Forgotten

Questions

Two days have passed since I caught Stan with my old boyfriend, and I haven't spoken to him since. He had never told me who it was, and I was sick of all the lies. My parents wont tell me. Stan wouldn't tell me. I haven't even seen my siblings. Tyler was stating at a friends house and Chloe was staying at a summer camp for the next few weeks. It was time to take desperate measures.

If I have had a boyfriend for a long time, and he had visited me a lot, then who's to say other people haven't seen him leave? Clearly I live around enough people for SOMEONE to have seen him, and tell me who he is.

I decided to start with someone who has lived next to me my whole life. Someone I have a history of knowing. My next door neighbor, the infamous Karl Fink.

I decidedly walked over to his house, not bothering to knock or anything, but stopping directly outside of his shed. I could hear the pounding of a hammer along with the scrape of metal on metal. The latter send shivers down my back. It sounded awful.

I looked around. I didn't feel like knocking, so I looked around me for another way in. As I was looking, I felt the urge to move his welcome mat. I followed my instinct, and was glad I did. Underneath the mat, sat a tiny, silver key. Feeling more than victorious, I unlocked the door and swung it open.

Karl whipped around, with a hammer in his hand. I felt a blush rise up along my cheeks. He wasn't wearing a shirt. Karl stared at me for a second with shock plain as day on his face. It took me a second, but I managed to look away from his lightly muscled chest and abs. "Avery? What're you doing here?" Karl asked me, covering whatever he had been working on with a cloth.

"Umm, before I tell you, why don't you put on a shirt." it wasn't a question. I was demanding.

He gave me a shy half-smile. "Why? Do you find this," he paused to flex a little, accenting his arm muscles, "distracting  for you?"

Against my own will, I laughed at him flexing. It was a silly thing, but for some reason, I felt at home in this shed. "No, but I want to ask you something, and it would help if you were wearing some clothing on your upper body." I answered, still giggling.

He smiled, walking over to his chair in the corner and putting on his shirt. It was a flannel, button up shirt with long sleeves. in the middle of summer. Weird.

"Hey, Karl, I want to ask you a question, and I need you to be serious."

"Ok." He agreed, going into the 'Thinker' position, with his leg on a chair.

I smiled. "Ok, so you know that I have amnesia, right?"

He gave me a look. "Of course, what do you think? That I'm stupid? The entire town knows."

"Ok, so my family won't answer any of my questions, and I thought that maybe you could?" I asked, pleading at him with my eyes.

He made a gun out of his thumb and pointer finger. "Shoot." He told me, pushing his thumb down pretending to fire a gun. I giggled again.

"So the first question is the most important. Do you know who my old boyfriend was?"

He looked at me with a strange expression, falling right out of the goofy manner he had been in since I had arrived. "Yes. I know who he was."

"GREAT! So can you tell me who he was?"

His face hardened into a mask of blankness, betraying no emotions. "No. I can't and I won't tell you who he was."

I let out a huff. Yet another person keeping secrets from me.

"Fine. Can you tell me something though?"

"Sure." He agreed, letting the mask fall off.

"I've been feeling comfortable here for some reason. And I have an idea, but I need conformation." I explained, watching for his reaction.

He gulped. "Go on."

"Were we friends? Back then, I mean."

Karl nearly fell off of his chair. He righted himself and looked at me. "You could say that."

"What's that supposed to mean?" I asked, narrowing my eyes at him.

"It means, yes. Yes we were friends." He murmured, watching me.

I finally had one answer. Maybe it wasn't the one I wanted, but it was something. I sighed, looking at the boy in front of me. From what I remembered, we were frenemies, but I was fine with being friends. I was so happy that I had an answer, that any rational part of my brain shut down. I ran forwards and wrapped my arms around the boy in front of me.

Karl stiffened a bit underneath my grasp, and I could hear his pulse racing from where my head lay on his chest. It felt right, being here. Karl gingerly wrapped his arms around me. With him being so much more taller than me, I felt his chin rest on the top of my head. I squeezed once, the let go. Karl soon followed suit.

"Well, bye." I whispered, suddenly feeling very shy.

"Goodbye, Avery." I heard him whisper back as I walked out of his shed, following the path back to my house.