The Forever List

by Lena Fox

  He wasn’t in the bed beside me, and when I squinted at the red LCD clock on the dresser it told me it was almost midday. The smell of bacon wafted into the room. Is he making breakfast? I smiled, then frowned, wanting to cry. Saying goodbye now was going to be so hard.

  With a deep breath I got up and pulled back the curtains, letting the golden sunlight stream in, warming my body. A quick glance down at the front yards below showed Blake’s elderly neighbor collecting his newspaper, looking disapprovingly right back up at me standing naked in the window. I cringed and stepped back out of view.

  I got my clothes on just as Blake walked in, holding a plate the same color as the sunlight. I could smell sweet dough and eggs along with the bacon.

  “Brunch?” He looked incredibly proud of himself as he held the plate out and I stared down at the thing on it, unsure what it was. He must have read the expression on my face because he said, “It’s a bacon and egg wafflewich. A sandwich on waffles.”

  I put my shoes on and shook my head as I tried to locate my purse. Maybe I’d left it downstairs. “Blake, our night is over. I have to go.”

  Blake looked defiant. “I know you promised only one night, and you gave me that, but there’s so much more I want from you. I want to be with you, as long as I can. At the very least I want to share this magnificent breakfast creation with you and give you your present.”

  I was ready to walk away for the both of us, but something seemed more and more suspicious. He had never offered to make me breakfast before, and on top of the whole song and dance and carnival routine, the last twenty-four hours had been more than a little over the top. Why would he do all of this?

  I raised my eyebrows, intrigued. “The breakfast isn’t the present?”

  “Nope. The present is out back.”

  “I really have to go.” This was Cinderella’s last ball and it’s way, way, way past midnight.

  He waved the plate under my nose provocatively.

  My stomach growled like a bear, and the cramp of hunger that accompanied that growl was damn well painful. I took the plate and then took a bite of his wafflewich creation. He had put syrup on the bacon and eggs and it oozed out between my teeth. The waffle was puffy and delicious, the bacon crisp and salty against the sweet maple syrup, and the eggs were tasty and runny.

  “So good,” I got out through a mouth stuck together with dough. It was the perfect combination of sugar, salt, carbs, and fat that made my stomach happy. I took a second bite, then with great strength of will, put the rest back on the plate and started walking out.

  “Present first,” Blake said, and scooped me up around the waist.

  “Blake, I’m saying no. This isn’t funny anymore.”

  I could feel Blake tense. His voice lost the playfulness it had had before. “Just receive your gift, and then tell me no one last time, and I will never bother you again.”

  Out the back door, Blake set me down in the yard. An old concreted area looked out over an overgrown field of weeds and dying trees. A grumpy-looking garden gnome lay on the path half hidden in the tall grass. The drive-through garage was open at the back, showing a messy workshop filled with metal parts, two half-finished motorbikes, and grease stains. Parked just outside he had a gleaming new motorbike. It was cherry red, small, sleek, and simple, with chrome accents.

  “What do you think?”

  “Of the gnome?”

  Blake laughed. “No, what do you think about your bike? I built it just for you.”

  Overwhelmed, the blood drained from my face. Again, that feeling of all this being somehow familiar came back. I couldn’t figure it out though, nor could I understand why he was giving me a bike. A whole damn motorbike.

  I shook my head, confused. “Blake, that had to be so expensive. You could sell it and make yourself some money.”

  “I don’t care about the money. I want you to have this gift.”

  “I don’t even know how to ride. I haven’t wanted a bike since I was … a kid.”

  The anonymous flowers …

  The music video scene …

  The carnival …

  The unicorn …

  The motorbike …

  Oh.

  My.

  God.

  I almost fainted. My mouth opened and shut so fast I must have looked like a fish out of water gasping for air. It all made sense, a horrible and embarrassing sense.

  “My list,” I whispered. “I put all this stuff on a list when I … before I went into treatment at fifteen. But how did you know?”

