Forget Me Not

by Julie Soto

“We like it tight!” Jackie gasps. “And that’s not a sex thing! That’s just something that came out of my mouth!”

Then when it’s time to call Hazel to the altar, she goes around that way”—I point out the path around the edge of the garden—“hidden, and you come straight from the house, across the street that we’ve blocked off, and immediately down the aisle. You both walk down the aisle from opposite sides, to meet in the middle.”

Why did this make me cry?

She’s the kind of girl that guys fall over themselves for, but who I decided long ago isn’t for me. I don’t like falling over myself.

Everybody wants you, but I don't like a gold rush.

“Are you like a Ben Franklin fanboy? Or…?” My eyes snap to her. “What the fuck is a Ben Franklin fanboy?” She shrugs. “You tell me! Do you take a kite out in lightning storms? Do you work exclusively in hundred-dollar bills—”

“Maybe someone could talk me into a flower.” Her voice is low. Vowels round and slow. “You already are a flower.” I regret it the second it’s out of my mouth. It’s not smooth. It’s not sexy.

“You want your wedding to reflect your partnership. There’s Hazel, there’s Jackie, and then there’s Hazel and Jackie. It can be all three of those things.”

She parts her knees, and I almost drop to mine.

“You were in those skinny jeans and that plaid shirt. It made you look like a missionary come to save my filthy soul.”

“I want to see. I want to see them all,” she whispers, and the air sends shivers across my shoulders. “I want to put my mouth on every last one of them.”

I still should be trying to tell her that playing grab-ass in my back room is nice and all, but I’d like to escalate this. Because I do. Want to.

My dad even knew her—which is a strange thing to think about as I’m trying to narrow down my exact feelings for her. She knows a piece of me that’s gone. When I think about spending more time with her, about escalating—there’s something oddly right about Dad having met her.

I want to love what you love, even if it’s extinct.”

Everything is starlight for millennia.

He was going to propose to her at the Disneyland castle, but got nervous and did it over a turkey leg in Adventureland by accident.

And I know what you’re thinking: he is clearly angry with me if he has bought yellow Gatorade and expects me to say thank you. But alas, yellow Gatorade is my favorite. And I hate that he saved me from eating peanut butter and remembered my favorite Gatorade, all in one day.

“Is it really setting up sparklers? Because you know how I feel about you needing an assistant—” “I mean, come back and I’ll fuck you in your truck.”

Well, flowers are better than people.” I quote Dad to her with a laugh. Her eyes sparkle. “Your dad said that to me.” My heart skips. My ribs squeeze.

And I don’t think love should lead to a commitment when the emotion is so fluid and fickle for everybody.” “Not for everybody,”

You may think everything ends one day, but you haven’t had ‘everything’ with me.”

“I don’t want to work with anybody else,” she cuts me off. “I want the best.” I swallow thickly. I want to tell her that I’m only at my best when I’m working with her. But I think she knows it. I think she sees the whole picture here.

she keeps making plans for our combined studio space, wrapping herself around me, intertwining our lives for the future. Like she doesn’t see an ending.

“What if I’m forgetting something?” “You’re not.” “What if something goes terribly wrong?” I pull her closer to me, and she lets herself curl into my side. “It won’t. And if it does, you’ll fix it. You’re amazing like that.” I kiss her hair. “AmazingAma.” She snorts a laugh, and I almost say it. I almost say I love you. But I don’t know that she wants me to. I think we could be together for forty years with twenty kids, and she still wouldn’t want to hear it. So I hold her until her breathing evens out, and whisper it soundlessly, like a prayer.

I would consider allowing him to visit the flower (with supervision) at any point in the future.

“Wanna get away?” she says, laughing. “I was thinking in the fall, when its leaves are red. Harvard’s one of the only arboretums that has the Franklin tree, and I…” She swallows and places one hand on my right forearm, where the tattoo is. “I want you to see it.”

But it’s the surprise from someone who knows you on a level no one else will—someone who’s opened up your chest and fit themselves inside.

My eyes prick and my throat tightens to keep the words inside of me. But I look at her—at her—and I see that she doesn’t need me to say thank you. Because she knows how well her arrow landed. She smiles softly at me, and says, “I think…I think I may be falling in love with you.” My heart thumps. I can’t believe she said it first. I can’t believe I have permission to say it.

There’s a flower in my chest, just now starting to meet sunlight, finally blossoming.

“Marry me.”

“No, it’s because marriages end! Relationships end!” I shake my head and correct her, “Can end. May end. And because you don’t want us to end, you don’t even want a beginning?” Softly, I ask, “Ama, if we’re not in a relationship by now—what are we?”

I never thought I’d hear you say ‘I love you,’ and then you did. It made me think I could have everything, but I moved too fast, okay?

“That’s not how it works,” he says. “There is no falling out of love for people like you and me.”

“And if it ever ends, Jackie?” He lowers his voice. “You’re still counting away. The months since. The exact days since. Like a tally of moments you’ve spent not being important to them. But don’t ever think you’ll wake up and not be in love with her.”

You’re…you’re so special, Elliot.”

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.

We were forever. I just didn’t want a marriage.”

“I wasn’t ready. You were my first relationship, and I’ve grown up knowing that you don’t only get one. But…I only want one.”

“Marry me.”

“I have to see it. Please. What is it?” I push the sweater up and reveal a Red Pearl. An amaryllis. Its petals bloom out, covering his heart. The stem vines up to his shoulder. I can’t breathe.

I love a good proposal story, but my favorite one I’ve heard? Well, I’ll let you know when he says yes.