{don't} forget about me

He loops his arm around me and pulls me tight against his chest. I can hear his heart beating in a slow rhythmic pattern beneath his skin and I realize that it's all I really need and everything I ever will.

"We should skip first block tomorrow," I say to him, wiggling up against him. I want to be as close to him as possible. He smells faintly of a house that's been opened to catch the summer breeze. He keeps his doors locked tight. Not to me.

Jasper presses his mouth into the back of my head, partly to kiss it and partly to smell. I can hear the grumble beginning in his chest before it does, I know Jasper's words before he says them. It's always been like that between us. We know each other too well.

"You always want to skip first block Liv," he says. He doesn't disagree though. He never does. We lie there in silence for awhile, listening to the start of the day, neither of us making any sort of sign that we’re about to get up and start getting ready for the day. We spend a lot of mornings like this, especially since he got his own apartment a year ago.

My fingers hook around two stray threads in the blanket and I begin to knot them together, trying a different knot with each tie.

”You were different yesterday,” he says after a long while.

I hum quietly in a way that’s meant to be in agreement but also a way that means I don’t really want to talk about it. Jasper’s the only one I know who ignores that little closing of the door. There aren’t any doors between us that he can’t unlock.

”Did something happen?”

I don’t answer him at first, furrowing my brow slightly in concentration, trying to remember how to tie a certain knot.

Jasper can always tell when I’m upset.

”Liv?”

I shrug my shoulders a bit and sigh, letting the threads fall away from my fingers.

“My mom came home super drunk again. I didn’t get much sleep because dad and her started shouting,” I say to him, no room for embarrassment in my voice anymore.

He doesn’t say anything at all, instead he holds me tighter than he ever has and he presses his face into my neck. He holds me so tight that I can barely breathe.

”You know I love you?” he says and his grip starts to loosen.

A sort of panic grows inside of me.

“Wait,” I say, voice urgent, “Don’t. Let’s just stay like that. Just for a bit.”

His grip tightens again.

“Don’t let go okay?”

”I won’t.”


I wake up slowly, the light in my eyes confusing me. When I fell asleep it was dark.

I sit up, body stiff from laying on the hard wood flooring. For a long moment, I don’t really know where I am.

Afternoon sun filters through the sheer curtains of the drawing room and gets stuck against the back of the couch.

”Oblivion,” my wife calls me from somewhere else. I think inside of the house but last time I checked the drawing room opened onto the park. That’s usually how I got there.

My limbs are heavy, waterlogged I expect. Maybe they’re too light.

I don’t know how to make myself heavier. I’ve been worried about floating away accidentally.

A wave of nausea hits me and I shut my eyes tightly, fingers gently pushing against my forehead in an effort to remember why I feel so ill. There should be a reason.

In my dream I remember feeling good.

”Oblivion, it’s time for your medication and then we’re going to Style Street,” calls my wife, voice almost cheerful.

I sit quietly behind the couch, pulling my knees to my chest. I wait for the need to throw up to pass. It never really does.

”If you come out right now, I’ll buy you candy."

Her voice sings like she’s happy but there’s an edge to her voice. I’m the only one who knows about it.

I hook my hand on the top of the couch and pull myself up slowly, hair falling in my eyes. I don’t know why it’s doing that, my hair is meant to be short. I’m sure it was yesterday.

Dizzyness hits me and I bend over the couch, weakness taking hold of everything that I am.

I know that she’s seen me when her voice comes closer.

”Here you go, take these and you’ll feel better,” she says. I open my eyes and she’s offering me the red pills and the white one with a glass of water.

The corners of my eyes start to lighten and I take them carefully, spilling water on my shirt. The glass is too heavy, I nearly drop it but she catches it easily.

I blink.

We’re in the car. She’s sitting beside me and the driver is in front. My seat belt is on. I tug at it and she murmurs at me softly, telling me not to play with it.

My eyes are heavy and I can feel them falling but she doesn’t like it when I sleep.

I hum to myself to stay awake and pull my phone out of my pocket.

The time says that it’s one in the afternoon. Confusion hits me. When I woke earlier it was much later.

I look out the window and I see people walking.

I check my messages.

There are no new messages.

There are never any new messages.

My fingers go to dial Jasper’s number. It’s still on speed dial. He never answers.

We reach style street without a word between us.

She holds my hand on the street and our driver walks with us. I trail behind her, her pace too fast for me. My cheeks burn and all the air that I thought I had gets caught in my throat.

Nothing hurts.

