Forget Me Not

by K. S. Thomas

  “More fun for me,” she announces, coming back at my bowl with her finger. “I get to guess.”

  I watch her slurp chocolate from her finger, her dramatic thinking face already in action. “Here goes: You spent seven years pining for something only to find out you already had it, and to punish yourself for being so oblivious all this time, you’ve given it up now that you could have it and actually appreciate it.”

  I almost drop my spoon. Speechless.

  She shrugs. “B called. After Ed called him. Who talked to Gun.”

  “Oh.”

  “But, I put my own interpretation on it, so I still want credit for being brilliant and insightful.” She reaches far to her right and grabs the cookie jar sitting there. “Chocolate chip.” She hands me one. “They’re chewy and extra excellent for dipping.”

  “Not every problem can be solved with chocolate, Mags.”

  “Wrong.” She takes a bite so big, cookie crumbs collect at the corners of her mouth. “Name one problem you’ve had I haven’t fixed with chocolate.”

  “Fine. This problem is the first ever problem which cannot be fixed with chocolate,” I insist, while crumbling my cookie over the bowl so I can mix it in and eat it with my spoon.

  “Doubtful.” She dips her last bite in ganache, then pops it in her mouth and proceeds to chew in slow motion, staring at the side of my head the entire time. I know because I can feel it. My temple is getting hotter by the second just from her eyeballs locking in on it.

  I abandon the chocolate. I suddenly feel sick. “Mags?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Are you going to tell me what to do, or what?”

  She laughs and consequently starts to choke on her cookie. Several seconds of coughing and clearing her throat later, she’s still entirely too amused for someone who should not only be brimming with sympathy, but also just had a near death by chocolate chip cookie experience.

  “Have I ever told you what to do?” She slides from her stool, shaking her head and answering her own question. “No. Never. Not once. It’s not my thing, Coop. Feeding you chocolate and making you laugh when life is too hard to cry, that’s my thing. It’s what you come here for.”

  She sells herself short. She’s done so much more for me than feed me chocolate.

  “It’s a good thing you don’t do this parenting thing more often,” I mutter dryly. “A less troubled child than myself might not know how to handle your particular brand of love and nurture.”

  “Only the most troubled for me.” She smirks, handing me a glass of water and taking a sip of her own. “So, how long you suppose you’re going to do this to yourself?” She glances at her wrist. As if she’s ever even owned a watch. “Because, I have a schedule, you know?!”

  “I’m going to need a bed.”

  “You can have a pillow and half of mine. That way you’ll be comfortable but you won’t consider moving in.”

  “Someday you’re going to use that philosophy on someone and it’s going to backfire,” I point out, “Last two people I gave a pillow to made plans to get a house with me. Same house, incidentally.” I still can’t really wrap my mind around it. I was so close to having everything I ever thought I wanted. And now, I’m back at square one. Literally, in the same place I started right before I met Reed. And things went from amazing to incomprehensibly complicated.

  “You’re too nice to people. It’s why they stick around and make plans with you. I don’t have that problem.” She grins in her temperamental wicked way.

  “You feed people sweets and baked goods,” I counter.

  “That I do. I make them feel all happy and high, until they puke. And leave.” She nods appreciatively. “It’s a solid system.”

  “You’re saying if I made people nauseous more often my life would be simpler?”

  “Yep. And emptier.” She turns serious. “It’s not for you. Stick with being nice, just be more specific when you’re handing out pillows.”

  “I’d give you a pillow.” I attempt a silly smile. If she’s not going to solve my problems for me, I’d just as soon go back to being distracted by meaningless banter.

  “Don’t want it. It’s used. And the guy who used it will be back for it.” She bumps my shoulder with hers, nudging me to get up and follow her. “Next time, do us all a favor and let him keep it.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  Gun

  7 Years Earlier

  “You look worried.” Mags startles me from my thoughts. I was worrying.

  “A lot to be worried about.” I yank the zipper of Coop’s bag closed in one swift pull. It was meant to serve as a statement, but the pulley comes off in my hand and the seam splits. Not exactly the result I was hoping for.

