I'll Forget About You

“Wait, so you actually kissed him, Alaina?”

“Well, yeah,” I admitted, feeling my cheeks stain with a blush. I half-heartedly attempted to bite back the smile threatening to spread across my lips, but to no avail. The secret was out in those two words, accompanied with the blush on my cheeks and the girlish smile on my lips.

I liked Garrett Nickelsen. I liked him a whole hell of a lot.

I sat with my back against the wall, seated on Angela’s bed. She was pacing around in her room, while Natalie shared the bed with me. Both of them were suddenly quite interested in why I had ditched going to parties with them in favor of spending time with some unknown boy. Well, they knew of him now. And by the looks of it they were going to pry out every piece of information there was to tell from me by the end of the night.

They’d both managed to drag me to Angela’s house once I told her I didn’t have any plans for the day, claiming they hadn’t seen me in ages ever since I’d met “mystery boy”. They were some of the new girls I’d met shortly after graduating, bubbly girls who were much more interested in the details of other’s relationships, compared to my best friends who were conveniently going to be gone for the next few weeks on vacations. It was a change for me, to be talking about who had hooked up with who at whichever party, rather than talking about things like art and music.

But maybe that’s what Garrett was here for this summer. Not only could he perhaps be that summer romance I’d lusted after for so long, but maybe he could fulfill the need I had to have conversations that held sustenance.

“So how long have you had this thing with Garrett?” Natalie asked, engrossed in this conversation already.

“Um, not long, really. Almost two weeks or so?” I could hardly keep track of time. Everything just melted together, the string of time seeming to have no differentiation. Not like time mattered, though. I’d have fun with Garrett and experience, and then eventually we’d have to say goodbye, but I’d hold this summer close to my heart for a very long time.

“So do you think you guys are gonna like, take this further?” Angela asked, stopping in front of the bed to look directly at me. “I mean, c’mon, you totally like him.”

I blushed again, letting a nervous chuckle escape from my lips. “I hope so. Something about just being with him is great. And I guess I just hope he feels the same way.”

“Lainie, you are one silly girl if you don’t think he doesn’t feel the same way,” Angela said, hands on her hips. “He’s taken you out already and you’ve talked for like, hours, and you went to his house and laid on the floor and made out with him. He’s at least just as interested in you as you are in him, if not more.”

I laughed silently to myself. Oh, I wasn’t so sure Garrett would be more interested in me than I had ever been in him. There was the end of my junior year and the summer before senior year. I’m not quite sure his potential feelings could ever top that silly infatuation that controlled my life for too long. I suppose I found myself infatuated with him again now, but it was different this summer because I knew how things were going to end when the summer came to a close. Garrett didn’t know, however.

That being said, this would be the first time he would have feelings for me, assuming that we would probably have some sort of a relationship at the end of the summer. So perhaps his feelings for me could potentially surpass mine at one point or another.

“I’ve never really gotten involved with anyone before,” I told them, “So, this is all pretty freaking new to me. And a little scary.”

Before Angela could reply to that though, my phone started to vibrate in my pocket. Phone call. I glanced down at the caller ID, a small smile forming on my face.

“Hello?”

“Hey, are you still up for tonight? Pick you up in let’s say, twenty?”

Um, what. I gasped quietly, ashamed that I’d forgotten that our “date” was tonight. I had just been with him yesterday when we’d made those plans while laying on the carpet of his family room floor.

“Yes, I definitely am! I’m not at home right though,” I said, overly embarrassed that I’d actually forgotten this night I’m sure was going to turn out all sorts of amazing if Garrett was planning it and keeping it secret from me.

“Should we meet at the park then?”

“Yeah, that sounds great. I’ll be there soon. Call you once I’m there?”

“Sounds good, Lainie. Can’t wait to see you.” I was a mess of smiles and blushes once I hung up, that stupid little last line eating away at my female emotions.

“I forgot we had a date tonight!” I shrieked to the girls, jumping off the bed immediately. “I have to go!”

They gave me words of encouragement, shooing me out the door while simultaneously telling me what I should wear. I hopped into my car and sped off across town, hoping to at least be able to tame my hair into something other than a frizzy mess. I still couldn’t believe I forgot about our plans. I guess since the girls had snagged me earlier in the day, I’d automatically forgotten about all previous engagements.

I decided to walk to the park though, taking a seat on the swing that now had more meaning than just any average swing. I sent Garrett a text, alerting him that I was finally ready and waiting for him at the park.

He replied quickly, letting me know he was on his way.

I kicked my legs back and forth a few times, building up momentum while I soared higher and higher into the air. That freeing feeling returned in the pit of my stomach as I gazed upon the sun that was lowering in the sky. I faced all of the playground equipment, wondering what it would have been like to be a child and have played on it. I wondered if Garrett had attended this elementary school and played on this very playground, with his blue eyes and soft brown hair.

Everything just started to fade away while I swung through the air, not able to keep a smile off of my face due to the fact that everything in my life was just going right for once.

