Page 82 of Forget Me Not

“Because I don’t trust people and I have to protect the most important thing in the world to me.”

“Me?”

“Absolutely you.” As if there was no question in the matter.

He turns to face me for a moment, eyebrows pinched together tightly. “Is it my age that embarrasses you?”

Rubbing my temples aggressively, I think of the best way to answer that question. “Alaric,” I say plain and simply. “I’ve never had friends, especially not friends my age, and I want to make a good impression on them. It’s not your age that’s embarrassing, it’s yourbehavior.”

“What?” He huffs. “I think I’ve been more than kind to everyone in this town. Well, except Tyler. And Nick. And some asshole who parked in my space in front of Gladys’s last week.”

“Oh God.” I sigh. “I don’t even want to know what happened to that guy.”

“Nothing. But his car is sitting somewhere at the bottom of Meyers Lake.”

I shake my head in disappointment. “See. This is what I mean. You can’t do that shit.”

“Sure I can.”

“It’s not normal.”

“Well, I’m not normal. And neither are you, Rhea. We’re the same, you and I. Venomous snakes slithering our way through life, ready to bite anyone who steps on our path.”

“No, we’re not. My bite barely pierces the skin, yours kills on impact.”

The corner of his mouth lifts. “You’re so dramatic. Tyler’s still very much alive.”

“Only because I think part of you knows that if you hurt him, I’ll never forgive you.”

I hate that Alaric has the ability to turn everything I say about him into some sort of praise on his part. In the end, I always lose, and I’m left swooning over him for reasons unbeknownst to me.

“Does my age really bother you?” he asks, tone low and soft. When I look at him, I see a glint of worry in his features.

I feel a sharp tug at my heart as I watch Alaric. His lips are pressed together in a thin line and his eyes have a lost, almost desperate look to them. This is the first time I’ve ever seen Alaric question my feelings toward something he can’t change about himself.

He's always so confident that one day I will choose him without a second thought, never questioning whether or not we would have a future together. And yet here he is, holding his breath as he waits for my response.

“No,” I finally say. “Age is just a number.”

He keeps his eyes fixed on the road, but I see the smile playing on his lips. Then I find myself biting back a smile of my own.

We are so dysfunctional.

After a moment of silence, Alaric breaks it with an almost chipper voice. “What do you say we blow off this party and you let me take you somewhere else?”

“No.” I shake my head reluctantly. “I can’t do that.”

“Sure you can. You don’t know any of these twatwaffle college kids. Fuck them.”

“It’s not about them. It’s about Tyler. I have to make an appearance at the very least.”

“Tyler,”he mocks me in a low growl. “Fuck that kid.”

“As I’ve told you at least adozentimes, that kid is my friend.”

“Fine. Whatever. We’ll make an appearance, watch a bunch of drunk idiots make fools of themselves. Then, let's do something actually worth our time.”

“And what would we do that is worthy of our time?”

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