Page 21 of Forget Me Not

I sniff and it’s the first time I realize I’m crying too. Tears are flooding my eyes and I can barely see beyond the foot of my bed. But I don’t care. All I can see is him anyway. Seven years later and I still know every inch of his handsome face by memory.

“He’s going to find you, Cooper. I know it. Wherever he is, whatever he’s doing...he’s coming for you.”

Then the line goes dead just as suddenly as it exploded to life in the dark of night and I’m alone again. Alone. I’m used to alone. I’ve been alone most of my life. Reed gave me a brief reprieve once upon a time, but then he left me too. And alone was all there was left.

Chapter Two

Reed

It’s been three days since I visited the scene of the accident. The place where it all happened. Where I died and came to life all at the same time. I left there and hit every ATM I could find until I successfully cleaned out my bank account and maxed out every credit card I have. I’m not ready to be found yet and paying cash will help keep me hidden. Especially while I’m still in town.

Three days of sitting holed up in a motel room watching bad cable and eating a constant flow of delivered pizza have done as intended. I’m ready to get the fuck out. Even if the next place I go is the DMV. The place I’ve been avoiding. I can’t put it off any longer. I need to know. If I ever hope to make a future for myself, I need to learn about the past. Need to learn about her. And why she disappeared.

Since I left my car at the last ATM I visited, I’m traveling on foot for the moment. At least until I find the nearest bus stop.

What should have taken no more than half an hour by car, winds up taking nearly four. But I make it. Just in time for everyone who works here to go to lunch while the entire world now on lunch break, is ready to run in and try and get their driving issues resolved before they have to clock back in. This is going to take a while. And I’m not sure I have the nerve to sit here and wait that long.

Trying to avoid feeling trapped, I opt to stand along the back wall. I’m not alone here, but at least there’s still some sense of personal space requirements among those of us who choose to forgo the chairs.

Fidgeting with my phone, I catch a glimpse of the screen. Sam called. Again. I’ve had this thing on silent since I left, but I keep charging it. It’s a sick sort of game I’m playing, torturing everyone involved while still maintaining a minute degree of sanity. My phone stays on, the calls go through, maybe people at home won’t worry as much. On the other hand, the ringer’s off, so I don’t have to hear their attempts to reach me, but I still see their names, so I know they’re trying. I haven’t decided yet whether this helps or hurts. Knowing they care. Knowing that after everything I’ve put them through, they still refuse to give up on me. It’s hard to believe those same people would lie to me about something so monumental for seven years. Unless they had a good reason to.

G306.

My number flashes across the large screen. I’m up.

I stumble making my way to the counter. If that wasn’t humiliating enough, I wind up standing at the wrong window for a solid three minutes before I realize I’m in the wrong place.

“How can I help you today?” The woman sitting behind the tall desk is lower than I expected. It’s not that she’s unusually small or the desk is abnormally large, she’s just got her chair adjusted in a way that’s keeping her seriously low to the ground. And out of sight. It’s like she’s retreated into a secret fort amid the DMV instead of a help desk slash cubicle. If all of my muscles weren’t pulled stiff to the point of breaking from the stress of the last few days (and this very moment) I might have cracked a smile at the visual.

I slide my driver’s license across her counter toward her. “Uh, I was hoping you could pull up an accident report for me?” At least, I think that’s what I say. She’s typing, so I must have at least gotten close. Without looking, she swipes my ID and keeps working.

“May of 2010?” she asks, for the first time really making eye contact with me. She has dark eyes, almost black, but they’re warm and surprisingly caring given her initial impression.

“Yeah. That’s the one.”

She nods, clicking her finger over the enter key. “Printer just takes a sec.”

Turns out to be more like a minute, or ten, but I probably wouldn’t have noticed the difference anyway. Any amount of waiting feels like an eternity until that piece of paper lands at my fingertips.

Now that I’m holding it, standing out here on the sidewalk, alone, time can’t slow down enough. I’d like it to stop all together. To cease all at once and keep me from having to decide once and for all. Once I see what’s on this report, that’s it. There will be no going back.

Two more people come out of the DMV, one of them was standing against the wall with me. If I’m not going to look at the report I need to at least leave the premises before people start to wonder about me.

I start walking. I don’t know where I’m going, but I’m walking. Except this is what I’ve felt like for as long as I can remember and I hate it. I fucking hate it.

I stop. I flip over the pages in one determined motion and force my gaze to scan the document in search of one thing. Cooper.

At first, nothing catches. Then, I see it. Her name. Jane Cooper. Passenger.

Cooper

My eyes seek out the scar across my wrist. Most days I hardly even notice it anymore. Today, it physically hurts, as if it’s insisting on being seen. Insisting on being remembered.

I turn my hand in small circles, first left, then right. It doesn’t help the pain, but it feels good to know it still moves. It’s still alive. Still a part of me.

“You okay, babe?”

I break my gaze from my wrist and look up across the table at Gunner. He’s got the paper open, the comics section, the only part he reads with his coffee. But he likes the paper. The real deal. Holding it. Feeling it. Likes theideaof it. I get it. It’s one of those visuals you have as a kid of a grown-up thing to do. Grownups who have it together. He was eleven when he first started this habit. There weren’t any grownups around who had it together, so he was determined to become the first one in our midst. He succeeded. Against all odds, he got there. And it looks good on him.

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