And apparently I’d managed pretty well to tune every single thing about the outside world around me out, because before I knew it I had slammed back into reality.

And Garrett’s face.

He’d snuck up from behind me I guess, and me being as out of it as I was, didn’t notice. Didn’t notice when he jumped in front of me with a gorgeous smile on his face and those bright blue eyes all lit up right up until my foot made contact with his face. I noticed when he shouted a slew of curse words and his hands flew to his nose. Immediately I jumped of the swing and ran over to him, where he was clutching his nose with his hands that were now covered in blood.

“Oh my god!” I said loudly, shocked and surprised and entirely unsure of what had just happened.

Garrett just kind of grunted, his eyes squeezed closed while he stumbled around a little.

I looked around, no one in sight of course. However, there was a wicker basket sitting right behind my swing. A picnic? I swooned a little at how thoughtful he had been, but then remembered he was bleeding profusely at the moment, because of me.

“Are there napkins or something in here?” I shouted to him, hoping he would be able to give me some sort of answer.

He nodded, his blue eyes blurry and barely open.

I rifled through the basket, grabbing a handful of paper napkins and running over to him. Gingerly I handed them to him, scared of touching his face and making things worse--because that’s what I seemed to be best at.

“Thanks,” he muttered, his voice muffled from the napkins in front of his mouth, as well as the fact that he probably couldn’t breath through his nose right now.

I tried to get a good look, an instant assessment over whether anything was broken. No features looked too horrible or misshapen, but I had a feeling he would have some rather nasty bruises. Bruises his mother would no doubt ask about, and he would tell her that some girl kicked him in the face, and the day she finally met me she would probably already have a strong disliking towards me for nearly disfiguring her son.

The word “graceful” was never a word to describe Alaina Carter. My name and that word didn’t even belong in the same sentence.

“We should uh, head to my house or something so we can get that cleaned up,” I mumbled to him, staying a safe distance away from his face to prevent any further damage from my unawareness.

I grabbed the basket full of what I guessed was a picnic dinner for the two of us, cursing the fact that I single-handedly screwed this up. From now on I deemed it best to face the large field that led to the playground, so I could see when someone was coming.

Garrett held his face while we walked off the field, through the small passage the lead from the elementary school to my street. Finally we made it to my house, with Garrett going through more than one napkin on the walk. I unlocked the front door with the key from under the mat, leading Garrett inside my house for the first time.

I showed him to the bathroom, wrapping all of his bloody napkins up in a tissue and throwing them away while he splashed his already swelling face with water.

“I’m so sorry, Garrett,” I told him, feeling absolutely ridiculous. I shouldn’t have to be apologizing for anything right now, because had everything gone right I would have seen him and smiled, and we would be eating our picnic dinner on the field right now.

“It’s okay,” he said, his small smile showing off a few shiny white teeth. “I think I know now that surprising someone on a swing is not a good idea.”

“Not when it’s me, anyways,” I added, casting my gaze down to the floor.

Garrett took a tissue and wiped up his nose, tossing it into the trashcan before facing me. “Could I uh, borrow an ice pack or something?”

“Of course!” I said, rushing out into the kitchen to dig through the freezer. Garrett followed, and I handed him a frozen gel pack, along with a bottle of water and a handful of ibuprofen. “Here, why don’t you lay down on the couch,” I offered, even fluffing up some pillows while he got comfortable.

“Well, aren’t you just going to nurse me back to health now,” he said, his lips pulling into that closed-mouth smile while his eyes shined up at me.

“I just… God, I’m so sorry!” I said, apologizing again. I had a feeling I would be apologizing many more times, too.

“It’s okay, Lainie, really. I mean, they taught us not to run out in front of people on swings when we were little… and I guess I thought it didn’t apply now.” He placed the ice pack to his face, resting against the pillows while I took a spot on the couch where there was room.

“But I kicked you in the face,” I said sadly. “And made you bleed for like, five minutes.”

“But now I know to never ever surprise you like that again,” he joked, trying to make me feel slightly better that my food assaulted his face like that.

I should be the one trying to make him feel better, what with all of the bruising I was sure would ensue in the coming hours. However in the back of my mind I couldn’t quite shake the curiosity of how Garrett dealt with surprises. It was so wrong of me to keep such a silly little fact from him, although by the end of the summer it would neither be silly nor little. It would be a big, fat lie.

And yet I was nowhere close to stopping myself and admitting to Garrett that hey, I was flying across the country for school this fall, and would likely not be seeing him around again. I just wanted to experience the closest thing to love I would likely ever know, and if Garrett knew I was leaving he wouldn’t let himself love me. This wasn’t confirmed of course, but I knew this because I knew I would never let myself fall in love with someone who was going to be thousands of miles away in a matter of weeks.

I was too selfish.

“I could bring over that picnic basket, if you like,” I told Garrett, slightly cuddled into his side while he still held the icepack to his face.

