Reminiscence

Chapter .41.

A-I-D-E-N

I felt like I'd been punched in the gut by the Hulk.

"What?" I ask, my voice ragged.

"You ever wonder who our father was, Aiden? Why there wasn't a single picture of him or me in the house? Why he was a ghost in your childhood?" Dawn asks, his voice cracking with pressure.

To be honest, after losing my memory, I'd never thought about my father, but it occured to me that my father was in fact a ghost in my childhood. No pictures, no name, and even Renesse didn't ever mention him. I knew right away after looking at my mother that I didn't look like her in the slightest, but I'd always assumed my father had left her or had passed away.

Now those questions hit me like a brick.

"You didn't wonder, did you?" He asks, laughing with no humour.
"You didn't ever wonder if maybe, just maybe, you had more family than you thought you did. If maybe the empty spaces in all the pictures were where I was supposed to be!" Dawn screams, tears running down his face.

My heartbeat pulses in my throat. A wave of emotions hit me, and I wasn't sure which one to feel right now.

Dawn had torn a rift in my mind, and I was guilty of never thinking of tearing it myself.

If it was something insignificant, then I wouldn't had taken it so hard, but, this was about my father, my family. I felt guilt crawl up my throat like bile.

"Dawn, I-" I start but my voice fails me, cracks spreading across my tongue.

"He took me, Aiden, he took me from you, from Livia and Johnathan. He took me from a normal childhood, the one you got. The one I was supposed to have too. Our father wanted custody of one of the twins, and made sure that you never even knew I existed!" He screamed, and now I could feel the pain washing over me, like we were connected.

"But guess what, brother? He made sure that I knew you existed and he showed me all that I would never have. I watched you grow up with me, because he'd make me keep tabs on your life, until I was so caught up in your life that I forgot about living mine!" Dawn's voice was ragged as he took in sharp breaths.

"When I was a kid, the teachers would ask me what I wanted to be when I grew up. I would just stand there, thinking of all the other kids who wanted to be doctors or soldiers or scientists, and I would ask myself if it was wrong for me to want to be you, brother.

"The perfect boy who looked just like me, but had a mom, had a loving family. Had friends, and I'd look at him and wish to be him, just so my father would love me.

"Then there was this girl," He said, and glanced in Renesse's direction. "She had hair the colour of the night sky and skin the colour of chocolate. Her eyes glowed and sparkled like dying stars. You befriended her, and I fell in love with her. You had everything, Aiden. And I couldn't stand it. I attacked you, and wiped your memory. I sent you to live somewhere far from here for eight years of your life, oblivious to the fact that you had a life back here in Canada. I came back to Livia after my father died. I wiped your brother's memory too, then made him deaf for good measure. Our mother couldn't stand it. She agreed to shut up about it and change her name. I became Aiden Adams. Then, eight years later, I figured I would only really be Aiden if you were gone, so I brought you back here to finish the job." He dragged out each word like it was a dagger slitting his tongue.

I brought my fingers up to my face to find that my cheeks were wet with tears.

I couldn't believe it. I felt sorry. I felt sorry for the man who took my memory from me, took my family from me, took eight years of my life from me, but I did.