Remember to Forget, Revised and Expanded (18 page)

I was kind of upset at myself for laughing the first time, but it feels so good to
finally do it again. But at the same time, it feels like I'm breaking a piece of
myself that I wanted to stay strong. Right now, though, the happy feeling inside
me overpowers the guilt of being happy.

Once we stop laughing, Lucy crosses her arms across her chest. “Now can we watch
Frozen
?”

We end up watching
Frozen
, and halfway through Lucy falls asleep again. It amazes
me that she can fall asleep so quickly, especially when she wouldn't stop talking
about the movie.

It's a pretty cute film, if you're into that kind of stuff.

I may or may not be into this kind of stuff . . .

Lucy ended up falling asleep on top of me. Her head is in my lap, and I've been trying
hard not to move and wake her up. Every once in a while, she'll move slightly. It's
cute.

Lucy suddenly squirms and grabs lightly onto my hand, hugging it closer to her while
she sleeps.

I wonder if she's actually asleep.

Every now and then, I can see Delilah turn and look at me, or maybe she's looking
at Lucy. I notice that Delilah looks over at us more than she looks at the TV.

Maybe Noah's right. Maybe she does like me. Or maybe she's just checking on Lucy.

I see her watching me out of the corner of my eye, and I turn to look at her too.

I mouth the word “stop,” but I'm smiling when I do it.

“Sorry. But cute things deserve to be looked at.”

Chapter Twenty-Five

LEVI

S
orry. But cute things deserve to be looked at,” Delilah says. Her cheeks blush
and she quickly starts talking again. “I mean, it's cute
how Lucy is, uh—How she
fell asleep . . .” She turns her attention back to the movie.

I groan internally, thinking back to a few nights ago. I'm still confused as to what
Noah told me and what Delilah said to me.

Did she really mean Lucy was cute? Or did she mean me? I can't stop thinking about
it. I'm not sure why it's bothering me so much.

I decide to go to the person who knows Delilah best. Aiden.

I walk to his house, and even though it's not too far, I'm extremely cold. I don't
think I'll ever be used to the weather here.

I hesitantly knock on his door and shove my hands into my pockets. I can hear footsteps
running toward the door, and Hunter opens it.

“Aiden,” Hunter yells, “Levi's here!”

Hunter runs away, leaving me standing in front of the open door. Aiden slowly walks
toward me with a confused expression on his face.

It's been weeks since I last saw him. I've still been ignoring him. I'm not really
sure why, as I wish I hadn't.

“Hey, Levi.” He says it more like a question. “What are you doing here?”

He leans against the doorframe and crosses his arms. I awkwardly scratch the back
of my neck and look down at my feet.

I quickly type in my phone. I'm not really sure what to write, so I go with what
my fingers tap out. “I'm sorry about the past few weeks. I was having a rough time.
But I need to talk to you.”

“What about? Here, come in,” Aiden says, sounding concerned. I follow him up to his
room. It feels like only a few days ago, I was over here playing FIFA.

I thought Aiden would be mad at me and not be willing to talk. Though Aiden has never
been rude to me, no matter how many times I'm awful to him.

“So,” Aiden says, “what do you wanna talk about?”

Aiden sits down on his bed, and I crouch into the small beanbag on the floor. Aiden
rests his chin on his hand while he waits for me to stop typing on my phone.

“Does Delilah like me?” the voice says.

He scratches his chin and takes a deep breath. “Do you like her?”

I roll my eyes. I type a response quickly. “No.” I feel my cheeks blush.

Aiden sighs and lightly laughs. “Have you read her project from a few weeks ago?”

I shake my head no. I haven't looked at it since I shoved it into one of my drawers.

“That'll probably explain everything you need to know,” he says with a slight smirk.
“I think I actually have it somewhere in my email. She sent it to me to proofread,
to see if what she wrote about you was okay, I guess.”

He opens up his laptop and types quickly on his keyboard.

