Forgetting to Remember

Three Months Later

I took a deep breath, not knowing what to expect, and rolled down the window of my car. 

“Hey stranger.” I tried to smile, but looking at Talia made me sad. I mean, she looked the same, but even as she walked away from the school, ready to walk home, there was a lack of spring in her step. She had always strutted around, no matter where she went. Not in a pompous way, just full of confidence. She was confident in herself. Now she walked with her shoulders hunched in, like a starving vulture. Her eyes weren’t evil, they just never smiled.

“God dammit Aaron, you nearly gave me a heart attack.” There was no humor in her voice, but I still tried to spare a smile. 

“We wouldn’t want you in the hospital again now would we.” I only realized how bad that had sounded after the fact. “Come on Aarib. If you want her in a good mood you cannot mention that…” I chastised myself. We hadn’t had the time after the chaos of everything, and I hadn’t wanted to stress her out when she was going back to school after missing almost a month of work. “Sorry, I-“

“It’s whatever Aaron.” For a second I thought I might have seen that pinch of compassion back in her eyes. Like her only care was not hurting anyones feelings again. But it was wiped away quickly as she looked away from me, and I could feel the sad bubble of hurt welling up inside my chest.

“Let me drive you home.”

“No.”

“Please?”

“No.”

“Talia, I’m taking you home even if I have to throw you in my trunk.”

“Stranger danger!” Her smile gave me so much hope.

“Just get in.” It was almost normal, friendly, laughable.

Reluctantly, she walked around to the other side of my car and I took a deep breath. I had to talk to her. For the thousandth time, we had to work this out.

She slammed the door as she got in the car, and I couldn’t help but be afraid that she had some sort of pent up aggression towards me. The ‘what if”s of my mind bubbled as I tried to shit them down. I needed to keep an open mind. I needed to talk to her.

“Where were you headed?” 

“No where in particular.” I had planned it out so that my window would be closer to her side of the street and she would recognize me. I hadn’t thought far enough in advance that I would have to turn around, and her house wouldn’t seem so “on the way” to the gym or a place I could normally fake my way into going to.

“Stalker much?” She rolled her eyes, but I struggled to tell if she was joking or not. 

“Hey, it got you in my car.” I tried to be funny, but she just gave me a look I couldn’t read. I could never really read Talia. Girls are difficult anyway, but she was always something. She hid a lot, but something said she was hiding more than usual. I used to be able to decipher her in little ways, but now it was all just something else. She had really taken the time to build up her walls; I wanted to show her I was ready to scale them again.

She wouldn’t look at me either. She had always had this thing for looking people in the eye when she spoke. Though I kept my eyes on the road, I knew her gaze wasn't on me. I wasn’t good enough for that anymore.

“Look Talia I-“

“Don’t.”

Sigh.

“You never listen do you?”

“Stop Aaron.” I stopped at a stop sign, not knowing exactly what she meant. I was not letting her get out of this car with things like this. So I just stayed stopped. We sat in a silence that I was waiting for her to break, but she didn’t seem to want to break anything. She seemed too broken already.

“I’m sorry Talia.”

“You know what? I’m sorry too.” I could hear the anger in her voice that I hadn’t heard since the day she woke up. Had she even known I was there? Maybe I didn’t want her to know just that. “I’m sorry that my boyfriend hated the fact that I was trying to fix us. It was dumb.” The scorn in her voice when she said “us” pricked my heart in a way only Talia had ever had control over. We sat in so much silence, that I didn’t even know what to say. No one had seen Nick since that day in the hospital room when he confessed everything. Talia hadn’t pressed charges and I hadn’t inquired why.

 I didn’t know how long we sat together, but eventually I had let myself ease past the stop sign. Before I knew it, we were on her block, and I still hadn’t said anything I had wanted to say. I hadn’t apologized for putting her through everything I put her though, and I could never apologize enough for hitting her that one night that seemed like forever ago-the night we met up and she told me about Nicholas. Ugh, just thinking the name makes me want to gag. But thinking about what I’d done makes me want to hurl even more. 

My throat clenched up in rage just thinking of it. Not because of how I had felt, but because of how I had acted on my anger. Talia always had this control over me where I could never control my emotions with her. She had always wanted me to be real, but that…that was never me. She had to believe me.

As if knowing, my car cut the engine in front of Talia’s house. We sat there in silence. 

“Well, thanks for the ride.” She went to get out of the car, her right hand swinging the door open.

“Wait Talia, look I’m sorry I-“

“Forget it Aaron.” Her eyes were as cold and as calculating as ever. The fire of passion and curiosity had only left charcoal and burt residue in its place. “If you’re going to ask me to forgive you for anything, the answer is simple. I can’t.” Her words stunned me. My heart dropped to my stomach.

“Forgiveness is man-made. Its false hope we put in others to make ourselves feel better. We want the pain to end, but the truth is it never will. That’s how sacred trust is. You have to be careful where you decide to break it. Goodbye Dylan.”

She walked out of sight and into her house a completely different person than she had walked into that diner that fatal night. For some reason, I couldn’t determine which was worse.