Stolen Secrets

Stolen Secrets- Chapter 17

~Natalie~

When I woke up, