I steered her away from the curb. “That’s bullshit and you know it.”
She wobbled on flat ground, leaving me no choice but to hook an arm behind her knees and carry her to the truck. She yelped, ringing her arms around my neck and saying, “Oh my god, Noah. What are you doing?”
“Quiet down. We’re almost there,” I said.
“Don’t tell me to quiet down,” she snapped. “You’re going to hurt yourself. I’m not light.”
“I know my strength, sweetheart. Don’t you worry about me.” I crossed the lot, stopping at the passenger side. “Still feeling woozy?”
“I’m not woozy,” she replied, indignant as all hell. “It was my shoe.”
“You use that excuse a lot. I have yet to believe it.” I bent, setting her on her feet so I could open the door. “Did you eat anything tonight or are you running entirely on cheap liquor?”
I held her hand as she climbed inside. “I’m not answering that.”
“Fantastic,” I muttered, closing her door. I really wanted to understand this woman’s thought process. Anything to explain why she was all the way out here in the diviest dive bar in the whole state with—what was it?—a lacrosse coach.
I settled into the truck, flipped on the heated seats because that short dress was no match for tonight’s damp, chilly weather.
“Everyone forgets about me,” she said in a sad, small voice.
I pulled out of the lot and headed toward the main road. “That’s not true.”
“If I wasn’t forgettable, people wouldn’t be able to leave me so easily and go on with their lives like nothing was different. And it just keeps happening. That’s how I know it’s true.”
I was helpless here. I still wanted to wring her neck. I wanted her to apologize for shaving several years off my life. And I wanted to take her in my arms and let her cry it out because she didn’t deserve this. She didn’t deserve any of it.
“I don’t think you’re forgettable,” I said. “Believe me. I know. I’ve tried to forget you. I couldn’t. Nothing I did chased those memories away.”
She sniffled. I reached into the back seat and blindly handed her the box of tissues I kept back there. Tissues, baby wipes, and emergency snacks were essential to my survival these days.
“Why did you want to forget me?”
“I wanted to forget everything about this town.” That wasn’t the whole truth but I didn’t have the capacity to articulate any of it after getting texts from my lost, drunk wife and sprinting out of the house at ten o’clock. “And I did, I forgot most of it. Except you. You are entirely unforgettable.”
“Then you’re the only one,” she said from behind a fistful of tissues.
My heart twisted and thudded in my chest. “Who forgot you, sweetheart?”
“Other than everyone?” she cried. “Because it’s everyone, Noah. Everyone leaves. Everyone walks away. Take my mother. Even when she wasn’t on assignment, I lived with nannies and never saw her. After the nannies, it was boarding school. When I got booted out of boarding school, Lollie was the last resort and she was the first and only actual parent I ever had. Why did my mother bother having me if she didn’t want a kid? I have wondered that my whole life and I still don’t know the answer.”
“I know,” I said, and I did. The last time I’d heard a version of this story, it was a few days before our high school graduation. That was when her mother announced she’d left early for an assignment and wouldn’t be attending the event. If memory served, Shay didn’t see her mother once in the two years she lived in Friendship. “I know.”
“And, of course, the ex. He just fucking ended it and then he was gone. It was over and I don’t even know why. I thought if I could be perfect, he’d stay. If I did everything right, it wouldn’t fall apart on me. I wouldn’t get left behind again. But it was over and everything we had collapsed around me. It was like an explosion. Like a bomb went off in the middle of my life and I couldn’t recognize the pieces that were left. I couldn’t recognize myself. I still don’t and I don’t know what I did wrong.”
“You did nothing wrong,” I said. I didn’t know who this guy was or what he did but I was prepared to make it my life’s work to ruin him.
“There had to be something,” she sob-yelled. “No one walks away from the people they want in their lives. No one walks away from happy and fulfilling relationships.”
“Have you considered that he could be a miserable bastard incapable of experiencing happiness or fulfillment? Because that’s a real thing. I know a lot of attorneys with that problem. Bankers too.”
“Then why am I the one being abandoned, Noah? Why is it me? If everyone else has the problem, why am I punished for it?”
“Sweetheart.” I sighed. “What happened tonight? How did you even end up there?”
“The lacrosse coach was covering gym classes today and he invited me out with some teachers and coaches,” she started, tears clogging her words, “and I didn’t want to go because he seemed like a sportsball bro and I don’t know how to talk to those people but I went because I used to love happy hours with my school friends and I never do fun things anymore. And it was fine and they were nice but then I went to the bathroom and everyone left.”
The worst thing about loving Shay in high school had been watching her go out with worthless guys and promptly get her heart trashed. Even if it was just for fun and she wasn’t taking it too seriously, her feelings took a beating when those guys showed themselves as juvenile jackasses.
