Forget Me Not

by Julie Soto

the Bluetooth in my ear beeps—yes, I’m that person—

Those people are honestly really cool

because with my round face, I get mistaken for a kid all the time.

Same

But as one person who makes a living in the visual world to another? Beauty always has a price tag. You can ask for what you’re worth.”

she laughs again, a sound like blossoms opening in spring.

“No, this is Kelsey!” in a high voice. “I’m calling to set up a client meeting—” “Mar, put Ama on the phone.”

LMAOOOOOO

“Is that how you look at sixteen-year-olds?” I push away from the counter with a sigh. She won that one.

LMAO she did

he used to give a boutonniere or small corsage to people coming in to place an order, like it was a bit of luck to take with them. I expanded on it. I create it while we talk. Sometimes they’re so charmed to have a free arrangement inspired by them that it erases the five minutes of rudeness they experienced.

LOL

I wonder if she’ll look up The Language of Flowers and figure out I just told her, You are immature and I resent you. Go away.

“What I didn’t know,” Hazel says, “was that Jackie had a fucking ring in her suitcase too.”

This is cute but this is turning out to be the same story each time 😭

I’m buzzing, remembering my first boutonniere. Buttercups and petunias—immaturity and resentment.

“I am the client,” she says absently, stepping back to observe where it connects to the ceiling. Something in my chest drops. Like a bird shot dead.

I love these moments

You, of all people, know I can’t cancel a Whitney.” I blink at the wall, my mouth hanging open. “Four Whitney weddings? On October seventh?”

OH HELL NAH

Maybe Whitney did blacklist me from her vendors for October seventh. I don’t know why she would, but maybe she did. And maybe that means I don’t have to be her kind of professional anymore.

instead, the most beautiful girl I’ve seen in my life is standing in the doorway. She’s tall and long-limbed with dark hair and big eyes. 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.

Now why does this feel wrong

“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.

“In mythology, Amaryllis fell in love with a—with a man who loved flowers…”

“What’s an amaryllis look like?” Hazel says, turning to where Elliot pointed out the calla lilies. “I don’t keep them in the shop anymore.”

Oh damn 😭

“She doesn’t have to work around my schedule—” “But you have to work around hers.”

She squeezes my arm, and before I can wonder what she’s doing so close to my face, her lips peck my jaw.

This feels quick

“She didn’t eat any peanuts! I was kissing her—” I jerk my gaze to the front counter, where a purely innocent pink box sits. “Did I just kill her with a peanut butter donut?”

LMAOOOO

“Mom, please don’t marry him,” I hear behind us. I turn to see Ama being rolled out in a wheelchair. I’ve paralyzed her. And before I can start mentally drafting up plans for widening doorways at the shop and installing ramps at my house, she stands up gingerly with her mother’s assistance.

LOL and Awwww he was gonna install a ramp at his house!

She’s already smiling as my mouth slants over hers. I feel like she’s been in charge this whole time. From the moment she asked about the tattoo on my forearm. Even before that, she’s been calling the shots.

This Ama feels way too different from present day Ama

“I don’t give a fuck who it is. I want you to look debauched when I’m debauching you.”

“B-because I want to know you. I want to know what you like, what you hate—even if it’s me.” I start pressing a second finger inside slowly. “Fuck fuck fuck—I want to love what you love, even if it’s extinct.”

“I’ll see you next weekend.” Maybe I’m imagining the tightness of her smile. I nod and memorize her, in case this didn’t go as well as I thought. When she slips out the door, I’m trying to remember her exact words: I want to know you. I want to know what you like, what you hate.

Yeah she's giving mixed signals and I don't like that

“Mar, you’re dating…one of my ex-stepbrothers,” I say.

Wait that's so funny 😭

We spend twenty minutes glaring at each other through the windshield before I tell her I’m calling a tow truck and driving her home. Needless to say, she does not suck my soul out through my dick that night.

Teddy Hamilton's delivery is everything 😭

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

What I’m hearing is that she doesn’t want this thing between us to end. That excites me. The idea that she wants to look into the future and still see me is intoxicating. It whispers promises into my chest that she’s making clear she won’t voice aloud.

“No one should have to wait for happiness a second longer than they have to.”

“It wouldn’t be a partnership in business terms, but it could be—could be, I don’t know. Something new. Something that’s only really done in San Francisco and LA. If they want Ama Torres, they’re getting Elliot Bloom. If they want Blooming, they’re pushed toward Ama Torres.”

Awwww I love it

She’ll show up at my place at eleven some nights, either bursting with ideas or slipping her jeans off. Sometimes both. When I get the text on my way now, I don’t know whether to brew a cup of Keurig and clear the coffee table or get hard. Ama likes working on the floor around my coffee table—she also likes fucking on my coffee table, so you see the dilemma I’m in?—mainly because she doesn’t have a coffee table.

No but this is actually cute and funny

And the biggest dent in her rules—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.

That girl needs therapy bc she's literally already doing the relationship thing and is just in denial about it

She may not believe in relationships, but that’s what we’re in.

No literally

“What’s the next step then, Ama?” She breathes roughly. “What?” “When you have feelings for someone like you do about me, what do you envision is the next logical step?” I say, trying to keep the sickness in my chest from turning on her. “We continue as we have for the next seventy years? Maybe you move in, but that’s—that’s the end?” Her nostrils flare at me. “I don’t know! I told you I don’t do relationships—” “And yet here we are.”

“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?”

“I don’t really give a fuck what you film,” Elliot says. “My first priority is to this wedding. Then my second is the flowers for this wedding.” “Alright, Mr. Bloom—” “You wanna know where you and your cameras fall on the list? Wayyy down, lady. Maybe twentieth. Twenty-first if there’s a flower girl in this wedding.”

I love him!!

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

“Sometimes you just count down the days, the hours, until you can be useful again,” he says. “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.”

“What do you want? If there were no consequences to your actions, what would you want?” “To be with him,” I say softly. I sniff back the tears that spring. “For how long?” I press my lips together. I look up at her.

“It’s…It was never about extinction. The tattoos…” He blows out his air. “They’re ones that I—that I can’t have. Ones that can’t be used in arrangements, can’t be kept in the shop.” He looks up to me. “Ones that are likely to disappear before I can love them.”

“I’m just so mad that you thought you could walk in here, propose, and tell me you love me.” He smiles, his nose brushing against my cheek. “Things don’t really change, do they?” I say. “I’ve always done whatever I wanted in this back room.” He brushes my hair over my ear. “That’s why I love you.”

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