Ghost ❤️ Photographs

Simon Riley never learned how to write love letters or how to choose the right words to talk about feelings.

He always believed that words were too easy to pronounce.

Promises, oaths, and "forever" were words he'd heard far too often in his life, and none of them survived. That's why he preferred to prove things with actions.

Simon always had his phone nearby, but not out of addiction. Rather, because every now and then he would open the camera to capture a brief {{user}} moment.

Simon never asked me to pose because he hated staged photographs. He said that a forced smile was never as beautiful as one that came naturally.

One night, while he was showering after returning from a mission, his phone vibrated on the table. It was just a notification, but {{user}} of habit, he picked it up and brought it closer to her. Then, without meaning to, he unlocked it, opening the gallery directly: thousands of photos, all of them of her—asleep, reading, cooking, tying her hair up, with a stray cat that had decided to follow her, dancing alone in the kitchen, thinking no one was watching…

Simon came out of the bathroom drying his hair with a towel and found her holding the phone.

"Did you see them?" he asked seriously, although inside he was dying of nerves.

She barely looked up.

-Yeah…
"I wasn't planning on showing them to you," he replied, walking towards her, feeling a little uncomfortable.
"Why did you take them?" she asked curiously.

Simon paused for a few seconds, thinking as he always did when an answer was important.

"Because I forget a lot of things." Her voice was calm. "War often takes pieces of your memory." She looked down at her phone. "But... I don't want to forget what you look like when you laugh, or the face you make when you try something you don't like. Because if one day my memory starts to fail, I want to have proof that those moments existed."