Forget me not, p.1
Forget Me Not, page 1
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For the queer kids living in a place like Wyatt.
Hang in there. It gets so much better.
CHAPTER 1
I’VE SPENT MORE HOURS THAN I can count lying awake, finding hidden pictures in the random patterns of my popcorn ceiling.
A rack of antlers with asymmetrical drop tines. A bundle of tulips gripped tight by spindly fingers.
Most of them I’ve found before. After all, there’s only so much to discover on a ten-by-twelve ceiling. But sometimes I see something new. Like Mom’s old schoolmate Mrs. Lassam’s thick-rimmed glasses, which I’ve been staring at for the past hour. I haven’t been able to stop thinking about her since she walked out of Sunday Mass with us this morning.
The question she asked me was simple enough. What are your plans now that you’ve graduated? It should’ve been an easy answer, the same bullshit story I tell everyone, but I’ve been spending so much time thinking about my real plans that I almost told her the actual truth. I covered it, of course, but I could’ve ruined this whole thing. I need to be more careful the closer it gets.
One wrong word to the wrong person in the wrong place, and our plan will be blown to hell.
The truth is I hate keeping secrets. I always have. All they really do is tear people apart.
But this…
This is different.
Because this particular secret is the only thing keeping me whole.
She is the only thing keeping me whole.
I know it might sound a little extreme, but sometimes it feels like she’s the only one I can be myself around, like she’s the only thing holding my feet to the ground and without her, I might just forget who I really am and float away.
She’s so much more than just a secret. She’s everything to me.
For my own eye health, I force my attention away from Mrs. Lassam’s glasses and flip over onto my stomach to snag my phone off the corner of my bed. 3:17 a.m. The screen lights up with a photo of me, which I’m sure looks slightly egotistical or at least super weird from the outside. But when I look at this photo, I don’t see myself. I see what I’m smiling at: the photographer.
I see Nora.
Instead of my long, dark-chocolate hair, I see her dirty-blond, chin-length cut, which she’s forever regathering into a mini-ponytail at the back of her head. Instead of my sharp jawline and bony shoulders, I see her two dimples, set deep into the freckled cheeks of her round face, and her strong arms.
Even though every part of her is forever carved into my mind, tonight, after what almost happened after Mass, it’s not enough to just imagine her. I need more.
I slide out from underneath my blue-and-white-striped comforter and tiptoe silently across the carpet to my desk. Somewhere along the top shelf is a thin orange granite rock, lodged in the gap between two sections of wood. Slipping it out, I crouch down on the floor and stick an edge into one of the screws holding the metal vent over the air duct. They take longer to unscrew than they used to. After being taken out about a million times, the little crosses are almost stripped down to perfect circles. Honestly, I should probably replace them with fresh ones soon so they don’t draw any attention.
Quietly, I set the vent cover on the floor beside me, then carefully reach inside the duct to remove an orange shoe box. Without fail, the familiar worn corners and peeling Scotch tape send my heart pounding. I glance back at my closed bedroom door before turning on my flashlight and removing the lid. Inside is a mess of handwritten letters and photographs but also things that wouldn’t mean anything to anyone other than the two of us.
The blue-and-yellow tassel off Nora’s graduation cap from Wyatt High, the local public school that’s about ten minutes from the Catholic school I attended. An empty movie theater popcorn bag from when we drove into the city to go on our first real date. The stretched-out yellow hair tie she gave me off her wrist the first time we had sex, all arms and legs in the backseat of my Volvo, tucked deep into the woods on her family farm. A winning lottery ticket we found in a deserted parking lot the other night and vowed to cash in once we finally get out of here at the end of summer, when we can be together.
This box. It’s the only physical evidence I have of our two-year relationship, everything precious to me. If someone found this, they’d know everything, which is exactly why it needs to stay hidden for the next two months.
At the very bottom of the pile, I find what I’ve really been looking for: my favorite photo of Nora. It’s a small rectangular Polaroid, shot in black-and-white so it seems fifty years older than it actually is. We decided when we first started dating almost two years ago that it would be safer for us to only capture memories via Polaroids. No digital evidence for someone to find on either of our phones.
In the photo Nora’s treading water, shoulder-deep in the crick when it flooded last spring. Her wet hair is hanging down around her face in messy tangles, and her mouth is open just enough to see the teeny-tiny gap in her front teeth. She looks sexy. You’d never guess her mouth is open because she’s about to announce the gnarly wedgie she has.
I hear the creak of my parents’ bed and jerk my head up to the wall we share. I freeze for a second, listening, but no other sounds escape their room, so it’s probably just one of them rolling over. Even so, time to put this stuff away. I drop the photo hastily into the box and place it back in the duct behind the vent, then wiggle the rock back into my desk, like nothing is there, nothing happened at all.
I hurry back to my bed, my heart beating in my ears. What if that wasn’t just one of them rolling over in bed? What if one of them had walked in here and seen me? I just keep replaying different scenarios in my head and the longer I lie here, the worse the reactions become.
