Don't Forget About Me

- Epilogue -

"Baby" I voice whispered against my ear. It woke me up. "It's the big day." The voice continued; lips grazed my ear as they spoke. "Wake up, babe." I opened my eyes further and was met with foreign sun rays seeping into the room so I squinted.

I groaned as I turned over and found myself looking directly into a pair of sparkling brown eyes. The chiseled jaw spread into a grin and two hands found their way around my back and pulled me even closer to the boy's warmth under the quilt on the morning of that crisp August day when the white doves flew above us without either of us noticing and bringing the beginning of the day that would bring back everything.

"Excited?"
"Beyond."

Our laughs collided between us, and moaning and groaning, yet still feeling like something was missing from our stomachs, we managed to haul ourselves out of the well-deserved warmth. I pulled a sweater out of my closet and watched as Colton pulled on his hoodie over his head. He ruffled his hair naturally and I slipped on my slippers.

I glanced at the wall clock, and realized it wasn't much late in the morning. In fact, I'd forgotten that this was a Sunday morning. Which meant I didn't have work. Which also meant that my parents would be downstairs right now reading their newspapers, glasses on their noses, coffees beside them.

My parents never let me move out, really.

We entered the room with Colton's arm around my back. My father looked up when we came into his range of vision. He smiled kind of approvingly. "G'morning sir." Colton said.
"Good morning dad." I added, moving forwards and kissing him on the cheek.

"Fun night?" He smirked devilishly.
"Dad, please. We did nothing." I sighed and shook my head.

"I know." He said folding his arms. "I heard nothing."
I gagged while Colton laughed.

"Where's Cas- Hello." He smiled as my mom entered laden with two plates of waffles. I took one from her, greeting her and setting the food on the table. All of us settled around the small table and began to eat. Colton finished first, and we decided to pack up my stuff first as soon as I could get into something less perishable.

"Kira? Honey there's some albums, from...ugh, before in the attic. Make sure you check those out okay? Take them along if you want to." Mom said. 'Before' was kind of a subject for me. I didn't like to think of Before. Maybe that's why Before never came back to me: because I stopped looking for it.

I nodded to her, and once we finished eating, Colton and I got some boxes from the garage and we packed up all my books from the bookshelf and all my notebooks full of pointless stuff. My mom helped me pack all of my clothes. Colton went to stuff all of my packed stuff in his car and after packing up my toiletries and some other essentials, I finally decided to check out the attic.

I glanced at the clock on my way up. It was 5:47 and something about that bothered me. My leg joint began to throb a little, and I didn't even know that could happen. I felt my face get kind of prickly.

The attic was a sunlit room with lots of shelves along all the two opposite walls, and a window along the length of the wall opposite the door. I carefully opened up the blinds and let the light stream in. Dust particles danced in my vision. I coughed a little.

I looked around at the labeled boxes.

Winter Clothes, Kira's Baby Things, Files, Curtains, China, Kira's Albums, Family Albums, Encyclopedias and there were many others, but I just pulled one away from the rest and sat down on a rickety chair. It took me some time to tear through the bindings, but I managed. The box was barely half full so there wasn't much to look through, but I was feeling this rush. Like a revelation was coming. It almost felt like dread, but I had long ago learned to deal with dread.