Forget Me Not: Chapters 25–38

I swing into a parking space on Main Street right outside the Dinor and make a beeline for the double swinging doors of the kitchen.

My freshman-year theology teacher was just a few pews ahead of us, and I kept replaying the entire stupid class period that he spent explaining why marriage should only take place between a man and a woman.

“He could actually ring the doorbell and come in. Don’t you think? Nobody does the right thing anymore.”
“When did you get so pessimistic? You know people can’t do the right thing if you don’t actually give them a chance to,” I say.

I tell him everything that happened, about the photos, my confrontation with Nora, and finding out about UCLA and California, the truth and all the lies Nora told me since I woke up.

“Oh, they were really good, Mrs. Green. Meat with a side of meat. I love it,” he says with a wink.
“I know, a little unconventional. I’ve been going a little crazy prepping for the spaghetti dinner.”

“Well, all you kids today think you have to go halfway across the world. I don’t know. Maybe you think you’ve got something to prove. But you’re not going to find anything better than you could find right here in Wyatt, with your family,” Dad says, almost smug.

“Well, I got a lot of years on you. You’re young and young folks think they know everything, but I guess everyone has to figure out the truth on their own,” Dad says dismissively.

“You’ve said that to me before, almost word for word.”
Finally, I see a hint of a smile pulling at the corners of her lips.
“Well, at least I’m consistent. What else?” I ask, before I can say what else I’m thinking.

She wants to take me somewhere that we’ve been before, someplace where we can get away from the prying eyes of Wyatt for an evening and just feel normal.

We walk side by side into the river of people flowing up and down Murray Avenue, where lines of tents are set up on either side of the street, each one displaying something different for sale. Handmade pottery, intricate pop-up greeting cards, jam, watercolor paintings, jewelry, and even mounted animal heads made of paper.

I take in a sharp breath of air and reflexively shake her off as if she’s a wasp that just landed on me.

“Well, wait. Tell me more about it,” I demand, intrigued.

There’s a farm just outside of LA County that was going to give me a job. It’s not like…my ideal farm, but they’re always hiring there. And I figured I can get my feet wet, make some connections with other farms and figure out what I want to do from there.

Someday I’d love to have my own, grow vegetables sustainably and join a CSA.

An older woman is playing the violin under the oversized marquee with all the current movie showings.

“Let’s go all out at concessions. Oh! Grab the ranch popcorn seasoning. Can’t have popcorn without ranch.”

It’s Wednesday. Movie matinee day.

She mumbles something about my “untrained palate” as she pops the rest of my gooey marshmallow into her mouth straight off the stick.

The bigger problem is my dad, though. I couldn’t ask her to keep that from him, and he’s real conservative now, like even more than I remember from before. You saw what he was like about just leaving town.

“I guess I just wondered what prompted us to actually do it?”

Heavy raindrops pelt loudly against the roof over us.

Nora’s hand clamps down on my forearm in a vise grip under the comforter, her fingernails digging into my skin.

I lean over her, my head still reeling from what I just saw, from seeing the girl I love thrown into a dresser by her own mom.

Between the storm and my tears clouding my vision, I’m beyond lucky there are virtually no other vehicles on the roads right now.

And what am I going to do now that I know the truth about my mom? Now that I know she doesn’t love me as much as I thought she always did. As unconditionally.

A crazy idea.
It percolates in my brain for a few minutes as I sit there, connecting all the dots.

“And who knows, maybe it won’t work out. Maybe I’ll hate your gross vegan cooking and you’ll hate that I never throw my dirty clothes into the hamper, but…we deserve a shot, Nora,” I tell her as both of us are smiling and crying and maybe thinking about all the things that could one day become mundane.

“We’ve gotta buy all your textbooks, too,” she adds. “And get your financial aid sorted.”
I excitedly reach across to grab her hand before we get overwhelmed.

Each time I play through the scenario in my head, the outcome just gets worse as my brain comes up with new and terrible ways he could react. The last one I let myself imagine is him flipping the table over, the Sierra Mist and chicken sandwich I ordered flying across the milk- saturated carpet.

I try to join in with them without my voice cracking, but it’s no use and I resign myself to biting the inside of my cheek for the rest of the ride home, thankful for the cover of darkness setting in.