Forget Me Not

by Julie Soto

“Well…” I hesitate. “She stood in front of his house every day, carving a golden arrow into her heart. On the thirtieth day, a crimson flower sprouted from her chest. And he finally noticed her.” “Oh, that’s beautiful,” Jackie says. “Gotta love the Greeks. All that unrequited love and sacrifice.” “Sacrifice?” a deep voice resonates. His hands are hard at work at a bouquet without our notice. “He didn’t want her, so she carved herself into something he liked, something he wanted.”

“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.”

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

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

“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.”