Remember to Forget, Revised and Expanded (34 page)

“I can't help it!” I didn't think it was
that
loud.

Delilah giggles. She reaches into her jacket pocket and pulls out a bag of Skittles.

“I was saving these for later, but here you go,” she says, handing them to me.

I smile widely. “Thanks.” I open up the bag and take out a few red ones and give
them to Delilah.

“So, tomorrow's New Year's Eve,” Aiden says, taking a sip of his coffee.

“Yes, nice observation, Aiden,” Delilah says.

He rolls his eyes. “I mean, we should all do something.”

“L-Like w-what?” Mitchell asks.

Aiden shrugs. “I dunno. Just hang out. Watch the New Year's Eve show on TV. Go to
a party.”

“No parties, please,” I say.

Delilah squeezes my hand. “Yeah, no parties.”

“Right,” Aiden says. “Sorry.”

“It's fine. Why don't we all hang out at my house?” I say.

Caleb nods. “Can we get pizza?”

I laugh. “We can get whatever you want.”

“Even a puppy?”

“I mean food.”

“Oh. I'll still come.”

“Well, you're staying at my house, so you kinda have to.”

He shrugs. “You never know. I could go to some random person's party.”

“You wouldn't, though. You love me too much.”

Caleb's eyes dart over to Delilah quickly. “Eh, you're all right. Other people love
you more, I think.”

I glare at Caleb and kick his shin under the table.

The food comes out, and I reach over to grab a piece of bacon from Delilah's plate.

“Hey, that's mine!” she says.

“Too late,” I say, biting into it.

“This is so hot!” Mitchell yells, spitting out the omelet he just bit into.

“Wait, you didn't stutter,” Aiden says, turning to look at Mitchell.

We all go silent and stare at him.

He genuinely smiles and looks very happy. “Y-You're right,” he says happily.

“Maybe because you screamed? Really loud, might I add,” Caleb says. “Thanks for breaking
my eardrum,” he says sarcastically.

“S-Sorry. It's h-hot.”

Aiden laughs.

I've noticed that Mitchell's stutter is slowly getting better. It's not as bad as
when I first met him. I guess speech therapy is helping him.

I turn to say something to Caleb, and when I look back, I notice Delilah is eating
some of my waffles.

“Hey!” I say, pulling my plate away from her.

She shrugs. “You took my bacon.”

I take some of the whipped cream off the top of my waffles and flick it at Delilah's
face.

“Hey!” she says, doing the same to me. She wipes it onto my cheek, and I quickly
rub it off.

Delilah tries to clean the whipped cream off of her face, but doesn't get it all.

“There's some in your hair,” I say, trying to get it out. I put the sleeve of my
flannel down and wipe her cheek that has whipped cream splattered all over it.

“You guys are disgusting. Just kiss already,” Caleb mumbles.

Delilah laughs, and I glare at him.

“We're all thinking it, Caleb just has the nerve to say it,” Aiden says with his
mouth full.

Mitchell nods and raises his eyebrows.

Delilah and I don't say anything; we both just smile at each other.

“You have whipped cream on your nose,” I whisper. She really doesn't, but I quickly
put some on it.

“And you have some right here,” she says, pointing to my chest. I look down, and
she flicks my nose.

“I can't believe I just fell for that,” I mumble.

She laughs. “I can.”

“You're as whipped as the cream,” Caleb tells us.

Chapter Forty-Seven

LEVI

I
'm freaking out for tonight. I don't even know why I'm nervous, but I am.

“What do people have at parties? Am I supposed to get balloons? Party hats? What
about food? Do they have, like, brownies at these New Year's Eve things?” I ask Caleb
as I frantically pace back and forth in my room.

“Well, not
that
kind of brownies.”

I toss a pillow at him in frustration. “You know what I mean!”

He shrugs and laughs. “I never know with you!”

I sigh. “Why am I nervous? It's not like it's an actual party.”

“Because you get nervous over everything.”

“You're not helping.”

“Look, if you want brownies, we can go get regular brownies. We could get a five-layer
cake if you really wanted to. There are no rules to parties.”

