Forget Me Not

by Julie Soto

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

I think this is where I’ll die. I think I’ll just lie down and wait for death. He can use me to fertilize the flowers.

“Oh my god, she’s beautiful!” Jackie says. “She’s okay. She’s not worth the trouble.” Lady Cat-ryn twirls in my arms, fighting me, and I straight up grab the scruff behind her neck and just let her hang like a doll.

“You’ll have to forgive me forgetting,” she says, reaching forward to finger the button at my collar. “You were in those skinny jeans and that plaid shirt. It made you look like a missionary come to save my filthy soul.”

When the nurses ask me to fill out forms for her, I can’t explain that I only just started touching her tits and I’m not really her boyfriend, so I spend twenty minutes in her purse, looking for information.

“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.

LOL

There’s no formality here for ending a conversation in a hospital after your mouth has given the girl you like anaphylactic shock, so—

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

Mar stumbles out in yesterday’s clothing. “Why…must you be so loud?” I throw a K-Cup at her head.

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

“I came here today because I missed you, and the sudden realization that I may not be the only person you’re seeing…actually made me mad.” She laughs. “And that never happens.

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

“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. “Amaryllis?” I ask. “But it’s not extinct.” He runs a hand through his hair, and I can tell that I was never supposed to find out about this.

“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.”

There’s a lot that goes on when Elliot Bloom kisses. Things he’s not even aware of. Things I’ll never tell him. He moans in the back of his throat—a lot. It’s completely intoxicating. Also, he tugs my body as close as physically possible to him, and it drives me insane. He kisses like someone who didn’t kiss a lot,