“Got it!” he says, passing the laptop over to me.

I push it away. I don't know if I want to know what she wrote.

“If you don't read it, I'll read it to you,” Aiden says, laughing.

I roll my eyes and take the laptop, not wanting Aiden to read it. I guess I have
to read it at some point, anyway.

I read the first sentence, and my hands start shaking. I'm so nervous. I shouldn't
be this nervous to see what she has to say about me.

I recently met a boy named Levi. I don't know much about him other than the fact
that he's Australian, and he loves Skittles. I also know that he doesn't talk. Levi
has gone through a tough time in his life, full of mourning and sadness. His way
of dealing with it is not speaking—or at least that's what I think. He's a giant
mystery to everyone.

When I first met him, he threw his coffee when he saw me. I'm still not sure why.
He was rude, and he always rolled his eyes. He rarely looked at me, and when he did,
he glared.

Most girls would leave, but I stayed. I stayed through his anxiety, his anger, his
sadness, and now, I'm staying while he's ignoring me.

I forgot that she had been writing this while I was ignoring her. She's probably
written about how much she hates me. I continue reading, afraid of what I'll see.
I don't want her to hate me.

After doing this project, Levi expressed the fact that he didn't want to be around
me. He told me to pretend I'd never met him. I'm rereading the note he wrote me as
I write this.

I can't forget Levi, because it would be impossible. I won't forget how his blue
eyes get brighter when he's happy (which isn't often, but they're like the color
of a clear blue sky), or the way his jacket smells of cologne and smoke. I won't
forget the time he opened up to me about his loss, which I'm choosing not to write
about here. I especially will always remember the last day we spent together on the
beach, throwing Skittles at each other.

Levi isn't like any boys that I've met, or any person I've ever known. He's unique
and mysterious and is constantly confusing me. But that's what makes him so special.

I genuinely do believe that Levi is a fantastic person. When he wants to be, he is
kind and gentle. I'm glad I've seen that side of him, even if only for a little bit.
He has made a huge impact on me the past few weeks, whether he knows it or not.

Throughout the rest of her project, she explains the things she learned about me.
She writes about the simple things like my birthday, and the more complex things
that she's noticed, like the way I rock on my heels or the way I rub my nose. She's
noticed things I didn't even know about myself.

But the last sentence is what changes everything.

As strange as this may seem, I think I'm falling for him.

I look up at Aiden, who is smiling widely. I shake my head quickly and scrunch my
eyebrows in confusion.

This can't be real. She can't really like me, can she?

“Does that give you your answer?” he asks, still smiling.

I nod slowly, and then, out of nowhere, I start crying. It starts slowly at first,
but quickly speeds up.

Aiden jumps off his bed and sits beside me on the floor. I hate how I'm always crying
now—I can't seem to stop.

“Do you wanna go see her?” Aiden asks quietly.

I shake my head no.

“What's wrong then?” he asks worriedly.

I point to myself over and over, but Aiden just looks at me with a confused expression.

I reach for my phone and quickly type, even though my vision is blurred from all
these tears. I pass him the phone, and he reads what I wrote.

“Levi, it's okay to feel that way,” Aiden tells me after a long pause.

I shake my head no.

He awkwardly puts his arm around me. “I understand. But I promise, it's okay. It's
okay to feel that way,” he says again.

What Aiden says makes me cry even more. I hate that I'm sitting here on an old beanbag
chair, with Aiden's arm around me, and tears streaming down my face.

I hate that I'm feeling this way.

I don't like it. I don't like any of this.

I wish I could just remember to forget.

Chapter Twenty-Six

DELILAH

I
wake up to my phone ringing loudly, and I sleepily reach for it with my eyes shut.
I squint as I look at my phone to see Aiden's name.

“Hello?” I say groggily.

“Where are you?” he asks.

“I'm in bed?” I say.

“Do you realize it's a Monday? And we should've left for school five minutes ago?”