“That sounds good,” he said, a small chuckle escaping from his lips. I’m sure he envisioned this night turning out quite differently than how it was happening now.

I picked the basket up off the kitchen table, setting it on the coffee table in front of the couch. Garrett slowly sat up, removing the icepack from his face. I cringed, although the damage wasn’t absolutely horrible.

“Here, we still can do this partially right,” he said, picking up the basket and setting it down on the carpet of the family room. My dog was raced up to us the second we sat down on the floor though, sniffing and attempting to lick anything she could get close enough to.

“Sorry about that,” I said, gently pushing her away a few times before she retired to sitting on a pillow on the couch.

“It’s no problem,” Garrett said with that little half-smile adorning his face again. “If I remember correctly, that dog is the reason that I saw you that one time, the uh, the first time around the neighborhood.”

“I think that is correct,” I said, smiling. That day hadn’t even been very long ago, but somehow everything just exploded after that. Exploded like the fireworks I felt erupting inside of my body whenever I kissed Garrett.

Garrett started to unload the contents of the picnic basket, two bottles of water, crackers, cheeses, and sliced fruit were all inside. Even a couple cookies for “dessert.” I smiled and blushed, all of the thought that Garrett put into this picnic dinner really seeming to work its charm on me.

We finished up, and ended up laying together on the family room floor. I was thankful mom had the nightshift at the hospital tonight, and wouldn’t be back until the sun was starting to rise. That meant I had all the time in the world with Garrett.

“Y’know, back when you were a senior and I was still a junior,” I started, drawing in a breath, trying to decide why I wanted to tell Garrett this now, “I saw you all around school. I mean like, everywhere.”

Garrett’s arms were wrapped around me, which I suppose gave me a little courage that he probably wouldn’t be weirded out to hear how I’d sort of had a crush on him back in high school when we didn’t know each other. Well, it was certainly more than a “little crush,” but he didn’t have to know the full extent of the details.

“I remember seeing you around, as well. We didn’t know each other though.” Painful reminder. I wonder what could’ve happened had we met earlier.

“It was weird. How I’d never really seen you around before, and then one day everything seemed to change and suddenly you were just… everywhere I was.”

“Funny how that happens,” he said, his voice soft. We both stared up at the ceiling, perhaps both of us looking for shapes in the plaster.

“It is funny,” I said, trailing off. “What made you come to the park that one night though?” I asked honestly, out of pure curiosity.

He drew in a breath, perhaps himself trying to answer that question inside his head first. “I don’t really know,” he started. “I was taking a walk around the neighborhood, for the first time I think since I was in middle school. I thought maybe I should start doing that more often after seeing you that one day,” he added with a cheeky smile. “And I had no idea where you lived but I thought I might as well just head out and see what I could find. And I think I saw you heading to the park, disappearing right after I turned onto the street. So I followed. And I found you there.”

“And you recognized me from school?” It made me curious as to whether or not he had seen me around school just as many times as I had seen him.

“Pretty much,” he admitted. “I remember seeing you on the way to my econ class a few times, or when you’d pass through senior hall.”

“Or in the parking lot when somehow there was always just a space next to your Chevy,” I said, biting my lip to repress a smile. The distinct car Garrett drove was one of the first things I had come to learn about him.

“I don’t get how we never managed to really bump into each other or something. I mean, it had to have been coming obviously, what with how often we crossed paths.”

I agreed with that. It did come eventually, but it would always be a wonder how it never happened earlier. We crossed paths quite often, but that didn’t mean we were ever on the same path. And we were likely never to be on the same path.

“I actually sort of, kind of had a crush on you back then,” I told him, my face surely burning red.

“Oh really?” he asked, appearing amused.

“Shut up,” I retorted. “But yes, really.”

“But we didn’t even--”

“I know. But I guess that’s what made you even more interesting. The fact that I didn’t know you. You were all… mysterious, or something, I guess. But then you had to go and graduate.”

“So then what’d you do?” he asked, peering over into my eyes. Irresistible.

“I told myself I had to forget about you,” I admitted.

“And did you?”

“For a while there, maybe,” I replied. However it didn’t last long. One year of trying to keep Garrett of my mind had barely succeeded, and was shattered when I had taken my dog for a walk that day and managed to finally cross paths with him.

A couple moments of silence passed between us, both of us seemingly lost in thought again.

“I want to kiss you right now but I don’t want to hurt your face,” I said quietly, rolling over onto my stomach to look into Garrett’s eyes. I couldn’t understand how a person could be so beautiful, like he was.

“I think after taking a shoe to the face, it couldn’t get much worse,” he said with a wink, closing the space between our lips swiftly.

I never wanted to leave his arms. It was such a perfect place to be, all wrapped up in security. Everything between us seemed to get more challenging and complicated as my feelings deepened for Garrett. I was digging myself into a hole I’d likely never be able to climb out of, but so long as Garrett’s lips were on mine, I’d be more than content in the dark.