Page 77 of Forgotten
“I’m serious. I’m not fucking you until you quit your drugs.”
Ash interrupts me. “What about me fucking you?”
“Not with that mouth, no.” I push him away, and there’s no kisses that morning.
I try chasing the memory, but there’s nothing else. In 2024, I lean in to kiss Ash and he tilts his head back to meet me halfway.
???
On Thursday I knock at the door of the dining-room while Ash is working on his PhD. I don’t like to interrupt him, but he greets me with a smile and gestures for me to come close.
I deliver a kiss onto his lips. “I know you haven’t been asking and I know you probably don’t want to push me.But maybe we could talk about the adoption order later?” I ask.
Ash stares at me wordlessly and a gasp escapes his parted lips.
His silence makes me panic, my eyelids twitch. “If you are still interested, that is?” I add, and Ash almost falls off the chair.
“Of course! Yes, of course we can talk about it.”
“Good. ‘Cause I clearly have no idea where we’re at and I don’t even know our social worker.” I consider taking a seat at the table but Ash looks busy, a thousand tabs open on his laptop. So I walk backwards, to the door. “I want to keep her, Ash. I want-”
A flash.
“I want Winnie to be completely ours. I don’t want anyone else to be her parents and I don’t want to have any other child. I want the recitals, the abandonment issues, the curfews. I want everything with her. With you.”
My back hits the door and I cry out in pain.
“Are you okay?” Ash asks, jumping off his chair and reaching for me.
One of his hands sneaks around my neck and he towers over me, holding my weight up and off the wooden door. I don’t know what’s harder, Ash’s chest against mine or the literal wood behind me. How could I ever forget how tall this man is?
“I just… stumbled. Keep doing what you’re doing. We’ll talk later. I’m okay.” I hold onto Ash’s shirt a tad longer and he must know I’m bluffing. With a tentative smile I leave the room and hide in the kitchen. Closing the door behind me, I try to make sense of the memories. Why now?
With every new piece of information, I feel more imbalanced. Instead of going back to its normal axis, the world keeps shifting further and further until I have no idea where I am standing.
In the kitchen, I take a deep breath, hold it in and let it go. I stare at my feet and count to ten, thinking of Winnie.
That afternoon, Ash talks me through the entire adoption process. He hands me our folder and explains to me every document, from our application in 2023 to the moment we were assigned a small human.
“You know you cannot go back on this decision right?” Ash warns me in his protective father voice. I wish I didn’t find it extremely sexy. “Once we decide we’re in this, amnesia or not, we are in this. Together. We cannot give her up, we cannot decide we can’t keep her. No returns, this is not negotiable. We choose Winnie, Winnie stays forever.”
“I’m sure, Ash,” I assure him, tracing a line around his pale wrist.
“Are you? If we go through with this, she’s ours, Ford. Until the day we die.”
Time stops.
Ash greets me with a bare chest and a wet tongue. “Happy Birthday, love.”
“Thanks, Ash.” I chuckle.
“I never want to spend another birthday without you. Or another day.”
“We spend most of our days together. Clingy fucker.”
“And so it shall be until the day we die.” I have a feeling Ash wants to add something, but then his hand slips into my underwear and all words are forgotten.
???
