If I Forget You (5 page)

“It’s hard for me to remember things, that’s all. It makes passing tests almost impossible if I don’t cram at the last second
—
even if I studied hard before.”

“That sounds normal,” Heaven said, inspecting her piece of paper before she set it aside. “Lots of people have a hard time with tests.”

Not like I do.

Avery nodded and arranged the mulberry tissue in front of her so she could cut up a strip. She liked Heaven’s mellow nature, the way she was passionate about things, like book repair, but in a completely laid-back way, as if she’d absorbed it so completely it was as natural to her as breathing. Realizing this, Avery let out a long stream of air.

“I have a hard time remembering things,” she said before she could change her mind.

Heaven positioned another piece of paper for creasing and grabbed another handful of peanuts. “You just told me that. Besides, lots of people have a hard time remembering things.”

“Not like me,” Avery replied. “I can’t remember names or faces most of the time. I have to take notes on everything, not just class stuff. If you ask me what street I live on, I can’t tell you without looking it up. I know how to get there, but I can’t remember the number. Actually … the other day, I got a little lost. I think you told me your last name a few times, and I don’t remember it. I can’t even remember the lectures in my classes yesterday without looking up my notes.”

“Meadows,” Heaven said with a snort.

“Meadows?”

“That’s my last name. My parents must have thought I was a subdivision, right?”

Heaven Meadows. How could Avery have forgotten that? She laughed. “That’s …”

“Unforgettable, right? Yeah, you won’t forget it now. Just think of a billboard advertising new lots in beautiful Heaven Meadows. My parents were a pair of lame-ass hippies back when they had me. They aren’t even together now.”

Avery was tempted to whip out her notebook and write down Heaven’s last name, but she didn’t. So far she had managed not to take any notes in the book repair room. It was her own private miracle.

“So, is that why you have so many notebooks in your bag?” Heaven asked, glancing at the floor where Avery’s bag lay half unzipped. It was stuffed full of notebooks. “I’ve never seen someone carry that many around. Seems a little overwhelming. Why don’t you just use your phone for everything?”

Avery narrowed her eyes. “I use my phone for some stuff, but it’s not the same as actually writing something down, and most professors don’t let you use your phone in class. Are you determined to make sure I get overwhelmed at some point this quarter?”

A smile flickered across Heaven’s lips. “Possibly. Seems only fair since everyone else gets overwhelmed. I think you’d be better off if you ditched the notebooks, though.”

Just the thought of losing her notebooks made Avery woozy. “Um, no thanks,” she answered.

“Suit yourself, but you can’t live life if you’re too busy memorizing it.”

* * *

After work, Avery walked home with Chloe. The rain had slowed to a drizzle and Avery didn’t bother trying to squeeze under Chloe’s umbrella.

“Nothing wrong with a little shower,” Chloe laughed, folding up the umbrella and letting it swing from her arm.

Avery smiled. “My hair was already ruined this afternoon, so what does it matter now?”

Although, if she planned on going to the party she’d have to shower and make herself pretty for J … J …
what was his name?
She tried to envision his name on the note he’d written for her, but nothing came to mind. As discreetly as she could, she dug the note out of her bag.

Jordan.
Right.

“You know it rains more in other cities than it does here, right?” Chloe asked as Avery looked up at the clouds.

“I’ve heard that, but it sure doesn’t seem like it.”

As they walked along, huge drops of cold water rolled off the trees above and splashed on Chloe’s face. She opened her umbrella again and urged Avery underneath. Chloe was warm next to her. It made her think of how she used to snuggle up with her mother on her bed to look at pictures of her dad. Then her mom would pull out her neat bundles of quilt squares, all cut from his fatigues and T-shirts and jeans, and they’d put them together in a pattern. It was those quilts that saved them, Avery realized. Touching them was the only way for her and her mom to connect to him. Memories were too slippery to hold on to.

Avery wanted to go home, make a cup of tea, and wrap herself up in her quilt for the rest of the night, but she couldn’t get Tam out of her head. She would be at the party and so would Jordan. Avery wanted to know more about him. She wanted to know why he had looked twice at her when she’d never even uttered his name. Most guys gave up on her after a few encounters. Maybe inviting her to the party was just his way of apologizing for knocking her down the stairs.

