The One You Can't Forget (The One, #1)

three

Emyln

My bedroom is exactly as I remember it. Lying in bed and staring at my surroundings makes me feel like I've jumped into a time machine and gone back five years.

Mom and Dad moved into this house a couple months after Rosa was born and three years before I came along, though now three of the four of us rarely come here anymore. Hainsey and I used to hang out here a lot when we were kids. I glance at the small grey chair that has a white throw draped across it in the far corner. He always used to sit there because when the door is open, you get a perfect view of it, and he was always scared of what my dad would say if he caught us laying on the same bed. So he would sit there and read while I painted my nails like the rainbow or attempted to create the best country playlist before getting bored. I smile to myself. He was always such a gentleman.

I look around one more time and I feel a jolt of nostalgia, which is quickly followed by sadness. It's as if I can sense the ghost of my eleven-year-old self in here watching Hainsey as he flips through a novel thicker than my fist with the toxic smell of nail polish permeating the air.

Above my bed, on a floating white shelf are about thirty pictures all propped up against the wall, and I notice that each one has been kept in prime condition. There are multiple of me, Hainsey, Val, and Rosa. I think back to all the times we went hiking around Lost Lake, all the geocaching and swimming we did. My heart throbs. Everything used to be so good. Why couldn't it have stayed like that? What did any of us do to deserve what we've been through? Maybe not so much Val, but the rest of us. We were good kids that just wanted to live a life of adventures, smiles, laughs, and good times.

There's another picture adjacent to the one of the four of us, of just Hainsey and I when we played hockey together. He was an amazing hockey player. National Hockey League material in my opinion. His left-handed slap shot could bruise a goalie through his padding, and he could outskate everyone on the team but me. I wonder if he still plays. It's one of the many questions I want to ask him.

I sigh and reach for the water bottle on my nightstand.

Along with the furniture, pictures, and knick-knacks being familiar to me, there's also the smell - fresh, alpine air and pine trees. I close my eyes for a moment and take a deep breath. More memories flash through my mind, things I haven't thought of in years: Dad yelling at Hainsey and I for being too loud when we had a slumber party in the living room, an argument over who got the last spoonful of strawberry cheesecake ice cream, when he had to defend me during a drill and ended up giving me the scar across the bridge of my nose.

We have so many memories together - so many that I can't give up on him just yet. What we felt for each other...there's no way in hell he's lost any of those feelings. But, if there's even the slightest chance he has, I'll just have to find a way to rekindle what I left behind.

Call me greedy, call me selfish, but I don't want anyone else holding his hand or kissing him - two things I wish I could do to him right now. I have no one else to blame except myself for what's destroyed our relationship.

Tears start to pool in my eyes. I could have stayed with him. God knows he needed me. Fuck, he came to me because I'm the only other friend that's ever experienced their parents divorcing; I knew what he was going through and what kind of support he needed.

Yet I failed him.

I wish I could forget all the wrongs I've done.

But that would mean forgetting him.

And it's impossible to forget someone who gave you so much to remember.