  Blake’s eyes smiled at me. “I was wondering when you would work it out.”

  “You do have my list! How? Did my dad tell you? Oh god, do you have my diary?” I blushed so hard it felt like flames were going to leap out of my skin. “That was private! I wrote that a long time ago. I don’t even remember exactly what I wrote on it. Wasn’t there something about Niagara, or getting—”

  Blake put a finger to my mouth. “Uh-uh. No spoilers.”

  I stood there, dazed for a few moments, blinking rapidly to fend off the threat of confused tears. “Why are you doing this?”

  Blake took both of my hands, and sat down on the seat of the motorbike so he was looking me straight in the eyes. “Your bucket list, as much fun as it was to do with you, came from a place of darkness and desperation. You told me once you had written another list when you were a kid. A list filled with hope and innocent dreams. I wanted to complete the items on that list for you. I wanted to do something for you that would bring back the girl you were before you were ever touched by cancer.”

  My blinking stopped, and a tear dropped heavily from my cheek.

  I wanted to say no because I knew that letting Blake work his way through my list of childhood dreams would keep me from being able to let him go when I needed to, and I needed to, whether I wanted to or not.

  “I don’t know. We’re not in a relationship. We’re not together. That’s over now.”

  “We don’t need to be in a relationship for this list. It’s not like your last one.”

  I could see he was dead set on this. He’d sung and danced in front of a full cafeteria, and built me a motorbike. I doubted he’d back away from this easily.

  I bowed my head. “If you really want to do my childhood list for me anyway, maybe we can do some of it, but I get to see it first and approve the things on it.”

  Blake grinned, showing all his teeth. “Not a chance.”

  “But it’s my list!”

  “Yes, it is, but I have it and you don’t, and that’s just the way it is.”

  “That’s not fair! I need to see the list again. I can’t remember it all. How do I know you aren’t getting me to do all kinds of wacky things that aren’t even on it?”

  “You’ll just have to trust me.”

  “What if you take us out to rob a bank or have me hypnotized to howl like a Beagle every time someone sneezed? How would I know that wasn’t on my list?”

  Blake snorted a laugh. “Would you have ever put those on your list?”

  “No,” I admitted.

  “Then don’t worry about it.”

  I gnawed on my bottom lip. I trusted Blake, but I wasn’t sure I trusted myself. I had cooked that list up when I was fifteen. At fifteen, my biggest ambition was to grow up to be a famous artist. Then, after the cancer diagnosis, I just wanted to grow up. What could I have I written on that list?

  And where had I written it? Did I write it in my diary? Did that mean …?

  “How did you get it? Did you read my diary? Did Dad give it to you?”

  Blake gave a strong shake of his head. “Your dad didn’t have any part of it. And I didn’t read your diary.”

  I blew out a slow breath of relief. He must’ve had to poke around though. Who knows what he found or saw. I wanted to be mad that he’d gone through my private stuff, but only felt overwhelmed. I’d forgotten about my first bucket list like I’d forgotten most of my childhood dreams, and Blake had brough
t it back into existence. For me.

  Maybe I did need some childhood dreams to come true.

  Blake still had my hands held in his, and he squeezed them gently. “Come on. This bike here is an item on your list, and you should take a ride at least before you decide that you don’t want her.”

  I pulled my hands free and wiped my cheek. “I don’t know how to ride on my own.”

  “Then I’ll give you a ride on it.”

  The bike gleamed and sparkled in the sunlight. All of a sudden I wanted nothing more than to be on it, my arms wrapped around Blake and the road flying past below our feet.

  I nodded. “Take me for a ride.”

  We got on the bike and he revved the engine. The wind was cold but the leather jacket he gave me was warm, and the leaves blew down over us as we buzzed through the streets. Paused at a red light, I saw a girl in the car beside us looking at me with envy, and I could see myself reflected on the windows of the car she sat in.

