Page 60 of Forget Me Not

I finally convinced her to leave and go back home this morning. She didn’t want to, but I told her that I was fine and that she was of better use helping people at her job as a nurse back at home than here with me. I promised to call her once a day with updates and she finally agreed to go.

Demi, on the other hand, hasn’t left my side. I mean, literally, they have to drag her out of here at the end of visiting hours. She’s been having people cover her shifts at work and is with me every second of every day that she’s allowed to be. Asher has been here multiple times to check in also, but I think I’m just his excuse to check on Demi.

He hasn’t mentioned Kade, although I’m sure he’s become privy to what’s going on by now. Demi brought him up once, asking me what happened. I told her I wasn’t ready to talk about it and she hasn’t brought it up ever since. It’s the truth, I’m not ready to talk about it. I’m barely capable of thinking about it.

Although that doesn’t stop me from thinking about him. From missing him. Theo stopped in here earlier this morning and mentioned that he’s been practically living in the lobby. There’s a part of me that wants him with me more than anything. For him to hold me, comfort me, and tell me everything is going to be okay. But then I remember that while he may not be the actual cause of my physical pain, the emotional part of it was all him.

It’s all just confusing. That’s the thing about loving someone wholeheartedly, though. Even when they hurt you, even when they make you question everything, the love doesn’t disappear. I don’t even know yet if I want it to. All I do know is I want out of this place so I have a chance to figure it out.

Demi’s laugh brings me back to the present. She has the chair she’s been glued to pushed up next to the bed and her laptop resting on the bed next to my legs. Some sitcom that she’s been watching, something I’ve barely been paying attention to, plays on the screen. She clicks pause on the show as a knock sounds on my door. I look up as the door is pushed open, expecting it to be a nurse and surprised to see King standing in the doorway.

“Hey, okay if I come in?” he asks, already stepping inside, the door swinging closed behind him.

“Yeah, of course.” I sit up a little straighter in the bed, trying not to wince as I do.

“How are you feeling?” He sets a vase of flowers down on the table next to my bed. The vase houses a large bundle of some of the most beautiful blue flowers I’ve ever seen. They look familiar, but I can’t put my finger on why. They don’t look likeanything bought from a store, but I don’t know where else I would’ve seen them.

“Been better.” I smile at him, looking away from the flowers. “But I’m doing okay now. Getting better every day.”

“I’m glad to hear it,” he says. “Demi, would you mind if we talked alone for a minute?” Demi looks at me for approval and I nod my head.

“I’m going to go see what food the cafeteria has today.” She closes the laptop, sets it on the chair, and makes her way out of the room.

Both of us are silent for a moment as she leaves. It’s not that King makes me uncomfortable. I’ve talked to him multiple times, and he’s a genuinely good guy with some cute-as-hell kids. But we aren’t close enough for him to truly care about me that much and I can tell by the look on his face that he has ulterior motives for being here.

“Thank you for the flowers.” I break the silence.

“They’re not from me,” he responds, and I look away from him, not wanting him to see my thoughts about who they are from. “I told him to tell you sooner.”

“You knew?” I ask instantly. I look back up at him and can see the guilt on his face.

“I did.” He nods. “Look, Lo. I’m not here to defend Kade’s actions. I told him he should’ve told you sooner, and I stand by that. But you’ve also got to understand that he was scared. He was scared to lose you, and then he almost lost you anyway.”

“The car accident wasn’t his fault. If it was anyone’s, it was mine. I wasn’t paying attention before I crossed the road. And scared or not, he lied to me. Not a small lie either. A lie that was possibly the only reason our relationship started in the first place.”

“You don’t believe your relationship was because of your sister, just like he doesn’t believe the accident wasn’t his fault.”He sighs. “I don’t know your story, Logan. I know you’ve lost, but that’s where the information I know ends. I do know his story though, and it hasn’t been easy for him. Kade doesn’t let people in very often. It took him years to confide in me. It only took weeks with you. That’s not because a message told him to, it’s because the boy’s in love with you.”

“He confided in me but left out the part where everything I confided in him, he already knew. I told him about Lennox. I told him about who she was as a person. Meanwhile, toward the end of her life, he probably knew her better than I did and failed to ever mention it.”

“You’re right that he hid it from you, and if you want to be angry at him for that, then you should be. Just don’t forget that even though he didn’t tell you this one thing, and yes, it’s a big thing, it’s like I said, a singular thing, and he told you dozens of other things. And all of those things were real. The love between the two of you, that was real. Be angry at him, hate him. But don’t stop loving him.”

I look away, not having a response as tears fill my eyes. Everything he’s saying is the truth. In my heart, I know the things Kade did confide in me were real. The scar on his chest that I felt, that wasn’t a story to gain favor. It was his life. It’s why I trusted him so much. While my love for him hasn’t faded, my trust has disintegrated. That’s something I don’t know how to go about fixing.

I know that King means well. I know he sees two people who are in love and in pain and wants to help fix that pain, but every second he stands here makes me want to forgive Kade even more. Which I’m not ready to do yet. I don’t know when I will ever be.

“Don’t write him off just yet, okay?” I look back up at him, nodding, and he smiles at me softly. “I’ll let you get some rest. I’m happy you’re okay, Lo. Me, my girls, and all of us at the shopare here if you need anything. Regardless of what’s going on between you and Kade.”

“Thank you, King. I really appreciate that,” I say, and I mean it. He turns to the door to leave. I look back over at the flowers he brought in that I know are from Kade. Staring at the beautiful bouquet of them, I notice the purple accents and it clicks.

The flowers are the same ones he tattooed on me. The ones he refused to tell me the name of. I hate that he still has that piece of me. He had a reason for withholding the name of them from me but lying here in a hospital bed, my heart feeling the most bruised of all my injuries, I decide I no longer care for his reasoning.

“King, wait.” He’s half a step out the door when I stop him. He turns around to look at me. “The flowers. Do you know what kind they are?”

He looks over to the flowers and back at me before answering. “They’re forget-me-nots.”

I bite my lip, emotion clogging my throat and nod at him as he turns and leaves.

Forget-me-nots. He understood me. Every word I said. The blossoming flowers representing life, the falling petals representing loss, beauty and pain, the end and the beginning. It’s all there, wrapped in a beautiful assortment of flowers that represent those gone but not forgotten. It’s something real. Real how I know him and me were. The only fault I now find with it, the ink on my skin, the flowers next to my bed, is that he’s made it so I’ll never forget him either. He’s made it so I’ll never want to.

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