Please Forget Me - Chapter 257

‧₊˚ ☁️⋅♡𓂃 ࣪ ִֶָ☾.

The air raid was over in less than an hour. The church had survived, but the inn where we’d been staying had half-collapsed.

“Oh… God… Why today, of all days…?”

It seemed the enemy’s real target was the railway tracks. The train station was completely devastated, the tracks now broken and gouged out by a huge crater.

“So what do we do now?”

In a rural place like this, there were no cars. Even the horse-drawn carriages were busy transporting the wounded, so there was no way we could get one for ourselves.

“We’ll have to walk…”

Killian’s answer trailed off, hesitating. I knew he was hesitating because of me.

“I’m fine.”

“You were hardly fine a moment ago.”

He looked me over with worried eyes, almost as if he were checking me for injuries, or to see if I was still shaking.

“I really am fine now. So, which way do we go? This way?”

I tried to head toward the tracks, but Killian finally opened the map and started plotting out a route.

Just in case there was another air raid, we set off along a country road that led away from the enemy lines and stayed well clear of the tracks. The heat made us sweat, but a breeze picked up every now and then, making it bearable.

Still, Killian kept fussing over me.

“If you get tired, don’t hesitate to say so. And watch your step—there are a lot of rocks on this road. Keep your eyes on the path.”

In truth, he spent more time watching me than watching the path ahead. I thought if anyone tripped over a rock, it’d probably be him.

“Is it because I zoned out back at the church? It wasn’t the air raid that rattled me, I just suddenly remembered something and spaced out. Sorry. I won’t do it again.”

Killian faltered for a moment, then kept walking.

“What did you remember?”

“Our wedding.”

Killian stopped dead in his tracks.

“What’s wrong? Are you feeling okay?”

He squeezed his eyes shut, like someone in pain—like he’d been stabbed.

Then he opened his eyes and gazed at me with a kind of melancholy, a trace of fear in his expression.

“Killian… what’s going on?”

“You said you remembered our wedding. And then?”

“…What do you mean?”

I already knew he didn’t like the idea of me regaining my memories, but the way he said, ‘And then?’—it was strange, especially about our wedding.

“It’s just… I remembered, that’s all.”

He waited for more, but I had no idea what he wanted to hear, so I ended up rambling about what I’d seen.

“Not everything came back. I remember the wedding being during an air raid, how dark it was even though it was day… me walking up the aisle to you, and you putting the ring on my finger. And then hiding in the crypt as soon as the ceremony ended…”

Killian just looked at me, saying nothing, his expression unchanged.

“You once said it wasn’t a happy memory for you, right?”

Maybe that was why he was acting like this.

“I guess… it wasn’t happy for me either.”

“Why not?”

At last, he broke his silence, some of the gloom lifting from his gaze. He sounded genuinely curious.

“I don’t know… It just didn’t feel good.”

I couldn’t bring myself to say it had felt more like a funeral than a wedding. Or that the way he’d acted in the crypt had made me uncomfortable. That he’d seemed like a completely different person.

“Killian, did you ever… ever call me ‘my Philomena’ back then?”

He frowned, like the very idea of such a nickname was appalling, and shook his head.

So… what was that? Had I mixed up memory and imagination?

As I tilted my head, Killian’s eyes took on a sorrowful look.

“I understand why you’d want to redo our wedding. I want that too, now.”

I half-expected him to suggest we have a new wedding once we made it safely abroad, but he said nothing more.

“Let’s go.”

He started walking again. This time, his grip on my hand was loose, and he stared blankly at the ground as he walked. He didn’t stumble, but when I tripped over a rock and nearly fell, he caught me a moment later than usual.

‘What is he so lost in thought about?’

And why does he seem so uneasy? Watching him, I found myself growing anxious too.

He was biting his lower lip so hard there was a deep indentation, and even though I didn’t understand, I couldn’t shake the feeling that something was wrong.

That day, we didn’t get on a train. We walked until sunset and found a small inn on the outskirts of a little town to stay the night.

‘What is he thinking? Why won’t he say anything?’