I can’t do this anymore tonight. I need sleep if I’m going to make it through another long day of holding this all in. And I know there’s only one thing that’s going to calm me down enough to get there. I just hope she doesn’t mind. This’ll be the second time in the past week that I’ll be calling and waking her up.
I dial Nora’s number, my fingers automatically gliding over the screen as if I’m entering my passcode. I burrow deep under my covers, then stick my phone between my ear and the mattress.
“Hey, babe.” Her voice sounds after a few rings, extra raspy from being woken up, and extra cute. “Can’t sleep, huh?” she asks, even though she knows I can’t answer, not with my parents on the other side of my paper-thin walls. Luckily, she doesn’t have to worry about that, because her bedroom is all the way up in the attic of her oversized farmhouse. Not that I’ve ever actually seen it.
“You know how I’ve been on that environmental documentary kick?” she asks rhetorically.
I nod to myself, feeling slightly guilty for not having watched the two she sent me… but not guilty enough to actually watch them.
“Okay, well, I just watched this one about meat and it was so mind-boggling…” She goes on, telling me all she’s learned about the meat industry’s effect on the environment. “Anyway, I’m thinking about going vegan,” she finishes, and I can’t help but let out the quietest laugh at that.
“I know. I know.” She giggles. “Says the girl whose mom runs the biggest beef farm in the county. That’d probably be more of a blow to her than…” She laughs again, but this one sounds different, forced.
She goes back to the documentary, telling me all the little details about it. She talks and I just listen.
One thing I love about Nora is that she oozes passion. Pure unfiltered passion, for all kinds of things. It’s easy to get excited when you’re around her, even about stuff you never cared about before.
Sometimes if I really can’t sleep, she’ll talk to me like this for hours on end, and somehow, she always manages to find things that are worth saying.
Despite how much I like listening, her soothing voice manages to melt the tension I’ve been holding in my muscles all night, and after half an hour or so, my eyelids finally begin to grow heavy. And even though Nora would never admit it, I’m sure she wouldn’t mind being able to go back to sleep right now.
“And don’t get me started on deforestation. That’s a whole other—” She stops midsentence when I softly clear my throat into the phone.
“Okay. Good night, Stevie. I’ll see you tomorrow.” She pauses; then, ever so softly, she whispers, “I love you,” as if she’s saying it into my ear. She doesn’t just sling it around like she’s said it as many times as she actually has. She says it like she means it, each word encased in her whole heart.
I want to say it back to her. I want to say it so badly my throat aches, but I know I can’t.
Not even in a whisper.
Not here.
CHAPTER 2
THE FIRST THING I DO when I wake up in the morning is check my Instagram message requests, and sure enough, I have a new one from an account with no followers, no posts, and no profile picture. FarmGirl8217, aka Nora. Not the world’s most clever handle, but she was barely sixteen when she came up with it, and I’m the only one who ever sees it.
Can you meet
My heart leaps, but then immediately deflates when I remember that I already promised Savannah and Rory I’d meet them for breakfast. Even though I could cancel, even though I want to cancel, I need to keep up some semblance of normalcy with other people in my life or they might get suspicious. And considering I already ghosted them on Friday…
Noon is the earliest I can come today :/ News!? Tell me! I type back.
I’ll tell you when I see you.
Nora! Tell me now! It’s about the apartment isn’t it? Did we get it???
We missed out on our first choice, but the next one we applied for isn’t so bad.
I’ll see you at noon ;) she replies after a minute.
I roll my eyes and let out a grumble as I delete the conversation. Nora loves surprises, and I… can’t stand them.
The moment I step out of my bedroom door, my mood is instantly killed further by the voices of a couch full of Fox News anchors carrying up the stairs. I thought my dad would be at work by now. Normally I’d give it a few minutes until the TV clicks off, but I have to get down there and get going or I’ll be late for breakfast and that’ll make me late for Nora. So I take a deep breath, grit my teeth, and descend the stairs into the living room.
“This guy.” The brown leather couch creaks as my dad turns around to face me, dressed in a semiclean set of coveralls with GREEN’S AUTO REPAIR printed across the back in cracked vinyl lettering. “This guy ain’t nobody’s fool. Not like those idiots on CNN,” he finishes, his thumb pointed over his broad shoulders.
I tense my jaw, biting back a snide comment. It feels like I have to do that more and more these days, and I’m not sure if he’s getting more intolerant or I’m just becoming less tolerant of him.
“Morning,” I force out instead, but he’s already leaning back in toward the TV, which is mounted on the wall between two deer heads. He’s not even listening.
Good talk.
It wasn’t like this when I was growing up. Back then we actually enjoyed each other’s company. He’d let me run the switch on the car lift at the garage all day, or rent a small aluminum boat and take me out fishing on the reservoir, just the two of us. He listened. But that was before Nora, before I understood just how toxic some of his beliefs are. And before he became so obsessed with these talking heads that nothing I said could ever change his mind.