I run my hands through my hair and sit down on the edge of my bed. “I just want it
to be fun. I don't want this year to end horribly.”

“It will be great! Don't worry!” Caleb comes and sits down beside me. “We can go
get stuff right now. Do you want to do that?”

I nod. “How are we gonna get there?” My parents went out shopping together, though
I don't know what they're getting.

“I can drive. It can't be that much different than in Australia.”

“It's a lot different. Plus, you can't even legally drive here.”

He shrugs. “I can do it.”

I shake my head. I'm always hesitant getting into cars. Caleb is a good driver in
Australia, but I'm sure it's not legal for him to drive here. And everything is backward.
It makes me too nervous. “I'll call Delilah and ask her to drive us.”

“No, no. We have to plan tonight without her. Call Aiden.”

“Okay?” I don't understand why Delilah can't come, but I call Aiden anyway. He excitedly
agrees to go shopping with us and is at my house within the next five minutes.

Aiden continuously honks his car horn until we're outside.

“I call shotgun,” Caleb yells as we walk out the door.

“We're not twelve-year-olds,” I tell him, rolling my eyes.

He shrugs. “Too bad.”

Even though we're walking to the car, Aiden continues to honk the horn.

“Chill,” Caleb says bluntly when he gets in the car.

“You guys were walking too slowly,” Aiden says, turning up the radio.

We first drive to the party supply store. Aiden insists on getting small fireworks
to set off later. We also get party hats, a bunch of balloons, and sunglasses with
the upcoming year on them. Aiden seems a little too excited about the sunglasses.

Afterward, we go to the grocery store and get way too much food. We pretty much grab
everything off the shelves that looks good to us, which is a lot.

It takes almost two hours to get everything. Once we get back to my house, my dad
is outside in the backyard, setting up a giant movie screen. That's what my parents
went out to buy earlier. Apparently, he's going to set up a projector and make a
bonfire so we can celebrate outside for part of the night, since it's too cold to
stay outside the whole time. It's a little warmer than it's usually been, though.
My dad says it'll be almost like we're in Times
Square. I highly doubt that, but
I go along with it anyway. My mum stands behind my dad, telling him to raise the
screen a little higher on the left to make it level.

It's nice seeing them doing normal stuff again, and getting along.

“So about tonight . . .” Caleb says once we're inside.

I look at him and raise my eyebrows. “What about it?”

“It's New Year's. You know what happens at midnight.”

I feel my cheeks heat up. “I'd rather not talk about this.”

“Well, do you have a plan?”

I shrug. “Not really.”

“You need to have a plan, dude,” Aiden says.

“Levi!” Caleb yells.

“Caleb!” I yell, mimicking him.

“You're so clueless. You can't go into tonight with no plan!”

“Stop being so judgmental about my love life! I can do what I want!”

“I'm just trying to help!”

We're not actually yelling at each other. Both of us are trying really hard not to
laugh. This happens a lot with us, except it hasn't happened for a while, since I
hadn't been talking until recently. It feels great to have things back to normal
with Caleb, because for a long time things weren't like this. I'm so thankful he
was able to come here for two weeks. It's great to have my best friend back.

Caleb starts laughing first, which causes me to laugh too. I hold on to my stomach
after laughing for so long and quickly wipe under my eyes. Aiden laughs the most,
like he usually does.

“I hate you,” I tell Caleb once we've settled down

“You won't be hating me if you actually listen to me.”

“I know what I'm doing,” I tell them. Even though I'm not sure if I do.

Delilah gets to my house around five, right before the sun starts to set. Lucy came
too, to bring me a cupcake she made especially for me. It has a giant blob of colorful
frosting on top and a lot of sprinkles.

“I hope you like it!” Lucy says, hugging my leg.

“I'll have it later! It looks delicious!” I say, kneeling down to her height so I
can actually hug her.

She gives me a huge smile. “My mommy said that today is New Year's Eve, and a giant
ball is gonna drop from the sky. I'm gonna look out the window to see it!”

I laugh. “I hope you see it!” It's funny that she thinks it's going to fall from
the actual sky. Delilah told me about New Year's Eve in New York, so I know what
to expect.

