Forget Me (13 page)

T
he school day dragged on Friday. The highlight was a slice of tastes-like-cardboard pizza from the cafeteria. After the last bell, I stood at my locker and filled my backpack with whatever books I'd need for the weekend. I checked my phone for new messages. Felicia e-mailed that she'd chosen two of my photos—the shot of the falls from below and the one of the makeshift memorial.

Part of me had been hoping for a text or missed call from Evan.

I slipped the phone back into my pocket and tapped my fingernails against the locker door. I could always call
him.
I
did
have information to share. And nothing to do. Toni had plans with Reece.

I felt the weight of my cell phone in my pocket. I wanted to call him. But thinking about him made me nervous, excited, and a bit light-headed, and that scared me. So as I drove home, I talked myself out of calling. I would ignore the ache in my chest that told me I wanted to see him again. It was too soon to feel this way about someone. And too strange that Evan looked so much like Flynn. Everything about the situation was overwhelming.

I would spend my Friday at home, I decided. I could do my homework, get that out of the way. Maybe watch TV with my parents, see if they were acting normal again.

But, you know, a girl plans, and fate laughs right in her face.

When I got to my house, Evan's car was parked on the street out front.

I pulled into the driveway, and he got out of his car, walking slowly, hands in his pockets. I met him halfway across the front yard. Neither of us spoke for a moment. Then I said, “Hi.”

He looked up at me with an adorably awkward smile. “I hope you don't mind that I stopped by.”

I could feel my cheeks flush. “No, not at all.”
I was just obsessively thinking about you, so it's fine.

“I just . . . I was going to call, but then I found myself driving here instead.” He paused and looked at me. Like
really
looked at me. Like he was trying to see inside my mind, inside my soul. “How are you?” he asked.

My throat suddenly felt dry. “Good . . . okay . . . weird.”

He raised an eyebrow. “Weird?”

“There have been some developments,” I explained.

He aimed a thumb over his shoulder at my house. “Want to go inside and talk?”

I chewed on my lip for a moment. My parents weren't back from work, but what if he stayed until they got home? “Can we go to your place instead? It's just . . . if my parents come home. I haven't told them about you yet and . . . how much you look like . . . him.”

He swallowed hard and hesitated a moment, like he was unsure about something. Then he smiled, that dimple showing again, and said, “Sure. Hop in, I'll drive.”

I hefted my bag up onto my shoulder and followed him to his car.

He gave a sideways look to my backpack. “Plan on doing some homework at my house?”

“That development I was talking about is
in
here.” I patted the bag.

“Intriguing,” he said with a smirk.

We made small talk about school until he turned quiet as we slowed to a stop at the top of his massive driveway in front of his ridiculous house. I realized, at his silence, that he was expecting some sort of reaction.
Oh yeah,
I remembered. He didn't know that I had done some mild stalking with Toni and already knew he lived in a mansion.

I faked the best gasp I could. “Wow. Quite a humble cottage you have here.”

“That's kind of why I didn't want to bring you home,” he admitted. “I don't want you to . . .”

“Think you're some spoiled rich kid?”

He smiled. “Yeah, for starters.”

“It's good that I got to know you first, then.”

He still didn't look comfortable. But I didn't care if a person had money or didn't. My family had been comfortably upper middle class, and now we were struggling day by day to hold on to everything we'd earned. But we were still the same family, the same people.

“So . . . are you going to invite me in?” I asked.

His face relaxed. “Yeah, let's go.”

I followed him through white double doors and into the foyer. He tossed his keys onto a marble table beneath a gold-framed mirror. In the reflection, I caught the curve of a spectacular staircase. One that you see and immediately picture yourself slowly walking down, wearing some beautiful ball gown. This seemed more like a movie set than a house.

“We can head to the library,” Evan said.

A library. Of course he had a library.

I followed him down the hall, my shoes squeaking on the glossy floors. Every inch of the space was immaculate. The only thing that stood out was a window in a den held together with masking tape. I pointed as we passed. “What happened there?”

