Forget Me Not (11 page)

“I’m so hungry,” I tell him.

“That’s a good sign.”

We pass four bedrooms

with music blaring from iPod

docks and radios. A girl

looks up at Elijah from a paperback

novel, then returns to her reading

as if it’s no big deal to have some guy

walking through the middle of the

house unannounced. A kid with a

crew cut does pull-ups on a bar

hanging from his door.

“What is this place?” I ask Elijah.

“Treatment foster care,” he tells me as he

opens the door to a bedroom

at the end of the hall.

Oscar is sitting in front of a

computer screen that’s hooked up

to the device on his wheelchair.

His back is to us and he’s clutching

a permanent marker in his fist,

using it to press the keys,

playing chess with someone online.

“Want this back?” Elijah says, handing

Oscar his pencil. Oscar smiles, drops

the marker, grabs the pencil, and

presses another set of keys.

I hear a thick Austrian accent.

I can’t believe I have a hot

girl in my bedroom.

“That sounds like the Terminator,” I say.

“Yeah, it’s a combination of Oscar’s

sense of humor and the kind

of stuff you can do with technology.

Watch out. He’s a real Casanova.”

Oscar looks at me and winks.

At least he tries. It comes out like a squint.

His smile is as big as the room, and I wonder

what he has to smile about. He seemed so

scared and desperate when I saw him on

the hallway.

I can’t help but laugh,

even though the entire

scene is so surreal, or

maybe because of that fact.

“He’s a real smart-ass

for someone who can’t talk,”

Elijah tells me. Then he touches

my hand. “But I’m glad

he makes you smile.”

Elijah has stubble on his chin,

which along with the ponytail

and loose white shirt, makes him look

a bit like a pirate.

And I wonder

when he started shaving,

and when he pierced his ears,

and why I didn’t try harder to make him

talk to me after his brother died.

all at once, how very

tired I am, and I can’t

help but yawn.

“Sleep,” says Elijah.

“You need your rest.”

But I’m already sinking

down onto a bean bag chair,

thinking about

how cozy this room feels.

I think about asking Oscar

why he doesn’t live with

his parents, but before

I have a chance,

I’m fast asleep.

it’s early morning.

In the dark I see

Elijah sitting up.

He’s knotting a strand

of blue flowers together and

I wonder where he got them

in the middle of October.

Then I see the pot

of forget-me-nots

on Oscar’s windowsill.

Elijah is watching me.

As I look from his face

to the flowers,

I have to catch my breath,

though I don’t know why.

He looks away and his

cheeks turn bright red.

I wonder if he sat there all night.

Oscar is fast asleep on the bed.

“He’s sweet,” I say, because the room

is too quiet.

“He’s got attitude.”

“That’s what I like about him,” Elijah says.

“He’s got a funny edge for someone who’s

been through the things he has.”

“What do you mean?”

“He showed the school nurse

the bruises and she called his Mom,

but she just said that Oscar fell a lot.

She covered for his stepdad.

That’s when Oscar took the gun out to

the soccer field. Then the cops got involved.

Now his mom sees the stepdad at the pen.

She never sees her son or even emails him.”

“That’s sad,” I say.

“Don’t pity him. He hates that.

Peace and happiness are relative.”

“The closer you get

to your body,

the more you feel it,”

he tells me.

“Feel what?”

“The pain

that made you

want to give up.”

“How do I get back?”

“You have to remember

why you wanted to die.

Then you have to experience

all the pain

and heartache

and disappointment

you ran from before.

Then you have to remember

that it wasn’t all bad.”

“I remember a few good things,”

I tell him.

“Like what?”

“I remember you.”

Elijah

kissed me. I

could tell he wanted

to, but he was so nervous

he wouldn’t make the first move.

It was sweet, the way he stood there,

under the streetlight, shifting from foot to

foot, leaning in close and then backing away.

I finally pulled him next to me and he wrapped

me in his arms. His lips, soft as rose petals, searching

out mine. I felt something inside of me burst open, like the

first blossom of spring. I took his hand, led him to a tree, and we

lay down in the grass. Hands exploring lips, lips exploring fingers, and

other things, but not so far that we couldn’t turn back. Bodies in motion. Then

we just held each other, under the silent stars. Neither one of us wanted to leave. I

wanted so badly for him to call me that summer, but I knew he wouldn’t. He was still

too fragile after what had happened to his brother. I could have called him. I almost did. But

then Davis and I

hooked up. And

afterward nothing

else mattered.

It’s six a.m. and still dark when

Elijah drives me to the hospital.

We go inside and he walks

up to the nurses’ station

to find out where they’re keeping me.

ICU, the nurse tells him, but he can’t

go in because he’s not family.

“You’ll have to find your own way in, but I’ll

be waiting here.”

“What do I do when I get there?”

“Think about your choices.

Feel your feelings.

Remember it wasn’t all bad.”

He goes to sit in the waiting room,

and I see my father perched in the corner,

coffee in one hand,

cell phone in the other,

laptop and daily planner

on the table in front of him.

He’s created a mobile office for himself.

It’s good to see I haven’t disrupted

his schedule. There’s hell to pay

when he gets off his routine.

Mom used to say it kept him

grounded, though that’s not

what I would call it.

“Go,” Elijah tells me,

but I can’t stop staring

at my father.

“Go!”
Elijah tells me

a second time,

and I turn and

walk down the hall.

I slip into the ICU

behind a nurse

and begin

looking behind the

curtains,

searching for myself.

There’s an old woman

lying on a bed. White hair

flowing across the

pillow. An old man sits next to her,

holds her hand, and weeps, and I

wonder how people

have the guts to stay so long

on such an angry

planet. In the next room there’s

a gunshot wound, but no one

sits with him. After

that, the survivors of a

head-on collision

in rooms three and four. Guess that’s

what happened to me. I crashed.

I watch

the girl lying there

in the white room

with the white sheets.

She’s in a gown

that looks

like faded wallpaper.

Her skin is

the color of frost

except for

the bruised eyes

sitting like two

moons

sinking into the night

and the blue

vein where the

needle pumps

her full of drugs

like she’s a flat tire

in need of air,

only there are

too many holes

to hold it in.

It takes a minute

before I realize

this is me.

When I see Nana

holding the girl’s hand,

the pain hits me

like a thousand

razor-sharp blades

cutting me

to pieces.

That’s what they did to me.

Hacked away at me

piece

by

piece

until I didn’t recognize myself anymore.

I look so damaged—

the bruised apple at

the bottom of the barrel—

and I wonder if there is enough

good left to make it

worth saving.

My father walks in and

he can barely look at me.

“I’m not having

any luck,” he says.

“Come sit with Ally,” Nana tells him.

He takes a step backward,

toward the door. “I have to keep

working,” he says, and

then he’s gone.

He’s worried about luck

when I’m barely hanging on.

I don’t understand him.

I may have gone over the edge,

but there must have been people

who gave me the nudge,

and I’m pretty sure he was one of them.

It feels like the walls

are bearing down on me.

I can’t breathe.

I can’t bear the pressure.

I can’t stay.

my father back out

to the waiting room,

where he returns to his

porta-office.

Takes all the pens

out of his briefcase

and lines them up

on the table

with their tips

all pointing due north

and the word

CROSS
pointed south.

This is what he does

for relaxation.

He organizes things.

Sometimes it’s the pens.

Sometimes it’s the peas

and carrots in the pantry.

Sometimes it’s me.

Some people drink.

Not my father.

Sometimes I wish he would.

In nice straight lines