Page 25 of Forget Me Not
Hey, is everything all right? Tried calling and went straight to voicemail.
I tap at the display, ready to respond, but before I can get a full sentence out, I feel the phone start to buzz in my hand, Ryan’s face appearing on the screen.
He’s calling again, and I take a deep breath, swiping to answer.
“Man, you’re a hard woman to get in touch with,” he says as soon as I pick up. It’s clearly in jest, although I sense a substantial relief in his voice like he was actually starting to worry about my well-being. “What have you been doing over there?”
“Sorry,” I say, pushing a strand of damp hair from my eyes. “My service has been spotty.”
“Right, you mentioned that,” he says, mildly embarrassed at his overreaction as I remember my lie from back in the car, claiming I couldn’t hear him because I didn’t want to deal with the things he was trying to say.
I open my mouth again, about to fill him in on the last twenty-four hours, when he starts talking again, cutting me off.
“Well listen, I just wanted to tell you I’m proud of you, Claire. I know this is hard, what you’re doing.”
I fall silent, the update immediately dying on my lips.
“I could tell the other day that you don’t want to be there. But you’re doing it,” he says. “You’re being the bigger person, helping your mom, and that’s huge. It really is.”
“Yeah,” I say, a deep shame descending upon me as I glance around the guesthouse with a pair of fresh eyes, this place I escaped to after a single bad night at home. It’s no different than how I ran away to the city the second I graduated. How I mock my own mother for avoiding her problems when here I am, mere miles down the road, living my life in the exact same way.
“Don’t get me wrong,” he continues, maybe mistaking my silence for offense. “I’m painfully bored without you here, but I do think this will be good. Healthy.”
I close my mouth, swallowing hard.
“Anyway, I just wanted to tell you I’m glad you’re there. In case you’re still questioning it.”
“Thanks,” I say, deciding, in this moment, that I’m not going to tell him where I actually am. Not yet, anyway. “That means a lot.”
“Yeah, sure,” he says as I imagine his skin flushing scarlet the way it always does when he lets his emotions slip through. Then he clears his throat, changes the subject. “Your apartment, on the other hand, might have to be fumigated when you get home.”
“I can’t even be mad,” I say, sitting down at the desk before wedging the phone between my shoulder and ear. “I probably should have done that before I let her move in.”
Ryan laughs, a sound that emerges from the depths of his chest, and I’m reminded again of that strange surge of guilt I felt in the vineyard, the flash of his face that appeared in my mind the second Liam asked about a boyfriend back home. It wasn’t a lie when I told him I was single; Ryan and I have only ever been friends. I can’t blame it on work anymore, although it might have subconsciously started that way, neither of us wanting to muddy the waters of a brand-new job by hooking up with a coworker. Besides, I have all the obvious problems that inevitably come with a past as complicated as mine.
Trust issues, attachment issues. A chronic sense of self-loathing I can never seem to shake.
Ryan is still talking when I reach for my laptop and open my inbox, skimming the handful of new emails that just came through. There are a couple bills, mostly spam. Still nothing at all from my various leads.
I sigh, a long, defeated sound as I push my fingers into my eyes.
“Everything all right?” he asks as I lift my head, realizing I must have cut him off.
“Yeah, fine,” I say, glancing back at the bed as all my real-life stressors come barreling back, wondering if it’s too late to catch a quick nap—but then I eye the diary, that flash of maroon, peeking out from beneath the white sheet.
I stand up, the book like a rope looped around my waist as it draws my body across the room.
“But I should probably go,” I add as I slide onto the mattress, the diary’s hard edge cutting into my leg. “I’m still trying to get settled over here.”
Not a lie, exactly. Another half-truth as I choose my words carefully, though that doesn’t make me feel any better.
We say goodbye, hanging up with a promise to check in soon. Then I pull the book out, my fingers sweeping slow across the cover as I push away the thoughts of these four weeks ending, my five thousand dollars only lasting so long. Ever since the moment I stepped into this place, it’s been so easy to let reality slip away for a while. This forbidden garden I could crawl into forever choking out all my worries like a pest getting smothered by an invasive vine.
I whip the sheets back and place the book on my lap, the soft snap of the spine when I part the covers like the cracking of knuckles before I settle back in.
CHAPTER 16
DECEMBER 1983