Evan winced. “That's my bad. I was practicing in the yard with a friend from the team, and a baseball broke the window. My parents are getting a new one today, and then we have to get the alarm company out to rewire the window sometime next week. It's a whole big thing.”

I wanted to ask him what his parents did for a living, but I could tell from his tense body language in the car that it was a topic he didn't like to get into. So I didn't bring it up. Besides, what did it matter?

“The library is in there.” He pointed at an open doorway behind me. I'd been expecting some stuffy, almost tacky room filled with dark leather chairs and dusty old books that were only for show. But as I walked in, I found the opposite. The room was bright and welcoming, with big, overstuffed chairs flanking a huge floor-to-ceiling window, which filled the room with warm natural light. I let my fingers trail along the bookshelves. They held everything from nonfiction to romance novels, and their spines showed signs of being read.

Evan motioned to a glass coffee table between two comfy-looking chairs. “You can put your stuff down there.”

I gently dropped the backpack onto the table and sank into the nearest chair. “This room is amazing.”

“I do all my homework in here.”

“I'd
live
in here,” I said.

“It bothers some people,” he said quietly. “The money.”

I met his gaze. “Well, I'm not that superficial.”

He didn't say anything to that. We just stared at each other for a long moment. The butterflies in my stomach started to take flight, so I broke eye contact and pulled my backpack off the table. I unzipped it and reached inside for Flynn's notebook.

But as I went to pull it out, my portfolio came with it. I'd brought it into school to show my photography teacher the progress I'd made. It fell to the floor open, and Evan reached down to pick it up. He paused, staring at the photo on the page. One glance showed me it was the shot I'd taken of the castle at Happy Time Mini Golf. I had to explain or he'd think I was some weirdo who went back and took pictures of the place where we'd had a “moment.”

“That's my portfolio,” I said quickly. “It's something I work on in my spare time.” I still hadn't applied for the summer course. My teacher told me my work was ready, but I couldn't pull the trigger. Maybe Toni was right. Maybe I was procrastinating because I didn't want to risk getting rejected.

“Can I look?” he asked.

I nodded, feeling self-conscious already. The only people who'd ever seen my photos were Toni and my teacher, and I think they both found them creepy.

Evan reopened the book from the beginning. The title page read:

ABANDONED RIVER'S END

Morgan Tulley

He took his time, giving each picture full consideration before slowly flipping the page. He said nothing until he was finished, and then his gray eyes found mine. Every nerve in my body was standing on edge, waiting.

“Morgan, these are amazing.”

I let out an almost-too-loud breath of relief. “You think so?” Not that I would stop taking them, even if he hated them. My best friend hated them and that didn't slow me down. But for some reason, his opinion mattered to me.

“Yeah.” He shook his head in amazement. “The theme kind of speaks to you, doesn't it? I mean, at first it's kind of sad. But then, and I don't know if this is what you were going for, but looking at some of these forgotten places I feel . . . hope. Like what's lost can be found again. Right?”

My ego was practically soaring. “That's exactly it.”

He closed the album and handed it back to me. “Wow, these are so much better than the photos you take for the newspaper. No offense.”

I laughed. “None taken. There's only so much you can do with a photo of a high school football game.” I was pretty sure my cheeks were lit up like Christmas lights. I'd never felt so flattered. But then a thought occurred to me. “How did you know I take pictures for the paper?”

He shrugged. “I've seen your byline.”

“You read the
River's End Weekly
?” I asked, surprised.

“No. I Googled you and it came up.”

I snorted. “Stalker.”

A crooked smirk played across his face. “Hey, I was just protecting myself. I was told you were dangerous, remember? You can't blame me for doing a little research after I finally found out your name at the party.”

“About that . . .” I glanced down at the notebook in my lap. “Do you still have that photo of me?”

