Page 25 of Forget Me Knot

“My point, big brother, is that she’s amazing.”

I swallow and shrug off the heated blanket. It’s suddenly too much.

“I know she is.”

“And? You should lock that down. Take her out. Put a ring on it.”

“No. It doesn’t matter how amazing she is. A girl like that deserves more than—”

“Than what, Jack? Than you? She’s interested in you, man. Everyone in town has been talkin’ about the two of y’all after the opening—”

“That washim, not me.”

“And…” he says more pointedly, “she’s hadyourflowers on her counter for over a week. And don’t even try to play coy with me. I know the difference.”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“It does matter. You were given a bad hand, man. It was my—”

“Don’t, Owen.” I grab for his hand, the mask hiding any embarrassment I might normally feel holding my baby brother’s hand. “Please.”

“It wasn’t my fault, but it was my game. My pitch. My team. And since then, man, you’ve stopped… living. You’re just existing. Just making it through your day or days—or whatever it is you two have—and pretending like the other doesn’t exist. You’re wasting your life, Jack.”

“This isn’t a life.” My hands find my temples as we repeat the same argument we’ve shared countless times over recent months. “It isn’t a life. There isn’t a future here. Not when there’s no rhyme or reason to who she’d wake up to every day. WhetherI’ll be amicable and the town golden boy or”—I gesture down my body, still laying flat on my stomach, and feel how ridiculous it must look—“me. She could end up with me. Andhimthinkinghecan have any kind of future—or anything—with her is selfish. Because sheisamazing, and she deserves better.”

Owen sighs again, and I know he won’t argue any further. He can’t. Not when he knows it's the truth. Instead, he squeezes my hand and pats my back for a final time. “I’m sorry, Jack. I really am.”

Owen and I eat our weight in pretzel bites, quietly stewing in our earlier conversation. The mood becomes further stilted when Owen jokes about really asking Dinah out as soon as he leaves my place for the night. Rather than punch the teeth out of his smug grin, I gently remind him to stop by Brooke’s house to give her all the details of said date.

That shuts him up.

Though he’s never admitted it to me, it isn’t hard to see that the way Owen looks at Brooke goes far past what he claims is only friendship.

Our standoff with one another is only made better by quite possibly the best take on a bacon-cheese combo I’ve ever tasted. Dinah really is a wonder.

On pretzel bites alone—if I were any other man—I’d have half a mind to march next door and propose to her right here and now. Instead, I play it cool until Owen knows I’m well enough to leave me alone.

He promises to be back in the morning before the gym, and though I want to argue, I can’t. If history is any indication, I’ll need help again tomorrow.

“I put your pills right here.” Owen gestures to the side table where he’s set up a station of fresh water, apple sauce packets, and the newly frozen gel mask.

“Thanks, Owen. I’m…” I run a hand over the scruff along my jaw. “I’m sorry. You shouldn’t have to do this, but I’m thankful.”

“I love you, Jack. We all do.” With a tight-lipped nod, he glimpses around the darkened room again, ensuring everything’s in order, and slips quietly out of the room.

I sleep fitfully, waking for meds, to drink water, or to slip the heating pad and eye pads off intermittently. And when I dream, they’re filled with flashes of my hands running along lightly freckled arms until they meet softer, gentler hands at the end of a bat. Of strawberry blonde hair wisping into green eyes. And then, the sound I hear most nights, the splitting crack the moment a bat makes contact with a ball.

When I’m pulled from sleep by a soft, consistent knock at my door, I slit one eye open to peer at my clock.. It’s just after six. Too late now for Owen. Maybe he sent Winnie in his stead, a resoundingly disheartening prospect. I love my sister, but quiet time—which I desperately need to recover—is not in her vocabulary.

Grabbing my glasses and another round of meds, I totter to the door, keeping the lights out. And as if I’ve summoned her in my sleep, Dinah waits outside my door, hand mid-knock and startled concern on her face.

9

ELECTRIC LOVE

BØRNS

DINAH

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