Delilah's mom is standing in my driveway and calls Lucy so they can go back home.

“Bye, Levi!” Lucy yells, hugging me one more time.

“Bye!”

I shut the door and smile widely at Delilah. “Come see what we did!” I tell her excitedly.
I grab her hand and run through the house. I stop in front of the back door and turn
to Delilah. “Wait, close your eyes!”

“Why?” she pouts. She shuts her eyes tightly, though.

“Don't open them.”

“I won't.”

“Promise?”

“Promise,” she says, laughing.

I slowly walk outside, still holding Delilah's hand. I stand her in front of what
we've set up.

“Okay, open!” I tell her.

She quickly opens her eyes and smiles. “This is so cool!” she says, looking at the
projector and screen. “How'd you think of this?”

“Actually, my dad did. It's pretty cool, though, right?”

She nods quickly and smiles even wider. “Isn't it too cold to be out here the whole
time?”

“Yeah. We'll just stay out for a little.”

“Oh, that sounds good.”

She squeezes my hand lightly and walks over to Caleb and Aiden, who are inside.

“Hey, guys,” she says, sitting next to them on the floor. She's still holding my
hand, so I have to sit down too.

“Oh, hi!” Caleb says, as if he wasn't just whispering about us with Aiden. He thinks
I don't know what he's doing, but I could hear him saying our names as we came in.
Hopefully Delilah didn't hear anything.

I wrap my arms around Delilah's waist and rest my chin on her shoulder. She turns
slightly to look at me and smiles.

Caleb smirks and raises his eyebrows.

“So what are you guys doing?” Delilah asks.

“Oh, uh, just setting up some stuff for later tonight,” Aiden answers quickly.

“Oh, cool! I'm so excited. Are those fireworks?” Delilah asks, pointing to the the
bag.

Aiden nods. “I convinced Levi we should buy them.”

“As long as I'm not the one lighting them, it'll be fun.”

“Isn't the snow going to stop them from lighting?” I ask.

“There's not too much snow, so we'll just clear a spot,” Aiden says, shrugging.

I look out the window and see the sun is setting, which is painting the sky different
tones of orange and pink.

I've seen plenty of sunsets before, but never one this bright.

“You're prettier than the sunset,” I whisper in Delilah's ear, pointing outside.

“That was so cheesy,” she mumbles, laughing.

“I know. That was the point.”

“It was very sweet, though.”

Caleb starts coughing hysterically, which I know is fake.

“Don't die,” Aiden says, looking at Caleb weirdly.

“Sorry. Swallowed wrong or something. Jeez, I don't know
what
that could have been!”
Caleb says. He punches his chest a few times.

I roll my eyes. “You're unbelievable,” I mumble. I stand up and take Delilah's hand.

“I choked, and you don't even care!” Caleb says.

“We're gonna go get food,” I say, pulling Delilah upstairs.

“Is Caleb okay?” she whispers.

I shrug. “That's just him.”

I grab a bag of chips and bring it down to everyone. Mitchell texted me saying he's
here, and he's already downstairs when I get there.

“Hey, Mitchell!” Delilah and I say in unison.

He waves excitedly. I also notice he brought Ally, the girl he went to the dance
with. He was talking about maybe bringing her, but he wasn't sure. I'm happy he did.

We all sit around in my basement and eat the pizza Caleb wanted, or should I say,
demanded.

“What are everyone's resolutions?” Caleb asks with his mouth full.

“D-Don't st-stutter,” Mitchell says quietly. Ally smiles at Mitchell and reaches
over to hold his hand.

“Get accepted to a college,” Aiden says. “What about you, Caleb?”

“I'm pretty content with everything as it is,” he says, shrugging his shoulders.
“What about you guys?” he says to Delilah and me.

I shrug.

Delilah looks at me and smiles. “I'll just take whatever this year brings.”

“Me too,” I say, entwining my fingers with Delilah's. I play with her fingers nervously.
There's so much more I want to say, but I'd rather keep it to myself. I'm afraid
if I say it, it won't come true. I don't want to jinx myself.