Whispers swirl, and colours whip past me. These strings and flashes of light are rushing somewhere. They wisp and float into the dark where I can’t see. I pull and tug, but my feet won’t move. My gaze drops down to my feet, which are submerged in the darkness that surrounds me. They’re dull and formless, untouched by the colours that whip past me.

“Andy?” a woman’s voice calls out to me. My eyes open to meet the eyes of the woman they call my mother. “Yes, mom?” I respond, though the words feel foreign in my mouth. ‘Mom’ is supposed to be reserved for someone who raised you, someone whose warmth makes you feel safe, someone who loves you unconditionally. But this woman was none of these things. Her eyes were tired and worried as they looked at me. She forces a smile on her face, “You’re going to be late for school.” I nod, “Thanks.” I stand up, grab my bag, and head towards the door. “Aren’t you forgetting something?” She calls out. I stop in my tracks, right. The accursed ritual, the woman claiming to be my mother, Lisa, forced upon me every morning. I backtracked until I was standing next to her, and planted a quick kiss goodbye on her cheek. It felt wrong, but it kept her happy. I quickly left, running out the door onto the street. My feet knew where to go following a path I can’t forget up to my school gates.

An arm slung around my neck, nearly knocking me over, and scruffing my hair, followed by a “Andy, man, what’s up?” I pushed him off laughing, “Get off me, Tyler. It took forever to do my hair.” Tyler flashes that smile of his that was way too bright for 7:00 in the morning, “You spend way too much time doing your hair.” I rolled my eyes,” Yeah, I don’t want to look like I just rolled out of bed.” I gesture at his scruffy hair that has never seemed to be neat as long as I’ve known him. Tyler smirks, “It’s called having charm, but I get why you’ve never heard of it.” I shove him in the arm, and Tyler just laughs.

“Mr. Anderson,” a deep voice says from behind me. I turn and meet a familiar face. “Mr…” I begin to say, my voice trailing off as I struggle to remember his name. Tyler whispers in my ear, ”Mr.Phillip, the principal.”

“Philip, Good morning, sir,” I quickly finish. Mr Philip gives Tyler an unimpressed look. Tyler quickly says, “Good morning, sir.” Mr Philip shakes his head, turning his attention back to me. “I need to see you in my office,” the principal informs me, before turning to Tyler and saying, “Run along to class, Tyler.” Tyler runs off to class, and as he does, the school bell rings loudly through the halls. I follow Mr.Philip to his office. “Have a seat, Andy,” Mr Philip gestures to the chair on the opposite side of his desk as he takes a seat.

“How are you faring in your classes?” Mr Philip

“Just fine,” I respond, forcing a polite smile. Mr Philip nods slowly, picking up papers from his desk and flipping through them. “You’re doing quite well in Maths, English, and Physics, better than you have in previous years. But the rest….”

“That’s…” my voice trails off. I don’t have an excuse that he will believe or one that I will. Mr Philips eyes soften,” You’ve been back at school for a few months, but your grades have gone back to normal”. And there it was again, that word ‘normal’.

“I’m fine,” I force a curt smile.

Mr Philip nodded slowly, “If your grades don’t pick up, you’ll have to repeat the year.” Mr Philip says the sentence slowly, as if I were a bomb seconds away from exploding. I tug at the sleeves of my jumper, “You won’t have to, I’ll bring my grades up.”

Mr Philips eyes soften, ”I want to sign you for extra lessons. So you can have extra help with your studies.”

“I don’t need them,” I interrupt

“I understand that since the…”Mr. Philip decides to opt out of saying the word ‘accident’ and continues, ”You need help, Andy, if this keeps up…”

“I don’t need them.” I drag out. My hands tighten on the armrest, my knuckles turning white.

“Andy, I understand you used to be a top student, you didn’t need help but after the—”

“I don’t want your pity, and I sure don’t need it.” With that, I storm out of his office, leaving Mr Philip behind.

I storm out of the office, bumping into a girl. “Sorry,” I said quickly. The girl spins around, “You really don’t remember,” she said, her voice cracking. I look at her carefully, but nothing comes to mind. “Am I supposed to?” I said more harshly than intended, but I was still running on the emotions from the conversation with Mr Philip. “Marigold…Marigold Ravenwood,” Marigold says hopefully. “Marigold,” I say, testing the name out on my tongue. Ironically, her hair shone like gold and freckles splashed across her face. She looked like someone he should know but doesn’t. I shook my head slowly. It always sucked telling someone you didn’t remember them. It was like stripping away their identity until all that remained was sad disappointment in their eyes . I could always see the hurt in their eyes. Like I chose to forget them specifically. It’s funny, I thought I had done enough of these after I was released from the hospital. “I’m sorry, I don’t,” I say as if it were my fault. She nodded and turned away, tears in her eyes. I watched her walk away until she turned the corner, and sighed with my hands in my face.