  My hair hung below the helmet, tousled and wild, my arms were wrapped around Blake’s taut waist, and the sexy machine below us growled and thundered. I looked like someone else—someone who did exciting things just because she could. I looked brave, sexy, and free.

  The bike shuddered as we peeled away from the intersection, heading into a long stretch of the city where the hills went straight down.

  I screamed and laughed as we rode the hills. It was like the carnival all over again but a heck of a lot more exciting. Once the tires left the road completely and we hung in the air, suspended for a long heartbeat. Fear and adrenaline mixed with the sensation of Blake’s body next to mine, his muscles flexing and tensing as he took us back down safely then roared to the top of another hill that spat us out close to the lake. We rode alongside it, the unsealed roads dipping into low valleys and rising up again on high peaks, showing glimpses of the sparkling water through the trees.

  It was hours later when we pulled back into Blake’s driveway, and I was exhausted and invigorated. He cut the bike off, and helped me to dismount. “What do you think?”

  “I love it,” I said sincerely.

  I did, but I didn’t want it for myself. I wanted to ride behind Blake, to embrace him for hours like that all over again. My inner thighs and arms, my chest, and even my palms all radiated warmth that had come from his body. His flesh had been imprinted onto my own, and I missed him even though he was standing a bare foot away from me.

  “It’s yours, Georgie, whenever you want it.” His lips came close to my mine, and I wanted to kiss him. I could imagine that kiss happening, feel it in the tingle of my lips … but I drew back.

  Nothing had changed. Blake was still the sweetest, most generous man alive, and I was still the tragedy waiting to happen. He could finish the new list, but he couldn’t be mine.

  Blake cleared his throat, breaking the awkward silence. “I'm glad you worked out we’re doing your childhood list. It was fun, ticking things off without you even realizing, but the next item I couldn't really do without you knowing and agreeing. This makes things much easier.”

  “So I do get to know something on the list?”

  “You agree to do it, then I’ll tell you. If you can get it done this afternoon, I’ve got another surprise for you tonight.”

  I wasn’t even sure why he felt he had to do this. Was it simply his attempt to win me back? Or was he doing this because he felt responsible for me? Did he love me, or was it some misbegotten sense of loyalty that he felt for me?

  I wished I could just give in and be with him without any kind of bullshit emotion getting in the way, but it wasn’t that easy. The way we had met made sure of that. I would never be able to be sure if he loved me or just felt obliged to be with me, thanks to my lists and my issues.

  Still, I was going to let Blake work through this list for me. I couldn’t say no to him, and half the truth was that I was dying from curiosity. I honestly couldn’t remember what was on that damn list, but I wanted to know, and the only way to find out was to play the list out.

  “I’m in.”

  Chapter Seven

  BLAKE

  Sneaking into Georgina’s childhood bedroom was one of the hardest things I’d ever done. Harder than breaking and entering at the pool. Harder than any of the wild items on Georgina’s bucket list.

  The incredible guilt, the feeling of invading her privacy and her past overwhelmed me. Not to mention the fear of being busted sneaking around by Tom. I almost gave up and walked away. When she found out what I’d done, would she find it romantic? Or be angry that I’d intruded somewhere so personal without permission? Romantic gestures sucked like that. They were never as simple as they seemed in the movies.

  But I was determined. A list brought Georgina into my life, and maybe a list could bring her back to me. Or if I couldn’t win her back, maybe I could bring her some joy with what was on that older, more innocent list. Fill her with good memories of our time together to bury any pain she wanted to forget. That would be worth it.

  I stared around at her room, filled with a huge collection of plastic ponies and stuffed animals, and shelves crammed with everything from coloring books to young adult vampire romances. The bedspread was printed with rainbows and fluffy pink clouds, and a teddy bear with a light-up heart still rested on the pillow.

  Her dad hadn’t changed a thing. I’d heard him mention once he kept meaning to turn the space into a walk-in pantry but didn’t want the hassle of renovating. I think he kept it that way to remind himself of the girl Georgina used to be.

