Page 9 of Forget Me Not

Because that is what L left me with, the responsibility of looking after her twin sister. Even though I didn’t know L’s real name, that I never knew her outside of messages exchanged through a screen, or even knew what she looked like, she trusted me with her sister. And I failed her by not even trying.

Right before she disappeared, she told me the name of the person she cared about the most and told me she was mine to look after now. Why me, out of all the people in her life, I still can’t figure that out. I didn’t want that responsibility. Even if I did, I didn’t deserve it.

I’d spent my entire life growing up taking care of another person, only for them to leave me too. If my track record shows anything, staying away from me is the best thing a person can do. L didn’t understand that, but I did.

So, I never looked Logan Hart up. I never found her, never set out to take care of her, or be there for her, or whatever it is L intended for me to do. I shoved the name into the recesses of my mind and moved on with my life.

It’s what I should do now too. Even if that was Logan Hart, she’s a doctor, clearly doing well for herself. She seems happy enough. I know it’s a lie even as I think it. The girl may have the rest of the world fooled, but I recognize the darkness that she’s hiding. It’s the same one I carry.

She has secrets that she doesn’t want anyone to know about. It’s probably why she clings to control like me. She’s scared of what might happen to the carefully constructed facade she is putting on if it’s taken away. Part of me is dying to do just that, take it away from her.

Her control wavers in my presence. I’m not sure why, but she says things without thinking them through. She’s done it both times I’ve seen her now. First in revealing her control issues, then in telling me she had a twin. I could see the shocked look on her face on both occasions. Her guard came right back up, but her split-second reaction gave her away, exposing that she didn’t normally share those sorts of things.

When I first saw her at Carl’s, she stuck out to me. First, because she was the most beautiful girl I’d ever seen. Then because she straight up turned Asher down, making fun of his cheesy-ass line, and proceeded to order a fucking ginger ale. She surprised me, and I’m not surprised often.

When she introduced herself as Logan, it obviously triggered my memory. It was the first time I’d heard it as a girl’s name, but I didn’t question it. The thought that she was the Logan I was supposed to find but never did honestly didn’t even cross my mind. It seemed like too big of a coincidence.

I was intrigued by the girl and figured I’d run into her again at Carl’s eventually. All the people that go there are known to frequent the place at one point or another. What I hadn’t expected was to cut my hand and have her as my doctor.

Asher knocked over a vase while trying to scare King, the owner of the tattoo and piercing shop we work at. King, who was neither scared nor amused, told Asher to clean up the mess and assigned me to help him because he couldn’t be trusted to pick up sharp objects alone.

I wasn’t paying attention while grabbing a larger piece of the glass vase and ended up slicing myself deep enough that the bleeding wouldn’t stop. All of which led me to Horizon Hospital to get stitches, where none other than the girl who had been occupying my latest thoughts walked in to treat me.

When she said her last name, I felt frozen for a minute. Luckily, she hadn’t looked up in time to see the shock on my face, only noticing who I was once I had gotten myself together.

I tried to ask her questions about her family as nonchalantly as possible and she didn’t seem to have a problem answering me. Although I know she didn’t mean to reveal she had a twin, it was the one piece of information I had been searching for the whole time.

Now I don’t know how to feel. She still intrigues me, but if she is who I think she is, I’ve avoided looking for her all these years for a reason. It doesn’t help that the girl is fucking gorgeous, and my body doesn’t fail to recognize it. Instead of conjuring up all the reasons I should stay away, I can’t help thinking of all the things I could do to her if I got the chance.

Even so, I know the smart thing to do is not to intertwine my life with hers. She didn’t recognize my name, which means there’s a good chance that L never told her about me. It would be unfair to her to come barging into her life now, five years later. To bring up memories of the sister she lost would be cruel. Yet I can’t help the pull I feel toward her.

It tugs at me as I leave the hospital and head home. It’s her plaguing my thoughts so deeply that my body can’t help but react to her under the warm spray of water in my shower. It’s her plump pink lips I imagine as I move my hand back and forth over myself, trying to relieve the tension that her presence causes me.

It’s her bright-green eyes looking up at me, a hint of shyness with promiscuity filling her orbs, that I see as I explode in the most intense release I’ve possibly ever felt. Only when it’s all over and I open my own eyes do I realize the power her simple image has over me.

But it doesn’t stop there. Because when I wake up the next morning, images of her long blonde hair splayed across my chestfill my head, thoughts of what could be. I know it’s more than sexual when it comes to Logan Hart. I also know I am completely fucked.

Sleep doesn’t come easy when a five-foot-nothing blonde girl, who you may or may not know through her dead twin, is invading your thoughts. So, as I walk into Blackheart Ink at eleven thirty a.m., I still feel as tired as ever.

“You look like the walking dead,” King says as I walk through the door, not even bothering to start with hello. I stay quiet, rolling my eyes at him as I walk past him to my room in the shop.

Damien King, or King as all his employees call him, is my boss and has been my mentor for the better part of the last ten years. When I was eighteen, having barely graduated high school, alone and struggling, King took pity on me. He claims it wasn’t pity, that he selfishly wanted my talent for his own shop before someone else noticed it and stole me, but I don’t believe him.

King is a thirty-four-year-old, six-four beast of a man covered head to toe in tattoos. To most people, he’s intimidating as hell, but to those who know him, he’s a big softy. The guy has got the biggest heart I know.

He has two daughters, Ellie, who’s twelve and Willow, who’s eight, and I’ve never seen a better dad than him. His ex up and left all three of them not long after Willow was born, but the girls don’t need their mother in their lives with the way that King cares for them.

When I first walked into the shop ten years ago, I definitely didn’t have money to spend on a tattoo. I was providing for my mom and myself completely at that point and any extra cash I had should’ve gone to paying off bills or stocking groceries.

But when a sketch came to me, all I could think about was permanently marking it onto my body. Especially when I knew exactly where to put it.

I’ve been drawing for as long as I can remember. It calms me. When I put pen to paper, it allows the rest of the world to fade around me. Letting me live in my own bubble of peace and quiet.

King was the first person I saw when I walked into the shop. He was up front saying goodbye to one of his customers while I made my way toward the receptionist. I told her I was looking to make an appointment to get tattooed but with my own design.

King was walking by as I said it, looked at me and saw the worn-to-bits notebook in my hand. He asked if I had the design inside, then asked to see it. The design itself was a geometric-like sketch of half a butterfly connected to half a skull with dark shading to give the entire piece a more eerie look.

He stared at the artwork, observing it and what felt like scrutinizing it for probably a solid five minutes. Even Darla, the receptionist, looked confused about what was happening as time passed. Finally, he looked up and told me he’d do the tattoo for free if I agreed to come be an apprentice for him.

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