I sat in my usual booth seat at Seymours cafe, hands clenched into tight fists under the table. There was pressure ballooning in my chest which made it unbelievably difficult to breathe. And no matter how much I willed myself to remain composed, I couldn't divert my focus from the waves of nausea rushing over me. I swear, if she wasn't half blind, she would see the literal sweat rolling down my forehead.
"Did you hear what I said sweetie?" Agnes blinked up at me, looking so out of place in her dated attire and pastel cardigan in contrast to youthfulness of Seymours.
It was disorientating to see her here. After all these years I never expected we would cross paths again. And now, seeing her here in my world, my everyday, threw me into a chaotic anxious spiral. Everything, seemed foggy and disjointed somehow, as if I were really dreaming.
I wish I was dreaming.
I cleared my throat, "sorry no..."
A grin pricked at her thin lips and she chuckled lightly. She looked much the same as I remembered her. Except now she had more wrinkles on her face and her hands bore the dark spots of ageing. Agnes Briggs was more like a grandmother now, hunched over in the booth seat, soft round eyes sunken and although she had always had grey hair, streaks of white were more prominent now. Since sitting down, she had told me she had stopped fostering kids two years ago, feeling like she had gotten too old for it now. She had moved close by with her husband Jared and their four cats recently to retire. They lived about forty minutes from my house, in an over fifty-fives living village by the beach. She said they enjoyed it, but something told me she missed fostering greatly.
"I asked if you still had those friends of yours? The ones from your last letter," She smiled pleasantly.
I sat for a moment processing her words. It still hadn't sunk in that she was really here, in front of me and talking. It was like seeing a ghost.
Fuck this was difficult.
"Yea," I said.
My mind quickly reeling to the last letter I had written her years before. I use to send her letters every week when I moved, but as time went on I eventually stopped. Every now and then I'd get a letter from her but they sat unopened in my desk draw. My last letter, I had sent sometime after meeting Brielle, Tom and Chris. Around the time I realised they were going to stick around regardless of my bullshit. It was so strange to recall.
"They're great," I continued. "Really, they've done a lot for me," I shared a half smile.
Agnes took a sip from her tea cup happily. I looked away when I noticed her hand shaking slightly as she lifted it to her mouth. "Early Parkinson's disease," she had warned me when we sat down.
"That's wonderful, I'd love to meet them," she chirped.
I considered this idea but quickly pushed the thought away. I had told them about Agnes and briefly touched on my experience with foster care but, I hadn't told anyone the whole story before. I simply couldn't join these two parts of my life together. It might actually unravel me.
"Yea, for sure," I said, with no intention of doing so.
"Well, what else has happened? Other then you growing up so darn fast. You're a grown man, took me a moment to recognise you. You look like you could have been in that movie Greece," she gleamed.
I sat for a moment unsure of what to say. I was making a conscious effort not to to talk about my dad. Thankfully, Agnes seemed to pick up on this and navigated the conversation around it. Not that she liked him much anyways, which was understandable. But with so much of my brain space preoccupied, I was having trouble keeping conversation. What would I possibly tell her I've been up to all these years?
YOU ARE READING
Forget Me Not
Teen Fiction"Do you trust me?" He asked. And at that moment, everything else disappeared. I looked at the beautiful boy in front of me, whom I'd never really spoken too until tonight; the boy that made me feel so embarrassed I wanted to disappear, the boy that...
