Free Forget You by Jennifer Echols

the eye, especially men, when you were trying to control a situation.
    I was scared to see the expression on Doug's face, but I forced my eyes upward from the rubber tips of his crutches, his one tanned foot in a battered leather flip-flop, and the other splinted leg he held awkwardly a few inches off the ground. Upward to his cargo shorts, loose around his waist. Like me, he must have lost weight since competition started. The heathered gray waistband of his underwear peeked out above his shorts. His FSU SWIMMING T-shirt was so old and loved, the dark red had faded to a doubtful magenta.
    Finally my gaze reached his clean-shaven jaw locked in anger, his angry eyes. He glared down at me with exactly the look he'd given me last night at the game.
    Hastily I dropped his hand.
    And then he took a slow breath. His chest expanded and his broad shoulders rose. He exhaled through his nose. The anger left his eyes. He gave me a small nod. "You mean you need to break up with Brandon officially? You want to tell him in person to get closure? I mean, yeah, but, you're not going out with him tonight, are you? You don't need to go out with him to break up with him."
    "I'm not breaking up with him." The porch was shady, but even the sunlight beyond us in the courtyard was too bright and fueled the throbbing in my forehead. "Doug, Brandon is my boyfriend. I'm glad you're okay. I'm glad Mike's okay. I'm grateful to you for pulling me out of the car. But I'm with Brandon."
    "I don't understand," Doug said coldly.
    "I don't know how to make it more clear." The golf ball in my head grew to billiard ball size. "Last night doesn't change the fact that you've hated me since the ninth grade."
    He rocked backward and shifted the pads of the crutches under his arms. "No, I haven't," he said innocently. He might have used his customary honeyed sarcasm. I couldn't tell because the billiard ball had grown to a bowling ball inside my head.
    "You made fun of me to the swim team at the football game," I reminded him.
    "When? No, I didn't."
    He seemed so adamant, I wondered whether I could have been wrong. I hadn't actually heard the boy half of the swim team make fun of me. But this much I was sure of. "You told me I'm a spoiled brat!"
    He gaped at me. "I already apologized for that, Zoey."
    I didn't remember him apologizing. Now brain damage was etched across the bowling ball banging against the inside of my skull. "Look, I have a headache, for real. Thanks for checking on me." I took a step back from him, giving him room to move down the porch steps to his brother's truck.
    He stared blankly at me with those beautiful eyes for a moment more. Then he said, "If I weren't still high from the drugs the hospital gave me intravenously, I think I would be very angry with you right now."
    "What's new?" Saying it made me realize what was new. This misunderstanding with Doug might do more than make our relations worse. It might ruin what I had with Brandon too. "Oh God. You didn't tell anybody about last night, did you?"
    "I haven't had time."
    "Well, don't!" I shrieked. "Doug, you can't say anything to Brandon. Promise me you'll tell Mike and your brother not to say anything to anybody. " Brandon was laid back, but I couldn't expect him to understand my behavior with Doug in the grass last night when I didn't understand it myself. I couldn't lose him just because Doug had dragged me from the wreck!
    "Fine." Doug heaved himself across the porch and down the first step. Tall though he was, he was one of the most agile boys I'd ever seen. It was bizarre to watch him miss the next step with his crutch and stumble forward.
    I leaped to catch him.
    He caught himself with the crutch in time. My hand on his elbow was unnecessary. He was so much heavier than me, I wouldn't have been able to prevent him from tumbling into the sea oats anyway. In full sunlight now, he moved out from under my fingers, across the stone courtyard, without looking back.
    I almost ran forward to