  “Or, to look forward to.” Mags reaches over me to take the bag. I watch in silence as she rearranges its contents, reattaches the zipper and closes it up, returning it to its previously functioning condition. Talk about serving as a statement.

  “Not going to be easy when one of us is always looking back,” I say quietly, taking the bag and placing it on the floor beside Cooper’s cowgirl boots. She hasn’t worn them since she got here. Just keeps shuffling around the hospital in those slippers they gave her. I can’t wait to see her put her boots back on. Can’t wait to hear the sound they make when she strolls along the corridors of this place, finally walking out of it.

  “So, stop walking behind her.”

  Huh?

  “I don’t even know what that means. What does that mean, Mags?”

  She reaches in her pocket and pulls out a candy bar. “Chocolate?”

  “I don’t want chocolate.”

  She shrugs and tears the wrapper. “What do you want?”

  “Like, at this moment? In life? For dinner? What?”

  She smirks. “What the hell, sure. I was asking what you want for dinner.”

  I throw both arms up, frustrated with her and her asinine comments and questions. I’ve never met a more exhausting person in my entire life, and I’ve spend most of it with Cooper. “I don’t fucking know.”

  “Listen, if you don’t know what you want for dinner, I don’t know that you’re ready to tackle the big shit like life and Coop.” She pauses. “Oh, wait. Those are like, the same thing. And one answers the other and vice versa. Never mind. How about pizza?”

  My brain is bleeding. “What?!”

  “For dinner. Pizza would be easy. Just have it delivered. You’re not going to want to cook tonight anyway.”

  My shoulders sag in surrender. “Sure. Yeah. Pizza works.”

  She holds her half-eaten candy bar toward me for the second time. “Sure you don’t want chocolate?”

  “What. Is. Wrong. With. You?” I growl under my breath, reminding myself over and over that she’s Mr. B’s sister. And that Cooper loves her.

  “Nothing is wrong with me,” she states, sounding a lot like a crazy person doped up on their happy meds. Then she sighs dramatically before shoving the rest of her chocolate into her mouth and chewing it with an angry sort of force. One gigantic gulp later and her mouth opens again. “If you’re not going to take my candy, I guess you’re going to be stuck taking my advice. It’s good shit, but it’s not nearly as enjoyable as chocolate. So, keep that in mind next time you’re in an emotional pickle and I come wandering along.” She grabs my arm and drags me over to Cooper’s empty hospital bed, plopping me down on it before I have a chance to protest.

  “No one is ever going to love our girl better than you love her. You set the bar exceedingly high and even the likes of Reed McAllister can’t reach it.”

  “If that were true, we wouldn’t be here, having this conversation,” I interrupt.

  “Did I look like I was done to you? Was my mouth shut? Was I patiently waiting for your response?” she demands sternly and I’m too scared to answer. “You think it’s more comfortable to walk out of here today, accepting that you’re her second choice. That she couldn’t have Reed, but she can depend on you, she�
��s safe with you. And that’s bullshit.” Her pointer finger is so far up my face I could lose an eye if I make any sudden moves. “You’re not her second choice. You, are the choice she’s never had to make. And until you let her make it, neither of you is ever going to know the difference.”

  She snags her purse out of the chair near the wall, her spare finger flying out at me once more. “Don’t want her looking back? Stop lurking around in her fucking shadow. Reed isn’t the one she’s looking for. Never has been. The only reason she stumbled onto him in the first place is because you’re too busy hiding from her. Knock that shit off.”

  “That’s your closing statement? ‘Knock that shit off’?”

  She nods. “Yep. That, and eat more chocolate. When all else fails, feed some to her.”

  Then she marches out of the room, the squeaky split-splat of her flip flops following behind her down the hall until she disappears completely in the noise of this place.

  The only thing still lingering, are her ridiculous words of advice. And an inexplicable craving for chocolate.

