Forgotten

I’m still wearing his sweatshirt.

“Good day today?” Mom asks when I jump into the Prius.

“It was okay,” I say, turning on the radio.

“You seem to have survived without your cell phone. Anything interesting happen?” She drives us out of the school lot and turns toward home.

Shrugging, I say, “A new guy started today.”

My mom glances in my direction, then faces forward. I can tell she’s trying not to smile, but her efforts aren’t working.

“A cute guy?” she asks. I can’t help but smile, too.

“Yes.”

“What’s his name?”

“Luke.”

“Did you talk to him?” she asks.

“A little. We had a fire drill and we ended up standing near each other. He’s pretty cool.”

My mom is quiet a moment, probably sensing that I’m about to put an end to the conversation. But then, nosy as she will always be, she can’t resist one more question.

“Was he in your notes this morning?” she asks casually. I consider changing the subject or cranking up the radio even louder, but since she’s one of two people I can talk to about my condition, I turn to face her in my seat and answer.

“That’s what’s weird!” I say.

“What do you mean?” she asks excitedly.

“Well, he wasn’t in my notes this morning, but I had this whole conversation with him and everything,” I say. “It was bizarre.”

“Maybe you just forgot to mention him,” Mom offers. We’re turning into our development now. I shake my head.

“Maybe,” I say, not wanting to discuss him anymore. In truth, I know there’s no way I would forget to mention Luke Henry.

We’re almost home when my mom’s cell phone rings from the center compartment. “Sorry, honey, I’ve got to grab this.”

“No problem,” I say, happy to be left alone to daydream.

In the middle of the night, pen in hand, the hope seeps out of me. Luke’s hoodie is in the laundry, but his face is almost gone. For three hours, I’ve tried to attach him to my forward memories. I’ve quizzed myself: Do we share a class? Will we go out? Will I know him for years to come? But with the clock counting down to 4:33 AM—the time when my mind resets and my memory is wiped clean—I have to admit that Luke Henry is nowhere to be found.

He’s not in my memory, which means he’s not in my future.

When I finally accept it, the truth stings. But there’s no time to dwell on it, and there are only two choices: I can remind myself about someone who is not a part of my life, or I can leave him out of my notes to save myself from going through this all over again tomorrow.

This late, with my mind just minutes from “reset,” it doesn’t seem much of a choice at all. I grit my teeth and grip the pen and do what I have to do.

I lie to myself.

3

The house is still; it’s early.

I check out the bedroom, trying to pinpoint differences between two nearly identical pictures: the one I remember from tomorrow and the scene before me now.

There’s an empty mug with a used tea bag wound around the handle on a coaster on the desk. There’s a sweatshirt hanging over the edge of the hamper like it’s trying to get out. Tomorrow, the mug will be gone. There will be textbooks on the desk; the hamper will be empty.