“So,” Chloe interrupted Avery’s thoughts, “have you talked to your mother about how much you miss her? The first few weeks are the hardest.”

Avery’s shoulders drooped. “Not really,” she answered. “She’s volunteering at the library for some illustrating classes and that’s taking up a lot of her time. I haven’t talked to her for a few days. Sorry.”

Chloe laughed. “You don’t have to apologize to me. She’s your mother, not mine. I’m worried you might be having a hard time without her. You two are close.”

“Yeah, we are.”

Avery did miss her mother, but the ache she felt for her seemed to have merged with the ache she felt for her dad. They were two big, black holes she was trying to patch up a piece at a time. She knew her dad was never coming back and that missing her mom was normal and expected, especially the first few weeks. The difference was her mom was still here, only a phone call away. That …
that
Avery could handle, no matter how much it hurt and made her feel like a child.

“Being around you has helped,” Avery told Chloe after a minute of silence. “You’re more like her than you think, and you take care of me like she does.” That wasn’t entirely the truth, of course. Chloe didn’t leave Avery daily notes with happy little drawings on them, reminding her to pick up things at the store or to do her homework or remind her for the twentieth time that the new neighbor’s name was Mrs. Song and her poodle’s name was Cookie.

Chloe bumped her hip into Avery’s and gave her a warm smile. “I’ll soak it up as long as you’ll let me.”

“What do you mean?”

Chloe let out a hearty laugh and the umbrella shook. “You’ll want to move out sooner or later.”

“What! No I won’t. I love it at your place.”

Wetting her lips, Chloe shook her head. “You’re young, Avery. Eventually you’ll get sick of living with your boring old aunt who thinks it’s fun to pretend you’re her daughter. You’ll want more of a social life
—
more than I’m willing to put up with, I’m sure. I get enough of that from my neighbor.”

Avery nearly tripped over a piece of uneven sidewalk. “Your neighbor? Which one?”

“On the north side. Some kid lives there, probably a little older than you.”

Avery smirked at Chloe’s use of the word “kid.” She must think of Avery as practically adolescent. “Is it only him?” she asked, curious.

“Yep, lives alone. I’ve only spoken to him once. I think his father owns the house, but he’s never there.” She shook a leaf off the umbrella and pulled out her keys as they neared the house. “Makes it easy for him to throw his obnoxious parties, I suppose. No parents to put a stop to the kegs and pounding bass.”

Avery’s ridiculously slow brain finally made the connection between Jordan and Nameless Phone Guy. That was why Jordan had seemed so familiar over and over. Angular features. Her mother’s square sketches. She finally remembered thinking about that when she’d looked at his profile on the porch. Everything clicked. What were the chances of her running into Jordan, her neighbor, again and again on campus? And he was in her English class.

“Speaking of parties,” Avery said slowly as they passed Jordan’s house and walked up the drive to their own, “I’m thinking about going to one tonight.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah, and I think it’s the one next door.”

Chloe looked sideways at Avery, her eyebrows furrowed. Avery waited for her to tell her she couldn’t go, but instead she continued up the steps and unlocked the front door, holding it wide for Avery to enter. “Well, I hope you have fun,” she said as she closed her umbrella and shook it off.

Avery brushed past her aunt, looking over her shoulder as she laughed. “I’m sure I’ll have plenty of fun.”

She’d just have to get there before Tam. No way was she going to let Tam worm her way between her and Jordan. Deep down, she had a feeling that was what might happen.

“Just don’t come home drunk!” Chloe yelled after her. “I know what those parties are like.”

“Me too,” Avery sighed as she closed her bedroom door. After kicking off her shoes, she changed into a pair of sweatpants and curled up on her bed for a quick nap before dinner. She wrapped her dad’s quilt around her and stared at his picture on her nightstand. Unlike most of the pictures she had of him, he was not in uniform. It was just him in jeans and a T-shirt covered in fish guts, both arms held high as he lifted a huge marlin he’d caught that day. His smile was what she loved the most, as if he was saying, “See, Avery! Told you I’d catch something today!”