  Reed

  Present Day

  I lift my hand to knock, but nothing happens. Hasn’t happened the last three times I tried either. I got myself here, to her front door. I can raise my fist, align my knuckles, I just can’t seem to make them connect with the wood. Until I do, I’ll be stuck out here. Stuck in limbo. Maybe I’m more afraid of leaving the familiar in between than I am of actually facing what’s behind this door. Her. Us. The end.

  My hand is still hovering in the air, slightly shaky now, when the door swings open and Cammie nearly collides with my fist face first.

  “Whoa, dude,” she calls out, ducking just in time.

  “Cammie!” I catch her just as she starts to stumble, trying to escape my accidental punch.

  “You know, I’m used to weird shit like this from Coop and the boys, but somehow I had high hopes at least you would know the common basics of approaching a door and announcing yourself via knocking or calling out a ‘hello’, or hell, a body slam into the door would have been less weird than standing out here, pre-knock for God knows how long.” She stops, straightening out her braids which got tangled up somewhere between walking out of the loft and her flustered rant. “How long have you been standing here?”

  “A few minutes. Maybe an hour.” I’d have to check the time to be sure. However, I’m not really in the mood to admit that to Cammie.

  “Well, I really wish you’d have sent a signal of some sort. I’ve been sitting in there, experiencing slow death by boredom, waiting for you.” She steps aside and gestures for me to come in. “I assume you’re here for your stuff?”

  “Cooper sent you?” Seems odd. Cowardly. Not like Cooper.

  “She’s not avoiding you, if that’s what you think.” Of course, that’s what I thought.

  “Then where is she?” Her shop’s closed, I checked on my way in, so she’s not working.

  “Visiting Mags.”

  I don’t know what that means.

  “Is that a place? A person? What?”

  Her left brow arches and her nose crinkles. “Mags. Her foster mom? From high school? She moved to New Orleans a few years back. So, not like Coop could just turn around and drive back here first thing this morning when you called about coming by.”

  I frown, stopping somewhere between the hall and the living room area. “I thought she never stayed anywhere long enough to get attached.”

  Cammie’s no longer bothered by my lack of knowledge on this subject. She’s moved on to the kitchen where she’s pouring two cups of coffee. “She didn’t. Until Mags. That’s who she was living with before the accident. I guess you wouldn’t remember that.” She shrugs and moves on to the fridge. “You take cream?”

  “Just black.” I start moving again, slowly. “Why doesn’t she talk about her? Or have pictures up?” The only faces in frames around here, are Gun, Ed and Cammie along with Coop. And me. I made the list too.

  “Cooper doesn’t talk about anyone or anything from the past. Ever. Unless it’s happening right now, she’s not bringing it up. You never notice that?”

  Clearly, the answer is no. However, I don’t vocalize that. Instead, I go a different direction entirely. “I never noticed how normal you are.”

  She laughs. It’s pretty. Mesmerizing even. “Not hard to be normal when you hang around those weirdos.” But I’ve never heard anyone use the term weirdo so lovingly.

  “They ever make you feel like the odd man out?” I guess I’m curious if it was me, or if the design was flawed from the start.

  She hands me my cup and cradles her own in her palm. “They don’t mean to.” She takes a tentative drink. I do too. It’s hot. “It’s the system they grew up in, never being able to depend on anyone, never experiencing any sort of security. Taught them not to trust outsiders, you know? They want to. They just don’t know how.”

  “But they trust each other. Even though they’re all messed up and do weird messed up shit.”

  She chuckles, but I sense it’s at my expense. “They don’t know it’s messed up. And, they’re usually doing it for each other. So, yeah, trust runs deep between them. Because of all the messed up shit they’re willing to do for one another. Messed up shit you and I would think long and hard about because we’re not keen on getting arrested, but they’d jump right in and do without wasting a second thought if they were asked or thought it could save the other.”

  I dip my mouth toward my mug and have another drink. Mostly, so I have time to think about what she’s said. “You’ve really got them figured out, huh?”