I bolt upright in bed and look at the clock on my bedside table. Aiden's right. I
must have slept through my alarm. “Just leave without me,” I mumble, getting out
of bed quickly. “I'll see you at school.”

“Wait, but I—”

I hang up before Aiden can finish what he's saying. Whatever it is, he can tell me
at school.

I get ready as fast as I can and text Aiden to cover for me if I'm late for first
period. I somehow manage to get to school before the bell rings. Aiden is already
at my locker when I get there.

“Delilah, we need to talk,” Aiden says, leaning against the other lockers as I do
my combination. He says it very seriously, which is unusual. I'm kind of nervous
for what we have to talk about now. But knowing Aiden, it could just be about what
the cafeteria is having for lunch today.

“About what?” I ask him, putting some things in my bag.

He looks around the crowded hallway. “In private.”

“Okay?” I'm very confused about this, and why Aiden is being so weird this morning.
I don't get why we have to talk in private. I don't see what there could be to talk
about that's so serious.

Aiden waits for me to get all my things, and the second after I shut my locker, he
starts walking through the halls. I quickly follow behind him.

“Is everything okay?” I ask.

“Yeah.”

“Then what's happening?”

“We just need to talk.”

Aiden is making such a big deal out of this, it's worrying me. What if he has bad
news? Millions of terrible scenarios race through my mind as we weave through the
crowded halls.

He brings me into one of the science labs, which is empty. He turns on the light,
and we sit at one of the tables.

“So what's happening?” I ask him nervously. I bounce my leg anxiously on the stool.

“Levi came over to my house yesterday,” he says.

“And? Did something happen?” With Levi, it could be anything. I never know what
to expect with him.

Aiden nods. “He read your project.”

I knew Levi had my project, so this shouldn't be such a big surprise to me. But for
some reason, it is. My heart starts racing a little after Aiden tells me.

“What'd he think about it?” I ask quietly.

“Well, he, uh, he cried,” Aiden says awkwardly.

“He cried?” I honestly didn't expect Levi to cry over it. There wasn't anything that
fantastic about it, it was just stuff he had told me and some things I've noticed
about him.

“Yeah, the last sentence really got to him, I guess.”

“Wait—Aiden, what last sentence?”

“You know, the one about you falling for him.”

I feel my cheeks heat up, and my stomach flips. “I didn't give him that version,
Aiden. How did he get it?”

“You emailed it to me? To proofread?”

“This can't be happening,” I say, putting my head in my hands.

“What? Was there something wrong with it?”

“Yes, there was something wrong with it!” I yell louder than I should. “That was
the wrong version! That was the one I thought I deleted! I must have sent you the
wrong one without realizing it. Did you really think I would turn that in for a school
project? I'm not gonna confess my crush to a teacher! My real project didn't have
any of the lovey stuff. I only did that for myself, just to get it all out because
I didn't want to tell anyone!”

I nervously bite my nails. No one was supposed to read that, especially Levi. I
can't believe I didn't realize I sent Aiden the wrong one.

“So what you're saying is that you emailed me a project, which I showed Levi, which
is different from the one you gave to Levi and turned in to your teacher, and now
Levi knows that you liked him, which isn't something you wanted?” Aiden says.

“Yeah, sure, let's go with that,” I say quickly.

“Oh, well, this is awkward,” Aiden whispers after a long time.

“You think? He knows I like him,” I mumble into my hands. “This is a mess.”

I can only imagine what will happen now. Levi will ignore me
again
, and at this point
I'll probably never have him as a friend. He probably hates me now, if he didn't
already before. Levi doesn't handle things very well; I doubt he's handling the fact
that I like him. He's still getting over Delia. He definitely doesn't want anyone,
especially me, liking him.

I hear the bell ring, and stand up, not wanting to talk about this anymore.

“I'm going to class,” I say quietly.

“Wait, Delilah, there's more I have to tell you,” I hear Aiden say as I leave.

“Just tell me later,” I say quickly, walking out the door.