Page 4 of Forgotten

Tamara was not unknown for getting into trouble occasionally. Last year, when I went with Luke Galloway to prom because neither of us had a date and we’d always been friendly, she had snuck in alcohol from her dad’s collection. A week later, she snuck us into Crockett’s for the first time, saying her best friend was being too sad and she wanted to have some fun. Both times she was lightly punished, far less than I would have at her age.

“Tamara, you are still nineteen,” I began.

“Twenty in two months,” she interjected.

“That’s still under twenty-one. You keep this up and they might bar you from Crockett’s before you even get old enough to go regularly. You know how the Andersons are always up there looking for people to get in trouble.”

“Yeah, yeah,” she said. “Well, they never mind people over eighteen being there if they are with someone and aren’tdrinking. When you get back home, we can go every week until I hit twenty-one.”

“Ahh, right, about that,” I said.

“It’ll be awesome. I’ll be with Collin, and you can date, like Logan or something, and we can party and have a blast,” she continued.

I hated to burst her bubble, especially after her best friend moved to California, but I couldn’t let her go on like this. Not when I knew I wasn’t going back.

“Tamara, I’m not moving back to Texas anytime soon.”

“I know, I know,” she said. “It’ll be a few months at least. But as long as you’re back before I turn twenty-one…”

“No, I mean, I don’t intend on coming back at all,” I said.

There was silence on the other end of the line for a moment, and I thought I heard her sniffle.

“What do you mean?” she asked. “I thought you said living with Dad wasn’t really great and that it was too expensive there. I thought you were going to do school remote from home, like we talked about.”

“Like you talked about,” I said. “You were the only one who ever mentioned that. And I’ll be honest, it has an appeal. But I just… I don’t want to be back in Foley, hon.”

“You don’t have to be in Foley,” she said, sounding a bit desperate. “We could get a place together in Odessa or something. Somewhere a little nicer. Why wouldn’t you want to come be with your sister? We could have so much fun together!”

“We could,” I agreed. “But I don’t want to be in Texas, Tamara. If you want to come up to Tulsa, by all means, we will get a place. But I don’t want to be there anymore.”

“Why?”

I wanted to tell her. I wanted to spill my guts and tell her how Jesse had had a miserable date with her, how Tamara hadspent the entire time talking about herself, and when she wasn’t talking about herself, she was being kind of loud and obnoxious the way she had a tendency to be. How Jesse found me on the porch, and we’d talked in a way that we really hadn’t all our lives growing up around each other. How we’d run into each other again and ended up spending an evening at Crockett’s together. And ended up in his backseat, with his hand up my shirt and our lips pressed against each other.

How I’d been willing to go all the way right then and there, but that Jesse had stopped.

Because he didn’t want to hurt Tamara.

We’d kept it secret for weeks, sneaking around to see each other either out of town or in dark corners of his family’s ranch. Every time we kissed, it was more intense, and every time, he was the one to put on the brakes and ask me if I’d told Tamara yet.

So when I knew there was no more time, I wrote Tamara a letter. I told her everything in that letter and left it in her room. Then I went to the county fair, knowing I was going to spend the night with Jesse at his hotel.

And the world fell apart.

“I just don’t want to,” I said. “Please understand.”

“I don’t,” she said morosely. “But maybe I’ll take you up on Tulsa. I’ll think about it.”

Then, in classic Tamara style, she moved on to the next subject, as if this one had never existed.

After finishing up the call, I drew a bath and poured a glass of wine. It wasn’t like Dad was going to miss it. He never drank wine.

I disrobed and climbed into the tub, sitting down and letting the warm water soothe my aching joints. I’d been going sinceseven that morning, two jobs and three classes, and deserved to relax a bit.

But I couldn’t. Not with the memory of that day in my mind. How that woman…. Lacey had been her name, had shattered my whole world. She’d shown me pictures of a baby, and his eyes… they were just like Jesse’s. Deep blue, almond-shaped. She said she was his girlfriend, and that Jesse had been cheating on her with me. How he was a father now. How he needed me gone so he could own up to his responsibilities.

When I looked at Jesse, I could see the guilt on his face, even while he continued to sing another song.

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