When Alexis and I get home, we do our homework and study in the room we share. We watch the rest of the show we were talking about on the bus today and play Overwatch. We heat up some dinner and sit down at the kitchen table waiting for our dad to get home. Weekends are the best because we can actually hang out with him. This weekend he said he'd take us to Deadpool 2. We wait and wait, but finally at 11:30 with Dad a no-show, Alexis and I decide to turn in. I go to bed, but my bad mood must have carried into my dreams because I wake with a start. I can't remember what happened but it scared me so bad I can't go back to sleep. I decide to get up and get some water. I open the door as quietly as I can because I don't want to wake Alexis, and walk to the kitchen in my sock feet. The clock on the oven says 1:15 am. I pour myself a glass of water and stand there drinking it. I look at my shadow in the midnight moonlight, with my big sweater that once belonged to my dad. My kitchen floor counterpart looks large and bulky, so unlike my average frame. I lifted my arms and giggled again because it looked like I was some old-fashioned strongman. I have no clue why I have anything to be laughing about after such an awful day. Then, I hear the lock on the door click and the doorknob turn. Dad! Suddenly the nightmare seemed worth it because it meant I woke up and got to see him. The door swings open and I lightly jump forward to hug him. My dad recoils, stepping outside the door. I stop, confused. His hand tightens on the hammer strapped to his tool belt and he brings it forward. It all happens in slow motion, but not slow enough for me to react. My dad yells, "There's a man in here! A big man in my apartment!" as he swings the hammer. He swings the hammer at my head. I don't have time to duck, and it catches me on the right side of the head. I let out a scream and fall over, smacking my head on the cold tile. Ainsley must have heard the commotion and she comes out. I hear her stop and then she screams, "Dad, what did you do to Ainsley?"

"Who the hell is Ainsley?" he shouts back.

"I'm Ainsley'', I think, "Dad, your stepdaughter, it's me I'm Ainsley!" but my mouth feels like cement. My dad doesn't know who I am, doesn't recognize me. I know your life is supposed to flash by your eyes, but my day flashes by my eyes. Mr. Sato asking for my ID, Ms. Schorr not knowing I was in her class despite us being a good 4 months into the school year, my friends not knowing who I was. It all made sense. They weren't being rude, they genuinely had no clue who I was. And it wasn't just me disappearing. Everything about me was disappearing. My name was gone from the attendance sheet, and I bet my name was gone from my ID, but Mr. Sato didn't look hard enough. The only one who still saw me... was Alexis. Poor Alexis. She hadn't figured out why no one remembered me, she's still yelling at Dad in disbelief, but their voices sound like they were underwater. My eyes roll over to a picture on a table near the front door. It was a family picture, taken when Mom had come back on home leave. There was Mom, and Dad and Alexis. And on the right side of the picture, was an empty spot, a glaring black hole where I so clearly remembered I was. But I was gone. Then, as everything started to go hazy, like the clouds of a gloomy sky, I remember what my nightmare was. 

It was a nightmare about being forgotten.