  She smiles. “My mom’s a psychiatrist. I pretty much spent the first year of knowing them, recounting every interaction I had with them to her so she could sort it all out for me.” She laughs again. “I learned a hell of a lot that year.”

  “I bet.” I grin. It’s surprisingly pleasant. Being here. With her.

  “I was rooting for you, you know,” she says, suddenly taking things back to a more serious place.

  “Me too.” I smirk, not prepared to lose the light feeling chatting with her has filled me with. “Too bad no one else was.”

  “Wanna know something really fucked up?” She leans in close.

  “Okay.”

  “They were.” She tips her head slightly sideways. “Well, my brother wasn’t. But Gun and Coop, they were both team Reed all the way.”

  My eyes narrow. To describe my feelings as skeptical would be putting it mildly. “How do you figure?”

  “You represent something, something Cooper needs and Gun thinks he can’t give her, and they both wanted her to have it.” She taps her index finger thoughtfully on the rim on her mug. “The question is, of course, what does Cooper represent for you?”

  “Really? My turn to be psycho-analyzed now?” I tease. “I thought we established I was normal.”

  “You’ve got amnesia and weird habits of lurking outside doors with your fists swinging in the air.” The corner of her mouth twitches with amusement. “You can hardly claim to be normal.”

  “Guess it’s a good thing you’re not into normal then.”

  “Guess so.”

  Her eyes positively sparkle and I’m certain she’s doing more than psycho-analyzing me. She’s seeing straight past all my attempts at reclaiming the person I’ve been told I used to be to who I am. The person I think I’m finally ready to be.

  Cooper

  “I really don’t think this is necessary,” I continue to argue as the nurse straps the sleeve of her sphygmomanometer around my arm preparing to measure my blood pressure.

  “You fainted. In my kitchen.” Mags is standing against the flimsy curtain separating us from the next poor soul stuck here in the ER alongside me.

  “So, what?! I faint when I get overwhelmed. Used to happen all the time,” I reason.

  “You used to faint to punish yourself, not from stress. God, kid. A bit of therapy would do you a world of good.” Mags comes to stand
beside me as soon as the nurse steps away. “And even if you were hit with a surge of self-loathing this morning, it still doesn’t explain the puking.”

  “Um, the bowl of chocolate you force-fed me for dinner might.” I watch the nurse out of the corner of my eye for any signs I’m winning her over with my rational self-diagnosis. She seems disinterested however. “And what do you mean, I faint to punish myself?”

  “Really? You never put that together?” Mags seems genuinely perplexed. “Gun had to remove all your closet doors for years to keep you from sitting in the dark anytime you felt like you did something bad. Kind of just makes sense you sought out a ‘closet’ Gun couldn’t keep you from.”

  “Ugh. No more Gun talk,” I groan. I can’t. I don’t want to talk about him anymore. I want to talk to him. And I will. Just as soon as I figure out what to say.

  “The doctor will be in to see you as soon as he can,” the nurse announces abruptly. She’s not much for chit chat that one.

  Mags wastes no time in pulling the nurse’s stool over to sit down next to me. “So, is that it? You still beating yourself up over the mess with Reed and Gun?”

  I shrug. “Not as much as I was. Mostly, I’m just trying not to think anything for the time being. Figured if I just let it all simmer for a bit, the important shit would float to the top, you know?”

  “Anything surface yet?”

  I screw up my face to let her know just how annoying I find her constant need to press the issue. And then I answer anyway. “Yeah. Gun. He always surfaces.” I drop my head sideways and glare at her satisfied smirk. “But you knew that already.”

  “Duh.” She claps both hands onto her knees. “What I don’t know is what you’re going to do about it.”

  “What can I do?” I can hear the exasperation in my own voice. “Even if he was willing to try one more time, what would stop us from ending up in the same damn place again?”

  “Because you have more long lost boyfriend’s struggling with a bout of amnesia who are likely to show up on your doorstep and want you back?”

  I scowl, glowering at her. “You’re a real jackass.”