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“Fuck,” he rasps, unexpectedly sensual.
No, fuck me. I swallow the knot lodged in my throat, temporarily speechless.
“I missed your sarcasm.” Good. It’s the least you could do considering how much I’ve missed you. “I missed so much. Haven’t I?” Yes.
“A lot has happened in…” I can’t bring myself to say how long it’s been.
“I know I have, and you have to believe me that when I set out to create Forevermore, I never anticipated any of this happening. I just wanted something to soak in, in the time we were in. That’s all. I swear.”
“Wait, you created this?”
“Yes and no.”
“I said no riddles.” I feel my voice shaking, but I push through. “Tell me what the fuck is going on.”
He pushes off the desk, meeting me in the center of the very room that has memories of him riddled all over it. It was in this room I sat on that damn inflatable chair that’s staring at me—taunting me—playing Mario Kart with him. It was within these four small walls that I would share with my extensive diary collection how he made me laugh or did something without realizing it that made me swoon. This room harbors memories that I’ve held on to all this time but didn’t realize would still have such a profound impact on me. It’s bittersweet. Confusing, even.
“I really think you should sit.”
“I’m fine.”
He pulls out the computer chair I spent hours hunched in, going back and forth on instant messenger chatting with him. “Please.”
I don’t understand why I’m being so stubborn. I’ve spent two decades looking up nightly at the stars wishing upon them all for this moment to magically occur. And now that I have it—whether I understand it or not—I can’t seem to let it be. I keep prying. Waiting for the rug to be pulled out from underneath me again. Wondering when I will wake up from this dream and be catapulted back to the nightmare I’ve associated with my life.
Finally, I concede, scoffing dramatically as I do. “Okay, I’m sitting. Now, go on.”
He lets out a pent-up breath. “You remember how rough sophomore year was?”
Wonderful. I sense this conversation is going to be like a sloth pulling teeth. Slow and painful.
“It was kind of hard to forget.” An understatement, but I hope it gives him the hint to get this moving and skip over the gruesome parts. I rather not relive every painful detail of that year. Though, in retrospect, none of it seems to hold a candle to the pain losing him did.
“Exactly. It was a lot. And I didn’t know how to deal. I thought about drinking to take the edge off, but then I would be like my mom. She needed me, whether she realized it or not. How could I take care of her and Lacey if I was as drunk as her? I debated smoking, but you know how bad my asthma is.” Yes, sadly it’s as bad as your ability to get to the god damn point. “So, I decided to try my hand at making something that would distract me.”
“You mean, what was the name you said? I forgot.”
His head hangs low. “Forevermore.”
“Yes, that’s it.”
He pauses, mumbling under his breath. His brows scrunch, perplexed. “I still don’t understand how it got to this point, though. I didn’t even make it to the design part. It was a written outline. A mash-up of ideas.”
“Of what?”
“A way to make time slow down. But it took my idea and ran with it.”
“What did?”
“Forget it.”
Nope. We are not doing this right now. I didn’t get sucked into a computer to come face to face with a man I haven’t seen in two decades for him to tell me to forget it.
I rise to my feet, and apparently the entity in charge didn’t like that since I’m being pulled by an invisible force field back down in the chair. “I can’t move my arms.”
Rennix frantically tries to lift my arm, but it’s useless, the grip it has on me is too strong.
“It’s never been this stubborn before. And now that it’s using your memories to play out the levels, I think it’s angry.”