She smiled. “Hope I catch something too, Dad. Or, I guess I should say, catch some
one.
For the first time ever.”

* * *

After dinner and washing dishes, Avery went to her room and called her mom to see how she was doing.

“Hey, Avery!” her mother yelled between huffs. “How are you?”

“Okay, I guess. What are you doing?”

“Oh, nothing much
—
going for a jog in the park.”

Her mom didn’t jog. Avery pulled the phone away to look at it in disbelief. “Since when are you a jogger?” she asked, returning the phone to her ear.

“Since last week. Still not sure I’ll keep doing it, but it’s worth a try.”

Avery took a quick inventory of her mom’s actions. First, she had started volunteering at the library. Now she had taken up jogging. She was either trying to distract herself because she missed Avery, or she was finally doing random things she didn’t think she could do when Avery had been around. Constantly keeping on top of Avery’s memory problems had been a full-time job. The really sad thing was that Avery wasn’t sure now if she had needed all that help. So far she was doing okay on her own.

Then again, how did she know she wasn’t forgetting something important?

That was the problem. She didn’t know.

Avery wanted to say, “I miss you, Mom! I miss our dinners together, and weeding the flower garden, and watching old Carey Grant movies … and I miss you telling me what to do.”

“So, what are you up to?” her mom asked before Avery could speak. “Homework? Any dates yet? You remembering everything okay? I’ve been worrying about that.”

“No to the first two questions, and I think so on the last.” Avery stood and walked to the closet so she could look through her clothes. Sexy or casually chill? She wasn’t sure if she had something that would work for both. She slid hangers across the rack. “I might go to a party tonight. If I can find anything to wear.”

Her mom laughed. “Well, that didn’t take long! I was wondering when you’d throw yourself into the social scene.”

“I wouldn’t exactly call this throwing myself into the social scene, Mom. It’s one party.”

“That’s all it takes. It’s certainly more than you did your whole senior year after … you know …” Her breathing slowed and Avery figured she had stopped jogging. “Maybe wear that yellow dress? I know you packed it because I put it on the list.”

Yeah, that fifteen-page list
,
Avery thought with a grimace.

“You know, that short one with the lace hem?” her mom continued. “It shows off your legs.”

“Oh!” Avery reached it on the rack just as it was mentioned. “That’s perfect, yeah.”

“It’s casual and sexy. Best of both worlds, right?”

Avery pulled the dress off the hanger and held it up. “You just read my mind.”

“Haven’t I always?”

There was a long pause as Avery soaked in her words. It was true. Her mom had always read her mind. She probably even knew exactly how much Avery missed her and wasn’t saying anything out of respect.

Swallowing a lump in her throat, Avery said, “Well, I gotta go shower. Love you, Mom.”

There was an awkward pause. “Love you too.”

6

Last Year

When Avery and Tam climbed into Ryan’s car that October afternoon, Avery noticed the smell of spearmint heavy in the air. Ryan’s strong, unshaven jaw moved up and down as he worked at a piece of gum. “I’m Ryan,” he said as he watched Tam slide into the front seat.

“Tam,” she said as she buckled her seatbelt and batted her eyelashes at him. “Do you go to Shadle? I don’t think I’ve seen you before.”

“Nope, I go to Rogers. You know,” he said to Tam with a twinkle in his chocolate brown eyes, “getting into a stranger’s car isn’t the smartest thing ever.” He gunned the engine and the car lurched forward. “I could take you anywhere I want now
—
do anything I want with you.”

Tam, unfazed, laughed at the top of her lungs. “Oh, funny. Since you’re bringing that up, I don’t think we need to worry.”

“Don’t we?” Avery asked as she let go of her seatbelt and gripped the strap of her bag. She looked back and forth between Tam and Ryan. Rain started pounding the windshield, big splats so hard they looked like squashed bugs as they broke across the glass.

“Of course not,” Ryan laughed. “And look”
—
he pointed at the windshield
—
“I saved you two lovely ladies from getting drenched.”

“Yes, you did!” Tam laughed, and glanced back at Avery. “Oh, sorry, Ryan, this is Avery.”