I decided to skip my morning classes to go and sit outside in the bleachers. The bell rang for recess, and Tyler plopped down next to me. “You skipped, you never used—” he quickly stopped and changed the subject, ”Want half my sandwich, it’s chicken mayo, your favourite.” I took the slice he offered. “Hey, do you know Marigold RavenWood?” Tyler paused for a second, “Uhh, why do you ask?”

“I bumped into her the hallway, and she started crying when i said i dont remember her,” I say, taking a bite of the sandwich.

“She really did that?” Tyler asks. I nodded.

Tyler sighs, “Okay, she didn’t want us to say anything in case you… Well, she’s your girlfriend, well, ex.”

I open my eyes in surprise, “I had a girlfriend.”

Tyler nods,“ We didn’t want to tell, or she didn’t, she wanted to…” Tyler pauses to find his words. He instead decides to give up on the sentence altogether, ”No one knew about the 2 of you well except for me and… yeah.”

I look at Tyler suspiciously and say slowly, ”My girlfriend that no one knew about didn’t want to tell me we were dating? Was she cheating on her boyfriend with me? Because I would never—”

Tyler almost chokes, ”What, no! No no no no no. Definitely not. It’s just it was complicated.”

I scoff, “complicated… But you won’t tell me what was going on in my life.”

Tyler says, “Are you mad?”

“Of course I’m mad i had a girlfriend who I… I dont know and I’ll never know and you just didnt tell me.”

“I cant explain everything to you because you forgot!” Tyler huffs and immediately regrets it,”Wait, no that’s not—”

“Whatever,” I grab my bag and leave him sitting there. Tyler calls after me, but I ignore him.

I was heading home, even though it was the middle of the school day. I flop down on the couch and scroll through the channels on the TV. Lisa appears behind me, but she doesn’t say anything. I usually left when school became too much. I finally land on a show I’ve never seen before called ‘Bang!Bang!’ Lisa smiles behind me, ”That used to be your favourite show”. I throw the remote to the ground, ”Why does everyone know facts about me, Ij don’t know or have to relearn. I can’t—” I don’t finish. I just groaned and stormed upstairs. I wrapped my arms around myself at some point, and I fell asleep. There I was again in the darkness. I watched as the colourful lights whooshed past me, and once again I couldn’t move. I just watched in awe at the light’s beauty. I woke up smelling something heavily, familiar. I sat up in my bed and looked towards the door. The light crept from under it. I cracked the door open, which made the smell get stronger. I slowly went downstairs to the dining table to see Lisa setting the table. Steven, my dad, came up behind me, ruffling my hair, “Did you have a good day champ?” Steven says as he sat at the table. My eyes land on Lisa; Steven had no idea of my outburst earlier. I nod. “Yeah,” I lied. I sat at the square table and watched as Lisa dished out the food. “It smells good,” I offer as some kind of peace offering. A tired smile appears on her face. Once she was done, she sat down, “Lets dig in”. Steven takes a bite and says enthusiastically, “It’s been a while since you’ve done this, huh, Lis?”

I bring the fork to my mouth. It tasted good, it made my tongue tingle. I took another bite. And it was as if one of those sparkling lights hit my chest. A vision flashed before my eyes. I tugged on a woman’s clothes; she was much bigger than me. She glanced down, and I realised it was a younger version of Lisa. She smiled sweetly at me, “Didn’t I tell you not to bother me while I am cooking?” She scolded me but still lifted me, holding me at her hips. I could feel her warmth and her smell. “Do you want to know the secret ingredient?” I nodded eagerly. She smiled and said, “The secret ingredient…” she touched her heart, acting as if to take something, “is love,” and dusted her fingers as if she was putting something into the pot. Little me spoke, “Mommy, you didn’t put anything.” She huffed, “Of course I did, you just couldn’t see it.” I gave her a disbelieving look. “What makes it taste better is the laughter of a son.” She says and starts tickling me, and I manage to wriggle from her grasp and run away giggling. “Come back, I need your giggle for my potion,” she mock-laughed manically. I turned the corner only to be swooped up by my dad. “Got ya,” He said as he threw me into the air. Mom turned the corner, laughing. She gave a sweet kiss hello to her husband. I scrunched my face and said, “ewwww”. Mom and Dad shared mischievous glances and planted a barrage of kisses all over my little face. Then we all sat down to eat dinner, laughing together.

A tear dripped down my face. Mom and Dad exchanged glances with each other. “What’s wrong, honey?” She asked, rubbing my back. “I remember…” I said so softly that they missed it. “Sorry, sweety, what did you say?” She said softly in that sweet voice that she used whenever she was calming me down. “Mama, I remember,” I said, looking at her, my voice cracking, “I remember you and dad.” I was crying now. Mom covered her hand over her mouth and immediately hugged me. Dad’s eyes misted as he pulled us into a hug. We all sat there and cried