The Dark Side of Family (The Dark Side, Book 1)

Forget Me Not

[Quick Author's Note: I've had a request already to post a censored version of this story -- one without the swearing. If you'd like to second that request, please leave a comment below. If I get several such requests, I will post a censored, not Restricted [R] version!

I truly hope you enjoy this piece of work. Please, feel free to leave me comments. I love to hear feedback on my work, and always welcome constructive criticism.]

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There's very little left to say, if truth be told. He disappeared, and I can't feel him anymore. I don't remember the sound of his voice or the exact shade of the silvery flecks in his eyes anymore. I don't remember the way he used to laugh, and I don't remember the things he said that I swore to myself I would never forget.

I don't remember him, and it kills me.

His name was Blain, and he was beautiful. His obsidian hair was silky smooth; it fell to the nape of his neck in the back and made you want to run your fingers through it. Truthfully, I remember his voice; I remember that it was a deep baritone that sent shivers down my spine...I just can't conjure it to mind any longer. Some girls talk about seeing the man they love every single time they close their eyes; they talk about hearing his voice in the wind and seeing his eyes in the darkness.

I envy them.

There is nothing quite as painful as slowly forgetting the person you love; losing them bit by bit and knowing there's nothing you can do to stop time from eroding your crystalline memories of them. It's pure torture, knowing that someday you'll wake up and forget everything you've been trying so desperately to hold onto. Memory is fluid, and I'm coming to realizing that holding onto it is like trying to grasp water; no matter how hard you try, over time it simply seeps through your fingers.

"Hey, Kylie! Get the fuck down here!"

Sighing, I looked at the door to my bedroom with regret. He should have taken me with him when he left. He should have at least told me he was leaving...Instead, he disappeared in the middle of the night, leaving me in a house that was slowly suffocating me in a town I couldn't wait to get out of.

"Kylie!" my dad screamed, impatient as hell and obviously drunk - but, then again, when WASN'T he drunk? God, I want to get out of this place.

"Coming, dad!" I shouted as I got off my bed, opened the door and made my way down the stairs, praying he wasn't summoning me to kick the shit out of me.

"Where the hell were you?" he shouted as I walked into the livingroom - he had three fifths of his brand new bottle of vodka gone, and I knew it was going to be a bad night.

"Sorry, dad. I was upstairs in my room."

"Yeah, with your fucking door locked," he said, unsteadily standing up and glaring down at me. At 5'9", I'm tall for a girl - but my father is 6'4" and damn near 300 pounds. He's not a guy you want to make mad, to say the very least...yet I seem to end up on the wrong side of his temper more often than not. I could already tell that tonight was going to be one of those nights...and I could tell it was going to be so much worse than it usually is. "Haven't I told you not to lock your goddamn door?" he screamed at me, spittle flying.

"Yeah, you have. It's just a habit that's hard to break."

"You'd better learn to break it, little girl. If you don't, I'll teach you a lesson you won't soon forget."

Even though I knew it was unwise, I couldn't resist the temptation to correct him. It was too strong. "I'm not a little girl, dad. I'm going to be eighteen tomorrow. I'm not six years old and scared of you anymore."

He made an unintelligible sound that was somewhere between an unimpressed grunt and an infuriated roar. That was right before my world began to spin; right before his meaty fist made contact with the side of my skull. Attempting to blink the edges of blackness away as unconsciousness tried to claim me, I stumbled backwards. Falling, I landed hard on my side -- just in time for my father's steel-booted foot to connect with my hip. I felt it shatter, and when I cried out in pain he reeled back and aimed for my stomach.

I couldn't scream; I could barely even breathe. When I attempted to crawl away, my father reached down and grabbed my long, chesnut hair, and yanked me backwards. His lewd smile told me I should have snuck out my window instead of come downstairs, but since Blain left town I had nowhere to go on nights like these...now I just wished I'd gone anywhere but here. Praying for unconsciousness to claim me, I closed my eyes as my father began fumbling with his belt, trying to get it unlatched.

Just kill me now, I thought miserably.

When I made one, final last-ditch effort to escape my father's grasp, he pulled back his hand and slapped me so hard my head rocked. With my fight or flight options screwed, my only real bet was to forget. Ironically enough, my night had begun loathing my memory and it's ability to forget...now I was simply hoping it didn't fail me when I needed it the most.

Beaten and bruised, I had all but given up on getting myself out of this situation. I was resigned to the fact I might not make it past tonight alive, let alone whole. Just when I came to the realization that my father might just kill me in his drunken stupor tonight, something -- no, someone -- flashed past me in a blur. Before my last shred of consciousness fled, I saw my father lifted from the ground by his throat and tossed through the wall like a stuffed toy by a man with hair a shade of black I'd only ever seen once before.

No. It can't be...was the last thing I had time to think before the inky blackness of his hair seeped into the rest of the world and everything went dark.