Forget Me Not by Julie Soto

30

Ama

TWO YEARS, NINE MONTHS, ONE WEEK, AND ONE DAY AGO

New Year’s Eve

My feet carry me off the dance floor and away from him. I have the urge to keep running until I’m in a different country, but I find a closet in an abandoned hallway—and that will do just fine.

A call is beeping in my Bluetooth, and I know it’s him. I rip it out and stuff it in my pack. Once the door is shut behind me, I lean back, inhaling the scent of bleach and cleaning products.

Marry me.

His voice is still so clear in my mind. I can see his dark eyes when I close my own, staring at me like a painting he wants to look at for the rest of his life.

He ruined it. With two words, he’s set it on fire.

Pressing the heels of my hands into my eyes, I focus on taking deep breaths.

Or maybe it was me. Maybe I’m the problem. Maybe there are next steps that are obvious to everyone but me.

What’s the next step then, Ama?

What did I expect? I suppose I expected us to outgrow each other soon. Six months is a long time. I suppose I was waiting for it to end, like all things do. But he’s right about a lot. I was planning for the future. I was okay with tangling him up in my life forever, not expecting an ending.

My throat is tight, and my fingernails scratch at it.

A voice from outside the closet makes me jump. “What’s wrong?”

I recognize Laura Gilbert’s voice, and I slap my hand to my mouth. Does she know I’m in here? I press my ear to the door.

“I saw you dancing with Ama,” Laura continues. “You make a fine couple—”

“We’re not.”

Elliot. I jerk back from the door. My heart is pounding so loudly that I know they’ll hear me soon. I didn’t see him follow me off the dance floor, but now here he is.

“That’s fine,” Laura says. “You work together after all.”

It sounds cold. Minimizing. It’s exactly what I said to him.

I stare at the door, knowing Elliot is on the other side of it. I press my palm to it, half wishing to swing it open to be with him.

There’s nothing for a while. I lean close, waiting to see if they’re still there.

A strange hum, a rumble. It’s an echo of Elliot’s laugh, only hollow. He breathes deeply, and I hear the air catch in his throat.

Sadness rattles out of him. I freeze, listening to something so private, something he hasn’t given to me yet, despite the many times I’ve cried in frustration to him.

He gasps for air, and I allow myself to do the same.

Maybe it doesn’t have to be this way. He said nothing had to change—it could be unsaid. But I would always know it in my heart. I would always know that he cried when I told him no. That he found a quiet hallway and wept.

He sniffs, and I hear him compose himself. He clears his throat, and his heavy footfalls move away.

My hand reaches for the doorknob to go after him—

And it drops.

I don’t even know what I would say if I went after him. I don’t want anything to change, and he does. Wouldn’t we be in the same position?

My chest aches. I feel like there’s a muscle overworked between my ribs, tugging and refusing to stretch. I wipe my eyes and sneak out of the closet, crossing quickly to the exit and out into the street.

I get to my car, and before I can overthink it, I’m driving home, ditching the wedding, ditching the cleanup. I’ll come back when it’s over, but for right now, I need to get away from him.

I turn onto my street, and my car slows. Do I really need to get away? I second-guess everything from the last thirty minutes. What would have changed? Yes, things could end; yes, it may be a terrible decision—but is it any different from right now?

If I’m opposed to marriage, does that mean I’m also opposed to being together for as long as we both shall live? Forever with Elliot feels different from any other kind of forever I’ve thought of. It feels soft and inviting. It feels like warm baths and Sunday mornings and flowers with perfect-shaped petals. But I still don’t want to bind us together based on these feelings—changeable and erratic feelings.

I could ask him if I could have forever without a white dress and a piece of paper.

My car stops, and just as I’m turning the wheel to flip it around and run back, I see my mother’s car parked in front of my house. Curious, I pull forward and park behind her. She waves and gets out of her car as I do the same.

“Mom? What’s wrong?”

She smiles, and there’s something missing. “Bob and I …” Shaking her head, she knows she doesn’t need to say more.

“Why?” I ask, suddenly needing to know. I’ve never asked in the past, but I’m desperate to hear her tell me what ends a relationship.

She shrugs. “We’re going different directions. And it’s easier to get ahead of it before it goes too far.”

I think of the direction Elliot is going, and the way I want to be parallel to it. The space I wanted to carve out for myself in his life, in his work, in his shop. How all of it is gone now. I nod, pretending to understand. “And what does that mean?”

“Well, Bob wanted to start house hunting outside of California. I didn’t,” she says. “There’s no need for one of us to sacrifice what we want now, when it will all just come apart one day.”

Sacrifice. Either we go back how it was and Elliot sacrifices, or we get married and I do.

“When things end,” I ask, “is it you who ends them? Or them?”

“Hm … It depends. Today, it was me.” She grabs her overnight bag out of the car. “Why do you ask?”

I stand in the middle of the street, my keys still tight in my hand. I ignore her question and say, “Do you think any of them will ever be the one? The final one?”

She tilts her head at me. “Maybe. But I don’t think so.” Heaving her bag onto her shoulder, she considers for a moment. “There’s no perfect someone for everyone. There’s just promises and weddings. One can be broken. The other—”

“Is just a party,” I finish for her. She smiles at me.

She shuts the car door, and I watch her walk up to my porch. I stare down at my keys.

I could make a promise to Elliot that will only get broken. But why would I put him through that? Why agree to marriage or even just going back to what we had, when I know now that it will end? It will, because he wants something I don’t believe in.

The wind pushes through my hair, twisting it around my face. Why begin, when it will end?

I pocket my car keys and follow my mother up to my door. I text my assistants at the Sutter Club that I can’t come back.