A Forgotten Memory

"How do you still have straight A's man? Tell me your secret man, come on." Jack pleads as he walks with me out of the class, his arm wrapped around my back. Junior year hit him like a truck when he realized he was failing all of his classes and barely scraping by with a C minus.

"it's not that hard man: stop partying and start studying." I tell him. as I say hello to my fellow classrooms.

"There has to be some other way Felix." Jack says as he pushes the front door open for both of us. "You know I can't stop."

"Which is the problem Jack. You can't stop. I'm telling you to stop." I say, exasperated. I shrug his arm off me and start walking towards our group of friends who were all gathered on the sidewalk. We join in and start talking about school, life, etc. Our group of friends are notorious for blocking the sidewalk but our social ranking is too high for anyone to say anything about it. It is a pretty mean thing to do but at times like this where I just want to talk, it's great.

From the side of my eye I see the new girl at our school pop in her headphones, slip on her roller skates, and skate her way down here. Poor thing, she has no idea that we won't move for her at all.

She skates towards us, getting increasingly close and just when I'm about to stop her so she doesn't bump into us, all of us suddenly jerk out of her way as she rolls right on by, acting like nothing happened. Right before she leaves, I see her brown eyes glow for a second. but she's gone. We all look at each other but before I can say anything, they just shrug.

"It was probably just instinct. We probably moved out of her way because she was getting too close." My friend Parker says. Everyone just nods along and gets back to talking. Is nobody going to say anything? That wasn't instinct; my instinct was to stop her before she came any closer. Something's not right, I swear.

"Hey guys, just forgot that i have to babysit my sister tonight. My mom just reminded me." I interrupt as I hold up my phone, pretending that I just received a text. "I gotta get going before my mom finds out I forgot."

My friends say bye as I run down the street towards the same direction the girl went. I wasn't planning on following her, I just wanted to know what happened. But whenever I came close enough to stop her and ask, she rolled away even faster. I was gasping by the time she stopped. She had stopped in front of a dingy apartment with strange people in front of the entrance. I wait for her to do it again, to make them move out of her way but she goes past the entrance and walks towards the side. I follow her until she suddenly stops.

"Why are you following me?" She asks as she turns around and walks towards me. Her eyes look normal as she stares me down. I take her all in: black hair, brown eyes, a normal complexion, a large, navy blue hoodie, black jeans, and some white and gray roller skates.

"I just wanted to ask how you did it. The thing you used when you moved us out of your way. Was it some magnetic force that you have on you? Or was it something else? Your eyes were glowing too." I ramble on as I list off my theories.

Her eyes widened as I mentioned that her eyes were glowing. "You know too much." She says and she walks towards me, one hand raised. "You're going to have to forget this." She whispers while she corners me. I panic and blurt out whatever I could.

"So you have superpowers? Is that it? Is that what you're afraid of?"

"I do. And since you're going to forget this anyway, I'll introduce myself. I'm Tessa Harkins but close people call me Tess. I have the ability to control people and sometimes objects."

"You can control people right? Why don't you just control me so I can't tell anyone?" I offer.

"No I can't." She says, with a tone full of sympathy. "No one can know..."

Her glowing eyes are the last thing i see before I blackout.

Twenty Years Later

He gasped as his eyes opened up to a bright room. He sits up from the couch as he focus his eyes on the doctor in front of him.

"How was your first session of hypnotherapy?" The doctor asks. She has a smile on her face as she scribbles down some notes.

"Strange. In my dream I saw this girl who had superpowers she made me forget because I found out." He recalls as he focuses himself back into the room. The doctor nods and writes along, her messy, blonde bun bobbing up and down. She wore a white coat with a magenta shirt and black pants. "Your glasses are slipping down." He mentions.

She looks up startled for a minute and pushes her frames back up. "Sorry Alex, I was zoning out for a minute writing down everything. As I've mentioned before hypnotherapy can help reveal and forget things such as stress and trauma. Our first session was just to see what your brain imagines. You were recommended here by your doctor because of the amount of anxiety you still have from your college years which included numerous fights, drugs, and alcohol. We're going to try and forget those things first okay?"

"Oh, okay. So is our first session done?" He asks, a bit dazed because of the history recount.

"Yup, you're free to leave. I'll see you next week!" She smiles and waves. He walks out the room and leaves.

"So I didn't do a proper job of erasing that memory." She says, tired. "Thank god he didn't ask me my name." She picks up her name tag that was placed out of sight on her desk and pins it back on so now it was clear her name was Dr. Tessa Harkins. She takes off her "glasses" and rubs her eyes. "Ugh these glasses are making my vision worse. Why did I suddenly think it was a good idea to wear fake glasses? And I'm going to have to beach my hair again. My roots are showing." She says as she grabs the mirror and looks at herself.

"Dr. Harkins! Your next patient is here." The desk lady, Miranda, says as she walks the next person in.

She quickly smiles and puts on her glasses again. "Hi, I'm Dr. Tessa Harkins. What would you like to forget?"