Page 62 of Forget Me Not
“The fire? Or the party?”
“Yes,” he answered with a smirk.
Syve laughed, reaching out to trail a hand up his arm.
“I can’t believe I’ve never asked you about this before,” she said, thumb ghosting over black ink—a crescent moon full of stars atop three stone-tipped arrows crossed at the middle covered the underside of his left forearm.
“It’s the symbol of Artemis—or a variation of it, at least. Dez had one too, except his was the symbol of Apollo and had the sun instead of the moon. These stars make up the constellation Canis Major. That was Dez’ idea, he thought that would be funny.” He raised his arm up as he spoke, and she traced the lines with her fingers.
They were close enough that all three of his arrows, though not parallel, pointed only at her.
Glass shattering came from inside the house, startling them both. Yelling followed and they shared a quick glance before running up the back steps.
“You can’t keep me here, Mama!” Del screamed, tears running down her face while she shook a ripped piece of paper in the air. There were glass shards covering the floor at her feet.
“Mija, I am yourmother. I can do as I please!” Soriah stood in front of the doorway, blocking his sister in the kitchen, punctuating each of her words with her own torn sheet of paper.
“Whoa, Mama! Del! What’s going on here?” Bas demanded, resting his hands on his mother’s shoulders so he could step past her to stand between them.
“Go on, Delanira, tell your brotherwhat’s going on here,”Soriah spat.
“Del?” He turned toward his sister who deflated, lip quivering.
“I got in.”
She got in.
Six months of busting her ass and applying to colleges in secret had paid off. Bas stomped over and scooped the girl up, hugging her tightly and spinning her around.
“You got in!” He planted a loud kiss to her temple.
“Youknew?!” Soriah seethed, interrupting their moment with her vitriol now aimed at him.
“Mama—”
“No!” She threw the paper she had been holding on the floor then pointed a finger in his face. “No.” Then she spun on her heel so fast her braid whipped into the wall with a crack as she stormed off.
Cyrus held up a hand to stop Bas from following. “I’ve got Mama. She needs you more,” he gestured to Del with a tilt of his head, and Bas relented. Cy disappeared around the corner.
“Why don’t you guys go out and sit by the fire? Aimi and I can clean up,” Syve said with a soft smile, ushering them out while Aimi crouched to pick up the larger pieces of the punch bowl.
“Thank God this shit was empty—you ever try to get fruit punch off tile? PSA, itstains,”the barista griped.
Bas shook his head with a smile as he led Del out the back door.
Once again, he sat before the fire. He dragged a second folding chair over with his foot and motioned for Del to sit. The fire, now burning low on fuel, cast more shadows than light across his sister’s hunched form.
“So, which one did you get into?”
Del sighed. “Actually? All of them.”
“All of them?!” He turned toward her. “How long have you known? Why didn’t you tell me?” He couldn’t mask the hurt in his voice.
“I only started getting the letters this week—I wasn’t hiding it! I just wanted to wait until the last one came in to show you…I was hoping you would help me look at them and pick one? I got distracted today with the party and didn’t check the mail before Mama got to it. She was reading the letter from Cornell when I went in to refill the punch.” Her voice was low, defeated.
Carefully, he pulled her chair closer so he could wrap his arm around her shoulders.
“I’m sorry, Sis. It’s not fair to you. She has her own shit she’s never worked through, and that’s not your fault. I hope you know how proud I am of you though, and I know in mysoul, Dez is somewhere watching over us right now and he’s proud as hell too.”