  I sat on the small bed and opened the neon pink and rhinestone-decorated shoebox I’d found in back of the closet.

  I wished I could tell Georgina how I had felt when I pulled the lid off and found her wig.

  It was a lifeless, limp mess of brownish-red strands with a tiny bit of curl on the ends, nothing like her real hair which was dark and wild. I picked it up and held it. It smelled like dust and salt. Like tears and heartache.

  I got lucky—under the wig was a journal, covered in sequins with one of those flimsy locks that had been broken open long ago. There was also a bottle of prescription-strength pain pills. A note had been stuffed inside, and through the orange plastic I read, ‘You can get through this. Only take what you need.’

  I stared at that for a long time, because the handwriting wasn’t Georgina’s, and the pills weren’t hers either. They had belonged to her mother.

  She had lost her mom, then had been fighting the same disease that had taken her mom away from her, when she was just a kid. How bad had it been for Georgina? I knew that it had put her through a lot physically. I could guess it had wrecked her self-esteem too.

  And having to go through all of that while in high school … High school was easy for me. I was a big guy, good at sports, and was dating the hottest girl in school, who was already getting interest from record labels. What would it have been like if I had been sick, suffering from pain and exhaustion, and dealing with the loss of my mother?

  I should give Ma a call tomorrow.

  I’d been happy to leave Pa behind, and the rest of England, and all the hard memories of what happened there. I’d needed to start fresh and a new country was as fresh as I could get. But Ma was Ma. She was a good woman, and I missed her. I should have told her that more often, and that I loved her. Life was too short and unpredictable.

  Seyvia’s was short, too short, but there was something almost inevitable about her death. I had felt her leaving me, slipping farther away every day. The more famous she got, the more distant from me she grew. For a while I’d just thought she was going to break up with me. She’d slipped far enough out of my grasp that I’d lost any influence over her, so when things got dire, when the partying and drugs got out of control, she wouldn’t even accept my help.

  I’d beat myself up over that for years. There must have been something else I could have done, something I could have said to wake her up to what she was doing to herself before it was too lat
e. I’d never know. It had happened. And there was no coming back from death for a second chance.

  That was why I needed this second chance now, with Georgina. I only had this life, and I was going to make it count.

  Even if getting that second chance meant doing something terrible, like looking in her diary.

  With a deep breath, I opened the journal. Inside was cute and incredibly girly, with little hearts drawn on most of the pages.

  No reading. Just flick through. A list should be obvious.

  It was hard not to read. Individual words would catch my eye as the pages flashed past under my thumb. Words like kiss, or stood-up, or hurt. Words stained with teardrops.

  I almost gave up, then near the end I found a separate sheet of purple paper, folded neatly and tucked inside.

  I closed the diary and carefully unfolded the loose page. I found it.

  Her childhood list made me laugh and scratch my head. It was full of whimsy and childlike ideas of romance. Underneath all the list items she’d written, ‘Make amazing memories that last forever’. This was her Forever List, and the pressure of making it perfect hit me.

  How am I going to do these things?

  It seemed impossible at worst, and at best, extremely embarrassing.

  If past me knew that one day I would be dancing across a cafeteria to a song I never liked to get a date with a girl who’d already told me she wasn’t interested, I would have thought I’d gone nuts. If it had been any other girl I would have let her go, but Georgina wasn’t just another girl. She was the girl, and I knew it.

  Now that she’d finally worked out I had her list, it was obvious she was worried, but curious. She honestly couldn’t remember what she’d written on it. That made things even more interesting. It was going to be a lot of fun playing it out.

  After taking her for a ride on her new bike, I wanted to kiss Georgina and drag her back to bed with me, but she pushed me away. She’d said last night was our last time together, and she was sticking to that decision, for now. She was still refusing a romantic relationship, or being friends with benefits, or whatever it was that we said we were in the past.