When I set our plan in motion, I didn’t foresee that I’d have much trouble at all leaving him behind, considering I can barely stand to be around him now. But somehow I still feel sad about that.
I shake off the thought as I grab my car keys off the hook and head out the front door.
But just as it swings open—Oof.
I almost run smack into my mom on the front porch. She’s clutching a green plastic watering can in one small hand and in the other is the WORLD’S BEST MOM mug that I got her a million years ago.
“Whoa, careful, sweetie.” Her dark brown eyes widen over sun-spotted cheeks as she holds her mug out to steady the sloshing coffee.
“Sorry. I uh… didn’t think you’d be here,” I say, surprised to see her. It would normally take a plague of locusts to keep that lady from her Monday-morning prayer group.
“I decided to play hooky today. I was hoping you and I could hang out for breakfast.”
“I actually have to go,” I reply before I let myself even think about it, slipping past her off the porch, eyes locked on my black car parked in the driveway.
“I thought you didn’t start work until noon today. Where are you headed?” she asks from behind me.
“I’m meeting Savannah and Rory at the Dinor,” I tell her, continuing to walk toward my car. The misspelling is so common around this part of Pennsylvania that it didn’t even strike me as wrong until my sophomore year.
“Well, wait. What time do you get off?” she asks, making me turn around, but I keep my eyes on the stained mug in her hand, focusing on a white chip in the green paint. “The summer farmers’ market opens today—I was thinking… maybe you could help me pick out a few flowers for the front step?” She motions with the mug to the bare concrete step I just walked down. There’s a big part of me that wishes we could do that together. Before I can stop myself, I meet her eyes and they absolutely light up as she misinterprets it as an opening. “And then after, maybe we could take a drive out to that bistro we used to go to all the time! Or head over to Dairy Qu–”
“Yeah, probably not.” I cut her off, trying not to think about that killer chicken sandwich and laughing at our old booth in the corner. She physically deflates before I can look away. Shit. Why does she have to make this so hard? “I have to stay a little later today, we’re training a new barista,” I lie… again.
“Oh. Of course.” She shakes her head like it’s nothing, like she believes me. “You’re busy.”
“You have a ton of flowers anyways.” I try to change the subject, looking around at the slew of potted plants lining the edge of the porch.
She pulls her cheeks up, the straight line of her lips forming a small smile, but all she says is “Have a nice time with your friends,” then turns her back to me.
I hesitate there for a second, my feet feeling like concrete blocks. It would be so easy to slip back into the past, to go to the farmers’ market and Lola’s Bistro and Dairy Queen, pretend like I’m still the girl she wants me to be, someone she would be proud of.
But things are different now. She made them different, I remind myself. I’ve spent the past year building up this space between the two of us, but she’s the one who started it. I’m just making everything easier for when the time comes. Easier for her and me. Because come August, we won’t be a part of each other’s lives any longer. So I pick up my feet and continue toward my car.
Still, the guilt bubbles up inside me more and more with every step, so I try to picture Nora and me in California. And when the visual forms, it reminds me that it’ll be worth it. That my real life begins when we get out of here. Together.
* * *
The moment I open the heavy metal door into the Dinor, I’m hit with a wave of voices, each one desperately trying to be heard over the next. The warm yellow lights illuminate the white tables and red booths, all filled with customers. I love coming here for breakfast because it’s packed to the gills every single morning, a reminder that this town still has some life left in it. It’s a sharp contrast to the storefronts on either side, both plastered with sun-faded pages from the Wyatt Argus, a newspaper that doesn’t even exist anymore.
I pause in front of the ancient gumball machine, where you can win a free cup of coffee if you can manage to snag the color of the week, but ultimately, I decide to pass. Last time I got one, it was so old and hard that it honestly might’ve been a jawbreaker. The jury is still out. Besides, I do technically work at a coffee shop, so free coffee isn’t that much of a prize.
I scan the busy dining room and finally spot Savannah’s fiery ginger hair at a booth next to one of the large windows. It was easier when she had an absolute mane of curls, but right before senior year, she decided they weren’t in. So she’s been flat-ironing them every day since, which must take forever.
“I don’t remember, it’s honestly a blur,” Rory is saying as I approach. She throws herself back up against the booth in laughter, her messy bun bobbing around on top of her head. “Stevie!” she says as I slide in opposite them. “Oh my God. You missed the greatest party of all time.”
“What happened?” I ask, though I highly doubt I missed much of anything at Jake Mackey’s graduation party on Friday. I really don’t see why Savannah is with him.
Rory sighs, shaking her head. “You couldn’t even…” She laughs into Savannah, who clutches her arm, giggling and nodding so hard that I worry her head might fall off. “Right?” Rory says to her.
“You kind of had to be there,” Savannah finishes, trying to get herself under control, wiping tears away with a paper towel off the roll at the end of the table. “Speaking of which, I can’t believe they made you stay so late you couldn’t even celebrate your own graduation with your best friends. That job is practically slave labor,” she says.
