The "Forget You" Brew

IV.

"Wait...Likha, wait!" 

Kyle tripped on his own leg and almost stumbled onto the pavement as he followed Likha out the café. He watched her scan both ends of the road and sniff the air,perhaps for any traces of Allison or of Tim's specialty drink. 

"There," she murmured, gazing down the left side of the road. Her grasp tightened around the carrier handle as she began to walk toward that direction. Kyle struggled to keep up for a little while, and he wondered whether Likha being part bunny also meant she was as swift. 

"What do you mean by erasing memories?" he asked when he finally fell in stride with her. "Is that even possible?" 

"It is, with the afforgeto." 

"But why would Tim give her that?" 

Likha stopped in her tracks and looked Kyle in the eye."Because that was what she needed, Kyle," she replied, then lifted the carrier for him to see the abandoned white bunny Tim had turned over to her. "See her? She's Allison's, and let's just call her Milk. Every single story I saw from Milk's eyes is a memory anchored to you . . ." 

The look in Kyle's face spelled utter confusion."Can't you see? Your stories are connected, but because neither of you is willing to tell this shared story, it's . . . it's eventually just going to fade. And fast—if we don't find her. Now come on!" Her free hand grabbed Kyle by the wrist and tugged, willing him to sprint with her. Before they could get farther down the street, however, a black motorcycle with a sidecar stopped in front of them. 

Driving it was Tim, who tossed them each a helmet."Hop on. You need to be faster than this to get to her." 

. . . . .

"Hi, I'm Allison. You left this at the gym after PE." 

This was how their longest conversation began, in high school freshman year almost eight years ago. Kyle's family had recently moved from a rural state a long way away from the city, and he spent most of his first weeks at school avoiding eye contact. Or any kind of physical contact, for that matter. Everyone called him a geek for some reason,but his seatmate Allison only thought him shy. She had tried making conversation in class every so often, but even though he would politely reply, she took his single-worded answers as a sign he wasn't up for a chat. 

"T-thanks." Kyle abruptly pulled the sketchbook from Allison's hands. She thought he was upset over her retrieving it, but instead of apologizing, she sat beside him and asked a question. 

"Did you draw all that?"

"Y-yeah." 

"That's awesome. I mean, I'm sorry I had to snoop and all,but you're really talented." 

Allison remembered how the first few pages of Kyle's freshman-year sketchbook were filled with comic-book heroes and heroines and detailed sketches of body parts,such as hands in different poses or eyes that conveyed various emotions. He fascinated her in that he was so different from all the other kids she'd gone to school with since elementary school. The girls now were all into fashionable clothes and makeup and dating, while the boys were all into sports and loud music and sneaking cigarettes inside campus. 

And then there was Kyle, who seemed like all he wanted was to draw. 

She could still recall how happy she felt when he began talking to her about his drawings. Which ones he really liked, which ones he found difficult to draw, and which artists he admired. She never thought he would really open up to her like that, but he did, and she thought of it an achievement.