Forget Me Not: Chapters 15–24

We walk side by side, away from the road and along the split-rail fence, which soon turns into welded wire laced around thick wooden posts.

“So what exactly is it that you do on the farm?” I ask as we walk past a couple of grain silos.

I swipe my sleeve across my face to clear my vision and see her vigorously stirring two pots of spaghetti sauce simultaneously.

When she finally deems my pile of vegetables diced, we get to work assembling each of the three types, spreading them out evenly over a few sheet pans.

Not that Confederate flags are particularly hard to find around here, but most people don’t have flagpole-sized ones billowing from their mode of transportation.

They’re just after a shred of excitement, since the fair is pretty much the only novelty that goes on within a thirty-mile radius of Wyatt.

One hundred pocketknives are stuck blade down into a spinning contraption shaped like a giant tiered wedding cake.

Ryan looks on, eyes wide in utter shock as he steps closer to me, lowering his voice.

“It’s not the same. I need the full experience,” I tell him as we head out of the games section.
“The exorbitant prices, the hundreds of sweaty people around you, the smell of mud and porta-potties,” he jokes.

We slow our pace, listening to them bicker about whether or not the malt vinegar on their fresh-cut fries was watered down this year, as the smell of greasy funnel cakes swirls all around us.

Basically anything that doesn’t involve Wyatt. It’s not that I ever had any concrete dreams or plans, but this town is like...dead. It has been for as long as I’ve been alive. There will never be any new ideas or beliefs.

“Who? Me and Nora?” He snorts out a laugh. “What gave us away? Our lustful greeting? Our palpable chemistry?” he asks sarcastically.

“No. I mean, she’s selling tickets to raffle off the cow that’s just been lying at her feet all day. She’s probably bummed about having to kill the cow for meat,” I tell him, proud of myself for solving this very inconsequential case.

I’ve been going to Mass my whole life, so I’m used to sitting through the fifty minutes of monotony and the gossip that spreads after, but today…I just wanted to get the hell out of there.

I can figure out the logistics of picking up and re-delivering a cow later.

“Bye, Ryan,” I say before hanging up and trying not to think too much about what a second date might entail.

“You seemed super bummed at the fair that night and I know you’re vegan, so I thought maybe it was your favorite cow or something and it was about to get...you know.” I run my thumb across my neck, clicking my tongue.
Nice, Stevie. Way to be delicate.

The green paint is faded and scuffed, and the tires are heavily caked with mud.

Nora twists the throttle and my weight gets thrown backward all of a sudden, sending a screech from my throat that I don’t even recognize as my own voice.

She drops the staple gun to the ground and gives me a deadpan look. “Stevie, I can’t think of a single thing that I would rather do less than run around with some dumb boy this summer.”

“God, I hope not. I was serious the other day about wanting to get out of here someday. I can’t live in Wyatt forever, and if you haven’t picked up on it, my mom and I don’t exactly…mesh,” she says as she squeezes the trigger on the staple gun with a loud click.

Talking to her feels so...freeing. No history to bog us down.

No underhanded comments or pressure to do something I might not be ready for.

Even more shocking, people travel from all over the tricounty area to drive their pickup trucks around in it. People like Savannah’s boyfriend, Jake, and all his friends. And inexplicably, they apparently all dress like the flag even though there’s nothing particularly patriotic about it.

He quickly gets his answer as we crest the hill and everything opens up to a mud pit the size of a football field, filled with trucks so caked in it that you can’t even tell what color they are.

He gives him one shove. It isn’t very hard, more like he’s trying to create distance than fight, but it’s enough to knock him off-balance in his inebriated state.

“Ewww,” I groan, sinking my gloved hands into the vat of meat and dropping a hunk into the bag.

She hops up onto her feet, completely forgoing the display and finally looking at me.

I try to imagine what type of guy she would date, tall or short, muscular or lanky, what color hair, but I can’t see it.

I watch as they manically gather up every last remnant and shove it back into the box as quickly as humanly possible.