I can’t feel anything at all.

The pills took it.

I follow blindly, eyes wandering over the shop windows, unable to catch on anything. We go into a shop and I sit quietly in a chair. I try to watch but everything is muffled and I see a trickle of blood run out of the sleeve of a sweater that’s only ever gotten bigger on me and collect on the floor.

It goes splat.

She must have put the needle in.

I blink slowly and a tear falls out of my eye.

It goes splat.

We leave that shop with new bags. There are so many bags that she can’t hold my hand and the driver has bags too.

She gives me one to hold but my fingers don’t listen. It keeps on falling out of my grip until she gets annoyed and takes it herself.

You’re more useless than usual today.”

It’s cold despite the sun.

I can’t keep up.

She’s walking too fast and my feet hurt.

I look down at them and cry out, stumbling backwards and falling with a painful thud onto the pavement. My feet are full of nails. They stick through my shoe and blood seeps out, angry and glistening red. They are so full of nails that I barely have feet anymore, I’ll never walk again.

She must have turned around when I cried out. She sees me on the ground and puts her hands on her hips with an angry sound, not dropping the bags.

”Get up Oblivion.”

”I can’t,” I say, slurring badly, ”The nails.”

I start to cry in fear, I don’t know what to do.

She leaves the bags on the pavement beside the driver and stomps over to me, anger exploding from her. ”There are no goddamned nails,” she says, wrapping on hand around my arm and pulling me up.

Her fingers burn where they touch me and I cry harder, afraid.

I’m going to burn alive.

I don't remember the way that the sky looks at night and for the smallest moment I'm afraid that I might be wrong. When I checked my watch it read one. The sky was a strange blue, hazy and dark but in a light way. Was it one in the afternoon or one in the morning?

Did it matter?

Liv stared miserably down at his feet, tears slipping steadily down his cheeks. My wife had her grip on his arm, it was painful and tight and made everything in his arm tingle. I watched him. I don't know where I was. I was on the ground. Or maybe I was in the sky. I reached out for my feet. Liv reached out for his feet too.

I can't remember what my name is.

She's gripping my arm now. I wonder how I got here. I wonder what happened to Liv.

"Shit Liv, get up," she says to me, voice angry. She tugs at my arm and I stare dumbly down at my feet, wondering who the other boy is if I'm Liv. We can't both be Liv, I don't think so at least. Whoever he is or I am, I can't stand. I know that if that's my arm then it should hurt. Nothing hurts.

Not even my feet hurt anymore.

I watch a nail lazily shove it's way through my big toe, nailing me down to the cement but it doesn't matter. I can't feel that either.

She shakes my arm roughly and my head falls back and then it tips forward. I can't stop it. I think my limbs might be on strings all held by someone else. I don't think I'm a human being anymore. Everyone always said I was pretty like a doll. It would make sense if my lips were painted on. I haven't been able to figure out how to eat for weeks.

I shut my eyes. I don't think I've ever been so tired. I'm always tired now but never like this. My head droops and the white is coming right now, it's creeping from the corners of my eyes. I can't open them.

For a moment there's warmth on the back of my neck from the sun and the world seems gone. There's muffled sound trying to break into my ears but I can't hear it. I'm dreaming again, like before. The warmth on my neck is the heat of Jasper's skin pressed to mine. The tightness of my chest is his arms wrapped around me. It feels safe here on the pavement.

Her claws grip me but i'm happy.

Time seems like a waste.

I'd give up every second right here.

I nearly don't catch myself when she lets go of me.

My palms hit the cement with a loud 'smack' and I can feel the roughness of it dig into my skin. It's a good feeling. It's a wake-up.

I open my eyes slowly and everything begins to flood back in. I taste iron in my mouth. I must have bit my lip. I sit back and press my fingers to it just to see if they come away red. They come away green instead.

My wife is speaking to someone angrily. I don't catch much of what she says. She's defensive a lot. Her voice has that edge to it, the one usually just for me. She's angry then. I try to remember the times when she isn't. I can't.

I think I almost died just now.

I try to remember what that's like but I can't.

"As for you, sir, did something happen?"

"No," I mutter softly and make steady eye contact with the pavement. One time I answered wrong and she got mad at me later for it. Always, always say that you're ok darling, even if you aren't. Then she showed me what she'd do to me next time if I didn't.

I don't remember things very well anymore but I remember that.

I almost forget that now I'm supposed to smile nicely.

