Theodora “Teddi” Donovan and Calvin Wynne have always hated each other. They didn't have a choice after Teddi's bootlegger father killed Calvin's and left them both orphaned. The scandal has fueled gossip in quiet, quaint Brookhurst, New York, for over a decade. When a friendship develops between them as teenagers, they are ridiculed and shunned by the strict society that dictates life in their town. As they grow older, friendship turns into love, and Teddi and Calvin have to choose between their future and the scepter of their past. Spanning continents and decades, Forget Me Not is a coming-of-age story about truth, self-reliance, and the freeing power of love.

Water reached his upper calf at the bottom of the shoreline road. It didn't look like anything he'd seen before. Homes that had been there hours before were gone; piles of debris lined the blocks before him. He nearly dropped Teddi several times. Thankfully, the center of town was not flooded. He stopped for only a minute, in order to catch his breath. “You okay, Teddi?” he asked as her eyelids fluttered open.
She nodded. “I can walk if you want me to.” She sounded even weaker than she had in the lighthouse.
Calvin’s heart clenched. “You just hold on to me; I’ll get you home.” He held her closer and began walking again.
“Calvin, holy mackerel!” a sharp, high voice cut through the whistling wind, growing closer by the second. “You okay?”
It was Cindy Marchbeck, running toward him, waving her arm. Calvin noticed he was in front of her father’s hardware store. He spotted Mr. and Mrs. Marchbeck, Cindy’s sister, Harriet, and their younger brother, standing outside, handing out supplies to a group of men. He wondered briefly what they were doing, but then Cindy was upon him, hovering over Teddi.
“Did she get caught in it?” the slightly older girl asked, brow furrowed.
“No,” Calvin grunted. “She’s sick.” The words tumbled out of his mouth as he started walking again.
“Holy mackerel,” Cindy repeated a bit out of breath, following by his side. “It’s so awful. I heard that the Chatfields’ house got torn down. And the Millers and Rochesters and five more I know of up that way. Old Man Hancock got caught in the tide this afternoon, too. My pop doesn’t seem to think Brookhurst got the worst of it though. He got word Westhampton Beach was hit hardest. It just came out of the blue, didn’t it?”
“Look, Cindy, I have to get her home or to a doctor.”
“Doc Jessup and his assistant are up at the school,” she said, still following along as Calvin sped up his stride. “Some of the people who were hurt were rushed over there. A couple of kids, too. I don’t know whose. Dr. Reed and his wife are going from house to house, but I think they are somewhere on the other side of town looking for the injured. Oh, Calvin, this is a nightmare.” Cindy began to cry, her normally pin-curled strawberry blonde hair hung in a straight dull mess over her shoulders. Under any other circumstances Calvin would have made an effort to comfort her, but he couldn’t take his mind off Teddi. She needed him to stay focused.
“Do you know how many people are at the school?” he asked, still moving.
Cindy shook her head. “More than twenty, I think.”
“I’m going to have to get her home then. She needs to be some place dry.”
“Is that Teddi Donovan?” she asked as she moved closer to study Teddi's face.
“Yes,” he grunted again, irritated that she'd asked at all.
“Calvin, where was she?”
“It doesn’t matter. I have to get her home.”
“I’ll go with you.”
“No!” he practically roared, his senses acute.
“You need an alibi. If people see you with her alone—”
“I don’t care what people think.”
“Unless you want a knuckle sandwich, I’m coming and there is nothing you can do about it.”
Calvin did not answer. He wasn’t going to argue with Cindy Marchbeck when Teddi could be getting worse. He repositioned her in his arms before moving his feet faster in the direction of the Donovan home. She was going to be okay. He would make sure of it.

Allison Whitmore started her first novel, Forget Me Not, one icy morning in her dorm room in Southampton, NY. After many years of teaching high school English, she came back to the novel to rewrite it. Allison comes from a family who loves history and enjoyed immersing herself in the research that brought Teddi and Calvin’s world to life. She lives in her hometown, Los Angeles, California. You can find her on Twitter @alli_whitmore and her website: allisonwhitmore.comor on Facebook.