We'd reached the path leading up to the park soon enough. Charlie was still giggling about the little action movie comment he'd made earlier, and for the little while we'd been walking William had been groaning and walking really far ahead of us. "William, come back here," I called, grabbing Charlie's hand to catch up to him. "We're getting close to the fair. I don't want you to get lost."
"Yeah, well whatever. It's not like anyone would care, anyway." He grumbled, turning and stomping back to us.
"Dude, hold on. What's your problem? You weren't acting like this when we left." I reached out to grab his shoulder. He yelped and flinched away, eyes wide and scared. "Oh my God. William." Pulling my arm back, I watched as my brother backed away from me and leaned against a tree. "I'm so sorry. I forgot, and ... and I'm sorry." My voice slipped into a whisper and I walked toward him, sitting down beside him.
"It's okay. The memories are just fresh today. That's why I was in a bad mood. Mom and I used to walk down this path all the time together, sometimes just to walk around and other times to go to the supermarket and stuff. I miss her,"
I didn't miss how he didn't say anything about Dad. That was expected. To say the least, I'm pretty sure neither William or I missed him. He wasn't exactly... fatherly. And he didn't abuse us or anything, like you might think, he just... wasn't there for us.
My father claimed he was a busy man, and that's why he was never home. I can honestly say that I only have a third of the memories of my life involving him. When my friends reflect on their lives and families, it hurts to think about my mom. I don't really feel anything for him, because I didn't know him. He didn't know me, and we didn't know each other. My family wasn't whole, but it wasn't broken. I had a mother, a father, brothers. No sisters, of course, but my parents tried. It was awkward the first few times, because honestly they were seriously loud.
Anyway. Contradicting my earlier statement, my father was a drunk. He was an addict, and although it was an expensive thing to get drunk in my town, it wasn't impossible. My mother used to have a good job, with a nice income that we received every two months. We didn't live quite as fancily as Dory, of course, because we weren't important. Every time she came home with a paycheck, he went out and bought his buddies all drinks. More than once he came home with them, stumbling and laughing too loudly and staring at me and my mother hungrily.
Eventually, my mother learned to hide half her check in the bank on the way home. And soon enough, we knew to get out of the house when my father after my father left to go 'have fun.'
He only hurt us once or twice. The memories had all but gone until William had brought it up. Now a fresh wave of them raced through my mind. Hiding in a closet one night when he and his friends were looking for me. Running through the fields with my brothers, father chasing us as we played tag. Sleeping at my friends' house, because my father was drinking. They weren't all bad memories, but most were.
That's why I wanted to get the Memory Sip. Those were things about my life I'd like to get rid of: the pain I felt when I thought of my parents, the way William and I shied away from any and all touch. Dory didn't know about my father, nor did anyone else in town, and Charlie had come after he died. It was the burden of my brother and I, and I didn't plan on letting anyone else know. The great thing about the program was that I only erased the memories I wanted to be gone. I wouldn't lose the good times with my parents, or Dory, or my brothers; or the multiple friends I'd gathered over the years. Maybe I'd lose the breaking off of the friendship, but not the acquiring of them. But that's besides the point.
There were so many things I couldn't wait to lose about my life; my pitiful, poor life. But thinking about it a different way, there were so many more things that I couldn't live without.
