Page 46 of Forgotten
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The way to the station is quick and the train is deserted. It’s a fast ride to Sheffield station but I still decide I deserve a nap. I set three alarms so I don’t miss my stop and when I wake up, I’m starving, drowsy, and in dire need of caffeine.
I’m at Ford’s house by 8:00 a.m. and I have no idea why I’m nervous, like it’s the first day of school. I ring the doorbell anyway, sweaty from the walk uphill.
“Hello?” a feminine voice answers and without waiting for my response, the door opens. I take the stairs two at a time until I reach the second floor, where a young woman wearing all black is waiting for me. Her expression is serious as she lets me in without greeting me or introducing herself. She keeps inspecting me as if I’m a painting behind a protective glass or some sort of extra-terrestrial creature. When she does not say a word, I break the silence.
“Hi, you must be Vicky. Nice to meet you.” Ford has told me about his new roommate and almost-girlfriend.
“You must be Ashley.”
“You can call me Ash.” I smile at her, but she does not return it. Perhaps she’s not a morning person.
Shaking her head, she says, “No, I don’t think I will.”
And I guess that is the end of it. Vicky leads me down a corridor, and I can only hope Ford is awake. He has not replied to any of my messages.
“Ashford told me everything about you,” Vicky announces, stopping before a closed door.
“Everything?”
“Everything. He even told me about that one time you pushed your tongue down his throat. Told me all the details,” she confirms.
I doubt he did, but I decide to play along. “I might need to kill him, then.”
“I wish you wouldn’t. I rather care about him.”
Without knocking, Vicky opens the door letting me into Ford’s room before she disappears.
The curtains are half closed, but even in the dark room, I spot Ford immediately. He’s in a small single bed, legs tangled messily around the blanket. There’s a book by his bed, and another one open in front of him. His old guitar is discarded on the floor and the new shiny viola is carefully perched against the wall.
“Finally!” Ford gets up and out of bed, throwing everything down. With bare feet and a black pyjama shirt he walks to me and wraps his strong arms around my shoulders. “Good morning.”
Leaning into the hug, I take a deep inhale of sweet Ford scent. He chuckles, smelling me back. That’s when he notices.
“Whoa. Hair.”
Ford pulls back and holds me in place, then proceeds to closely inspect my face and my new hairstyle.
“Do you like it?” I’ve let my hair grow for the past six months, and just yesterday I got a haircut to fix the shape. Now it barely touches my shoulders, the front pieces are shorter but long enough that I can tuck them behind my ears and pull it all in a bun.
“I love it, man. Wow. Your face looks, like, so different, like,” Ford stumbles, looking for words. “You look handsome.”
“My jawline, right? And what about this?” Grabbing the elastic band around my wrist, I gather the hair and tie them up as messily as I can.
Ford takes a couple of steps back and assesses the situation.
“Yep,” he grants. “Yep.” It’s softer, the second time the word escapes his lips.
The entire day, Ford stares at me. He stares as we walk around the city and Ford shows me that one store and that one pub, as we climb up the highest hill to the university library to return a textbook, breaths short and temples sweaty. I feel his eyes on me as we go through the Winter Garden, an indoor area in the middle of the city where trees are growing freely, and I catch Ford staring in the reflection on the glass. His cheeks turn rosy but he doesn’t look away. Ford’s eyes are on me as we share a coffee and a sausage roll, and when it gets dark and we decide to meet his friends at the pub, I’m exhausted from all the attention.
The pub is full and loud and hot, and there’s a live band playing. Ford points me to a group of people and the only person I recognise is Vicky, who blows Ford anair kiss.
He blows one back, and the act seems sincere. I have never seen Ford really infatuated with someone, and it makes me nauseous. I don’t feel like socialising, so Ifollow him to the bar instead. I don’t care to mingle right now, don’t care to acknowledge Vicky’s existence.
Studying the menu, Ford sighs. “This shit is illegible.”
“Did you mean, unlegible?"
