Page 72 of Don’t Forget Me

I knew the barriers she’d built for me had fallen down. The disdain she had for me before had begun to crumble like the city of Jericho. She was looking at me like she had done all those years before. The same look she gave me before she pushed me as we danced in the city. The same look as when she kissed me for the first time. The same look that captivated me when I first set eyes on her.

How was I ever going to deny her?

It felt wrong to say no, but she was engaged. Promised to another. “Your fiancé.”

“I don’t have one,” she revealed.

“What?” I instinctively looked down at her left hand, searching for the ring. How had I not noticed it was gone?

Probably because I avoided looking there since I first saw the damn thing.

“Will you please stay?” she asked. The urgency in her question told me that she was just as anxious for this closeness as I was.

“Of course,” I said.

Silently, I wrapped myself around the blankets that she’d been under. The bed was warm. Lysandra turned to me.

I knew that in that moment, she was observing my very soul.

“Is it okay if I get closer?” she questioned.

“Yes,” I replied. My heart beat even faster when she moved closer to me. Would she mind my pounding heart?

I dreamed about this. I yearned for this. The intimacy of physical touch. The warmth of her fingertips.

Then, her arms wrapped around my torso, and she lay her head on my chest. This is where I was meant to be. In her embrace. A softness controlled the muscles in my face as I looked up at the ceiling. I felt the anxiety leave my body as it was replaced with peace.

thirty one

EZRA

5 YEARS AGO

“That’s all? Just a kiss?” Zack questioned with a harsh tone. His widened eyes almost pierced me like an emerald sword. He crossed his ankles on the wooden table at the library. His shoes had lost their shine, and his trousers were wrinkled. The burgundy vest he’d been wearing over his white button-up was stained in different shades and hues.

“Well, what did you expect?” I asked as I rolled the wheels of my chair to face him. “A movie filled with fleshly pleasures? You know I’m not like that.”

Zack rolled his eyes. “I expected more from you. As your friend, it is within my obligation to correct your wrongs. How dare you not take advantage of the opportunity? The girl was served to you on a silver platter.”

I shook my head. I used to be just like him. I used to idolize Zack for the number of girls he could woo, but whenever I attempted to be someone I wasn’t, I felt like I’d been sinning.

“When are you going to give up that pipe dream of getting married and having a big traditional family? That is so old school. Even our parents have given up on that fantasy.”

“Your parents and my parents grew up in a society filled with hypocrisy and vanity. They had no choice but to be married off for the prosperity of their families,” I argued. “I don’t wish to bestow upon my children the same nightmare that I lived because my mother did not love my father, and my father only loved himself.”

Zack offered me a skeptical glance. As much as I loved my childhood best friend, I was not as shallow as he was. He believed women to be objects, disposable toys. I found women to be admirable, strong, and astonishing. My mother was a woman. And it was a woman’s womb that nurtured me to life, it was a woman’s care that supported me through the darkness of my life, and it was Lysandra’s resilience which inspired me to be a better man for her.

He then sat up and pulled out his wallet from his back pocket.

“How much do you want this week?” Zack asked, counting one hundred US dollar bills between his fingers. “I hope you don’t mind these. It’s all I got right now.”

“I wasn’t doing this for the money,” I explained.

“Sure, you weren’t!” he snickered, his golden hair falling over his face. “Then why have you never rejected my money?”

I breathed in through my nose.

“It started as a joke, but the joke is over now. You can keep your money.”