Even the Stars Forgot Her Name

Emotional Short Story (800 words)

There once was a girl who walked like a memory—soft, quiet, and almost invisible to the world around her. Her name was Lila. Or at least, I think it was.

People disappear in strange ways. First from rooms, then from conversations, then from photos. Eventually, from your mind. And finally—from your heart.

But I remember Lila.

She used to sit on the rooftop of an old bookstore where we met by accident—or maybe fate. I was hiding from the world that day, and she was already there, sketching constellations on the back of a coffee-stained receipt.

We didn't talk the first day. Or the second. But by the third time we crossed paths, she spoke.

“Do you ever feel like you’re slowly being erased?” she asked, not looking at me.

I blinked. “Sometimes.”

She nodded. “Yeah. Me too.”

That’s how it started.

We never exchanged last names. Never took photos. Never made promises. We just met on that rooftop, week after week, like two ghosts who still had a little life left in them.

Lila talked about the stars a lot.

“They’re all dead,” she said one evening. “Most of the ones we see at night—they’ve already burned out. But their light keeps traveling. It keeps arriving, even if they’re long gone.”

She looked at me and smiled softly.

“Maybe we’re like that too. Maybe we still reach people even after we’re gone.”

I never quite knew what she meant, but I nodded like I did.

One day, she brought a paper lantern and a match.

“I want to send something up,” she said. “So the sky doesn’t forget me.”

She wrote something on the lantern before we lit it. I didn’t ask what it said. It floated away, quietly, until it was just another speck of light in the dark.

That was the last time I saw her.

She didn’t come back the next day. Or the one after. I returned to the rooftop every evening, hoping I’d see her leaning over the railing, sketching galaxies with her fingers. But she was gone.

Eventually, I went downstairs and asked the bookstore owner.

“The girl who comes here sometimes, with the star drawings. Do you know her name?”

He looked puzzled. “What girl?”

I described her.

He shook his head. “No one’s been on that roof in years. Those stairs were closed off after a leak.”

I thought maybe he was joking.

But the door to the rooftop was sealed now. Bolted shut.

I started wondering if Lila was ever really there.

I searched online. No missing person named Lila. No records. Nothing. It was as if she never existed.

But I remember her.

I remember the way her voice softened when she talked about light and loss.

I remember her hands—always stained with ink or charcoal.

And I remember how she made me feel like I mattered, even on the days I didn’t feel real myself.

Years have passed.

Sometimes, I look up at the stars and wonder if she was one of them all along—burnt out, yet still shining in some forgotten sky.

They say people only die when we stop remembering them.

So I write about her.

I draw stars on receipts and leave them in library books.

I whisper her name under my breath when I feel most alone.

Even if the world forgets her...

Even if the stars forget her...

I won’t.

Not now.

Not ever.