Forget Me Not

Chapter 3

CHAPTER

THREE

BERLYNN

SIX DAYS LATER

“She’s going to be a top contender for the U.S. team,” Coach DeMarius Bernard says as we watch Krista on the floor. She performed a double twist, flying through the air as if she’s been doing that series of flips from the womb.

“She defies gravity, doesn’t she?” I ask, amazed by the natural talent she has. In all of my years in this competitive industry, I’ve never personally witnessed someone who soars through routines the way she does. She only has to see it once to have it down.

Miranda comes scurrying down the path leading to me. She looks flustered and appears to be out of breath as she reaches us. “Berlynn, you have visitors. I don’t know who they are, but they're in business attire and have mean mugs on their faces. When I told them you weren’t able to leave the floor, they started spewing some legal mumbo-jumbo at me. I don’t know if they have any power here, but even the threat of calling the cops didn’t deter them, their looks got fiercer and more determined. I wouldn’t normally break your practice, but honestly, they’re freaking me out.”

Narrowing my eyes toward the office, I notice that the ‘visitors’ backs are turned facing the other way so I can’t see who they are. But one of the men, I’d recognize their stance anywhere. One is Marcus McKinny, my father, but I have no idea who the other man is that’s accompanying him.

The gall of him showing up to my place of employment! Who the hell does he think he is? I look over at DeMarius, and by the ashen look on his face, he realizes how dynamic this confrontation is about to be. “Escort those gentlemen to the conference room and let them know Berlynn will be with them as soon as she can,” he instructs Miranda.

“DeMarius, these men are not going to listen to me,” she whispers, fear laced in her tone.

DeMarius, seeing Miranda’s flight instincts kick into high gear, whistles Jase over. Jase, who acts as our pseudo bodyguard when we’re on the road, leaves what he’s working on and heads our way. He’s our muscle for the team and protects our ladies from their outlandish, obsessed fans. Other than that, he does all of our maintenance work and has sometimes been a shoulder to cry on as he always has an ear to listen when they’re feeling the stress piled on them.

“What’s up?” Jase asks when he makes it to where the three of us are huddled.

“We have some unwelcome visitors in the office that are persistent in talking to Berlynn.” Jase turns his head toward where DeMarius indicated, scanning the area where my dad and his “associate” are standing, posturing. Even though I can’t see Dad’s expression, I know from prior experience that he’s wearing a satisfied smirk, believing he’s won this round.

“What would you like me to do? Escort them off the property?” Jase asks, crossing his beefy arms across his chest with a scowl marring his face. “I’d be more than happy to help them leave the premises.”

“Up to you, Berlynn,” DeMarius tells me. I chew on my bottom lip, contemplating what I think is the best outcome. The realization hits that if I force them to leave, they’d just follow me home and I can’t let Berkley witness that encounter. He’s been doing so well since he began his volunteer work at the hospital. He has a purpose now and I refuse to let him have any sort of setback.

“It’s better if I speak with them here,” I share. “If I don’t, they’ll just find me somewhere else where I don’t have anyone to help me if it gets out of hand.”

“Help you how?” Jase asks, peering down at me, his frown deepening.

Embarrassed, I lower my head to the ground in order to hide my shame and admit, “One of those men is my father. He’s not a nice person. If he’s here, and adamant to see me, he wants something and he’s been known to get… physical. He won’t be swayed by threats either. In a past life, before shit hit the fan and he lost his career due to his ego, he was a lawyer. A skeevy one, but he was damn good at it.”

DeMarius grits his teeth, anger radiating out from his pores. A few moments later, he tosses out orders as his hands clench into fists. “I’ll make a phone call. Don’t move until I get back, Berlynn. Jase, please show our guests to the conference center. Let them know she’s not available yet, but as soon as she wraps things up, she’ll be up to speak with them. Miranda, once the office has been cleared out, start calling guardians to come and pick up their girls, then head on home. We’re closing the gym early.” He stomps away, not waiting to see if we’re going to do as he said. He knows we will, we know better than to question him—after all, he’s the one who signs our paychecks.

What feels like hours later, the gym has been cleared out of students, and DeMarius comes storming back over to me. “Our counsel will be here shortly. They advised me to record the meeting until they show up. Jase informed me they’re getting impatient and tossing out threats, we can’t put this off and wait for backup to arrive. I was instructed to not respond to any of their taunts and try to be as compliant as possible without egging them on. We’re to simply hear them out and keep our traps shut until the cavalry arrives. Can you do that?”

