Forgotten

A few days after Natalie's (forgotten) eleventh birthday, Dan came home with glow-in-the-dark stars for his daughter.

He pretended it was the best gift he'd ever given anyone, but he and Natalie both knew the truth.

It wasn't anywhere close to making up for forgetting Natalie's birthday again.

She humored him, letting him find pictures of constellations and making sure each star was placed just like they would be in a night sky, but she secretly hated those stars. All they did was taunt her, whispering when she tried to fall asleep.

"You'll never be good enough. That's why no one remembers your birthday. You're not special. Not like your brother."

She tried to live with it for three weeks, until one night when she burst into tears, stood on her bed, and began ripping every star off her ceiling.

Her father never even realized that his oh-so-perfect present wasn't on her ceiling anymore.

The stars remained hidden somewhere in her closet, with Natalie trying to block their words from her memory.

But it now it was even worse.

Because now the stars were just like her.

Forgotten.