Remember This✔

Chapter Thirty-Seven

"I don't get it," Lauren says as she covers Molly's head with hairspray. Molly starts choking and she evolves into coughing fits as she tries to slap Lauren's hand away. "Sorry. I don't get it. You're not going with Charlie?"

Molly wafts her hand through the air, holding her breath as she walks over to her costume laid out on Lauren's bed. Lauren stares at her with a hairbrush in one hand and her curling iron in the other.

"Molly."

"What?" Molly mumbles.

"What's going on? Talk to me."

"Nothing is going on," Molly says. "Me and Charlie are friends. Jack is. . . he's different but at least I know where I stand with him."

"Different?" Lauren mutters, twisting her lips into a smile. "As in boring." Molly ignores her and sits on the bed. "Have you told him about your illness?"

Molly shakes her head. She's been exchanging messages with Jack since they met in the cafeteria a few days ago, they've spent hours talking to each other every night, spilled most of their life stories over and over, and she still couldn't tell him.

"Why haven't you told him?" Lauren says.

"Why haven't you told Perry about your past?" Molly fires back at her.

"Because he'll look at me differently," Lauren says. "Perry is the first guy that I've liked since. . ." She swallows and glances down. "I don't want to be tied to something tragic for the rest of my life. I don't want to be a victim. Perry can't change what happened to me, it makes no difference. But your illness is different, Molly. You're still in recovery."

"I'm aware."

"Are you scared he'll see you like that, too? A victim?"

"Maybe," she says. "Mostly I'm just scared that he won't see anything else. How do you tell someone that you're just starting to like that you recently tried to kill yourself?"

"You don't have to explain anything to Charlie." Lauren smiles and walks over to the bed. "He knows everything about you and he chose to stay by your side. What about him is exactly turning you off? Is it his good looks? His talent at protecting people that are vulnerable? His infuriating charm? His dedication to making sure that you're safe and you know. . . adopted?"

Molly rolls her eyes and grins. "Charlie is the only reason that I'm alive. That connection will one day turn into a burden and he doesn't deserve that. He doesn't want the complications, not really. And I'm a complicated person."

"Ah, so you're making the choice for him and disguising it as a simple friendship?" Lauren cocks an eyebrow. "There's another word for that in the adult world, Molly and it's called commitment phobia. Dating someone else isn't going to make those feelings go away, they're just going to get stronger and stronger until the day that you cave into them and by then he's moved on with a girl and he's deeply in love with her and your biggest regret will be not listening to me during this conversation. Hello?"

"I'm listening," Molly mumbles as she responds to a text. "He can move on with who he wants, I don't have feelings for him."

"Liar."

"Believe what you want."

Lauren takes a deep breath, finally dropping it. "So, this Camilla chick, should I be worried? Does she really think that Perry likes her in that way?"

"Well she warned me not to steal him off of her so probably," Molly says.

"Perry must have said something to make her think that. We've only been on a few dates but I thought that he really liked me."