I raise my head and pull the corners of my lips up for the camera but there's no flash. I catch the clouds behind his head first, then the flashing advertisement, then the way he his hands shake slightly, then the colour of his pants and then his face.

My smile breaks a bit.

I can't help staring at him.

You shouldn't stare into the sun so long; it'll burn your eyes out.

I don't mind.

If the last thing I saw was Jasper Fenwick's face, I wouldn't mind at all.

For a moment, it's as if no time has passed at all. I wonder if maybe it hasn't, if everything has just been one long nightmare. That'd make sense, I've always had vivid dreams. I blink slowly and the lights flick off and on. Jasper stands above me and I'm wondering if this is just another dream. His hair's different though.

In my dreams it's shorter.

The street is dark around him, like he's sucking in all the light and the people that walk around us are suddenly muted. There's nothing else that exists except Jasper. There are new lines on his face, and he looks tired. He doesn't look as tired in my dreams unless I'm dreaming about being in bed with him.

A bird lands on top of Jasper's head and a small sound jumps out of my lips. I know this bird. I watched him peck out my eyes in the mirror once. I need to warn Jasper but my lips won't move, as if they've been glued shut. I press my fingers to my lips and I can fail the nail that has been hammered in, pushing my lips together.

I try to feel panic but it eludes me.

I watch him talk to Fatima, anger passing like a storm cloud through both mouths. I want to tell them I'm not worth it but I can't be sure about what they're talking about anymore. I can't remember how we got here, how long Jasper's been gone. I don't think he's even really here. It's been so long, there's no way he'd show up here for real. Sometimes when Fatima is really hurting me, I dream about him running into the room, pulling her off of me and gathering me up in his arms. I dream that he runs away with me and he loves me still.

I scooped Jasper's heart out with an ice cream scoop and then stomped all over it.

It'd be a miracle if he did.

A hand falls on my shoulder, heavy and warm. "This... isn't okay. You're not okay. And I need you to tell me what's wrong."

I forgot that Jasper was the only one who was ever good at telling when I was upset. My mom used to tell everyone that I was the happiest kid, that I never cried. That wasn't entirely true but Jasper was the only one who ever seemed to know it.

I think about his fingers on the fabric of my shirt and wish that they were on my skin.

My eyes wander over to his hand and there's a different scar on it than in my dreams. In my dreams he doesn't normally have flowers sprouting out of his knuckles either. I can't ell if this is real or not. I want it to be but that doesn't really mean much.

I look back up at his head and the bird has settled down on his head. He's not even pecking his eyes out. I don't know what that means.

He takes my hand and holds it between his own. His hands are so hot. They burn me. I can see the steam rising from inside his hands but it doesn't hurt. I don't say anything, I don't want him to let go. If I shut my eyes I can pretend that this is real and he is kneeling in front of me. I can pretend that there isn't a ring on my finger.

I do it.

I pretend that there is no Fatima. The weight on my finger is the engagement ring that I made for us. It matches his that he wears on his own hand. I imagine that it's there on his finger and it is. I'm eighteen years old again and I am so in love.

I can't remember why I hurt him.

I think I must be a monster.

Claws grow from my fingertips, long and hating and they puncture his skin, bursting through to the other side, cutting right through his wrists. Blood gushes out, bright orange and spilling everywhere. I cry out.

Fatima growls angrily, "You're hurting him!"

Is she talking to me or Jasper?

"You can trust me, Liv."

He's talking to me.

I trust him.

Without question or doubt or poison I trust him. This is not the same Jasper in my dreams but I trust him.

"Yeah," I tell him, voice muffled from the nail sticking through my lips. I speak as quietly as I can, I don't want my wife to hear me. My free hand wraps around his wrists, trying to hold the blood in but my hands are smaller, they don't fit all the way around. I hold as tight as I can, applying pressure. It's important to apply pressure.

I remember that.

My eyes search for his but the world is moving too much. I blink to try and straighten things up but I sway too far to the left and the world is tilted. My body falls against one of the shopping bags and I feel something break. I don't know if it's my bones or the item inside until Fatima's hand is falling in reflex, fast and hard against my face.

smack.

"You drunk asshole!" she screeches at me. I don't feel the sting on my cheek. The needle took the pain. I stare down at the broken thing inside the bag, wondering what I'm doing in there and if I'm not repairable now. It sounded like breaking glass.

"I'm sorry officer," she says, "He's got a real problem."

I take my hands away from my made up Jasper and reach inside the bag, hand closing tightly around a piece of glass.

It's warm and wet.

I can feel it's heart beating.