Her lips parted slightly, and something inside her broke.

“…Okay,” she said softly.

But later that night, she sent him a message: “Josh, thank you. But I’m not coming to prom as your date. Just as your friend.”

Josh didn’t reply for a long time.

When he did, he said, “That’s more than I hoped for. I’ll be there.”

Meanwhile, Darian sat curled up in his bed, the note still folded in his hoodie pocket. The bouquet had been left by the river, drifting slowly downstream.

He had convinced himself that Elira had moved on. That she said yes to Josh because he made her feel seen—something Darian had failed to do recently.

He cried. For the first time in years, not because of his father’s expectations or Elina’s silent affection, but because he felt like he had broken the only thing that ever made sense—her.

And Elira?

She sat by her window that night, the soft hum of her sister’s bedtime cartoons echoing in the distance, her father still locked up in his study, as always. The house felt like a stranger’s arms. Cold and formal. She missed her mother more than ever. It had been three years since she died. But the emptiness hadn’t left.

She used to think that when her mother passed away, she’d learn how to be strong. But she didn’t. She just learned how to smile better. How to laugh at jokes that weren’t funny. How to hide the cracks under her eyes. How to be okay when she wasn’t.

But Darian had always seen through her. Until now.

Now, she wasn’t sure if anyone really did.

Prom Night: One Day Away

The buzz of excitement filled the campus. Everyone was talking about who wore what, who was going with whom. But Elira was silent.

She wore her mother’s old pendant that night. Not for the world. For herself. To remember who she used to be. And what she thought love was supposed to feel like.

When she looked in the mirror, she didn’t recognize herself.

And neither did Darian.

From across the street, unseen, he watched her leave with Josh. She smiled. But her eyes weren’t smiling.

He knew that look. Because it was the same look he wore when his dad clapped for his awards but never said, “I’m proud of you.”

She wasn’t happy.

And neither was he.

He turned around, the cold night air brushing against his skin like regret. He never made it to prom.

But he’d remember her.

Every smile.

Every laugh.

Every tear she never let fall in public.

And she’d remember him.