“Yeah . . . ,” he said slowly. He rose and crossed to a desk in the corner. He slid open a drawer and returned a moment later with the now familiar picture in his hand, placing it writing side up on the coffee table. I opened the notebook, flipped past the messy pages, and stopped at the clean, final page. Flynn's message to me. I laid it open on the table, beside the warning.

Evan leaned forward. His breath hitched as he read the note. “This is from Flynn?” he asked.

“Yeah, but it's not the content of the note I wanted you to see. It's the handwriting.”

I'd had my suspicions, but now I could verify them. I traced my finger over the capital
F
in the warning to Evan. FORGET HER. Then I compared it with the one in the notebook.
Forget me.

They were the same.

“Flynn sent that photo to me,” Evan said, confirming my thoughts out loud. “He was the one who warned me about you.”

I leaned back in the chair, my mind spinning. We knew it for sure now, but it still made no sense. Flynn knew I wasn't dangerous. Why did he want Evan to stay away from me? Why did he even think we might cross paths? And why did he want me to forget him and move on?

“What's written in the rest of it?” he asked, flipping through the pages and squinting his eyes.

“Really messy notes that make no sense.” I closed my eyes and let out a slow breath. “I just wish I knew what was going on.”

He dropped the notebook and put his hand over mine. Our fingers interlaced. It was such a small thing, but felt so intimate. My feelings for Evan had grown from that small spark at mini golf to something bigger. Something real. But I couldn't let myself feel anything for him. Not when I still had so many questions.

“We can figure it out together,” he said. But I was staring at his hand, feeling the warmth of it, the tingle it sent through my skin, wanting so much to run my thumb over his knuckles. But I didn't move.

He slid his hand back and gave me a long look. “Did you love Flynn?” he asked, and it wasn't so much hurt or jealousy in his voice as sympathy.

“No,” I answered honestly. “But I might have grown to love him if . . . he'd stuck around longer.” I paused, overcome with the need to share. “Can I tell you something no one knows, not even Toni?”

He met my eyes. “Of course.”

I nervously licked my lips. “Right before the accident, before he got out of my car and started walking . . . he broke up with me.”

Evan blew out a breath. “Well, that explains the nutty stuff in his notebook.”

“How so?”

“He was clearly insane. He'd have to be crazy to dump you.”

He said it with a flirty grin, and I felt like my heart was melting. I allowed my eyes to linger on the full lines of his lips. I let my mind wonder what it would feel like to have that perfect mouth on mine.

He inched forward.

My chest heaved, my breath coming faster and deeper.

“Oh! Evan, I didn't realize you had company.”

Evan pulled back, his eyes widening. I sat rigidly in the chair as I turned to look at the woman in the doorway. She had that type of unmoving helmet hair you mostly see on news anchorwomen, but her smile was warm and welcoming.

“Mom, this is Morgan,” Evan said.

I found my voice. “Nice to meet you, Mrs. Murphy.”

She clasped her hands in front of her pale yellow pantsuit. “Likewise. Can I offer you something to drink or a snack? From the looks of it, my impolite son hasn't done so.”

“Oh, sorry,” Evan mumbled, as if the thought hadn't occurred to him. It hadn't occurred to me, either. We'd had . . . other things on our minds.

“Thank you,” I said, “but I'm fine.”

“Okay, then. I'll leave you to . . .”

“Homework,” Evan finished.

“Homework,” Mrs. Murphy repeated with a smile as she backed out of the room.

Evan turned to me. “Was that awkward?”

“Mildly.”

He blushed a bit, then asked, “Hey, do you have any plans tonight?”

I thought about coming up with some lame line like,
Nothing I can't cancel,
so I didn't sound like a loser with no plans on a Friday night. But then I remembered the advice I'd given Reece and how well he and Toni were working out. So I went with honesty.

“No, I'm free.”

He brightened. “Want to have dinner with me? Out somewhere? Like . . . not here? We can talk more about everything and try to figure out—”