“I’ll give it the old college try,” I promise as I shuffle my feet with nervous energy strumming through me. “I have a feeling my dad’s going to try and bait me by using my devotion to my brother against me.”

“Jase and I will be with you every step of the way. You don’t have to face them alone,” DeMarius vows.

“Then what are we waiting for? Lead the way,” I reply, tossing my hand out before me.

“Make sure you’re biting your tongue until our lawyers arrive to guide the meeting, Berlynn. Because if the jackass makes any threats or moves toward you, I can’t promise that the day won’t end with both me and Jase looking out at the world from a barred cell. And Berlynn, orange is not my color, it washes me out,” DeMarius teases me.

“No orange, got it,” I respond, determined to sit back and not get anyone in trouble because my family was founded by spiteful, vindictive, and catty parents. While all of those defined words have close to the same meaning in the English dictionary, there are circumstances from my childhood where they can be separated into different variables.

They were spiteful when they tossed our disappointments in our faces.

They were vindictive when they took things away from us when we didn’t showboat in public the way they wanted us to—by being Stepford kids.

They were catty when they pushed the only two people who meant anything to us away. Leaving us abandoned—and in a sense, orphaned.

Begrudgingly, I lift up my feet and keep a step directly behind DeMarius, each upward one I climb makes me feel like I’m facing my doom.

My eternal damnation is standing behind closed doors, waiting to drag me back into hell.

Nobody understands the way Marcus McKinnly held us underneath his thumb for years, squashing us just because he could.

People will never understand the way my body quakes when I’m in the same proximity of the man responsible for my birth.

My father is the monster that lays under my bed, waiting for the right moment to strike. He’s the dark shadow that looms in the corner, waiting to trap me in a nightmare where there’s no illuminating sign showing me how to escape.

It’s been a long time since I’ve been face-to-face with him, and I’m not sure if I’ve grown strong enough to stand up to him. But if he threatens Berkley, all bets are off and the gloves will come off and will be tossed on the ground where I’ll pounce on them. Is it pathetic that I’m more protective over my twin than I am myself? Maybe. And my dad, he knows that Berk is my weakness, one he’ll delightedly use against me if it’ll get him his way.

Spiteful.

Vindictive.

Catty.

It’s time for me to find my own claws so I can scratch his eyes out and make him face the world blind, rendering one of his senses useless. It may not stop him, but it’ll slow him down long enough for me to make my own plan of attack. I’m done being his victim. It’s time he faces the facts, he’s no longer the highest man on the totem pole.

Because his daughter, the one he thinks is a waste of space and is so easily discardable, is fixing to knock him down a peg or two.

I’m fixing to hammer his coffin lid closed and steal all of the oxygen from his lungs. The thing he’s forgotten is that I know his deepest, darkest secrets. A mistake on his part, but an ace in the hole for me. Leaving that black book of his out for me to find will be his biggest downfall, once I figure out how to use it against him. I guess it’s a damn good thing that I made photocopies and put them in a safe place to keep them until the time was right.

My biggest question though is why he’s even here? He and my mother disowned us for fuck’s sake. That action alone told me that they didn’t want to be around us whatsoever. The problem with that is the fact that they managed to take away the two most important people in our lives. Something that they’ll both eventually pay for, even if today’s not that day.

I’m starting to wonder if they heard about the trial that Berkley’s going to take part in. He’s been nominated for a trial that’s specifically geared toward those who’re suffering from paralysis. These paralyzed individuals will be hooked up to electronic probes and basically a computer will communicate with his brain, which then will tell his body what it’s supposed to do.

It won’t fix him per se, but it’ll help him stay upright for a limited amount of time. Considering the project is still in the trial phase, the hope is that in time, with test subjects and lots of data for comparison, they’ll have it to where men and women like my brother, will get back a lot of what they’ve lost when it comes to mobility. That right there could be a precursor to my dad thinking he’s on the road of getting his boy, his prodigy back.

Newsflash, this is a temporary solution with no promised outcome. He may one day be able to walk again unassisted, but it doesn’t fix the part of his brain that was injured due to that stupid bitch’s manipulation when it came to my brother at that party.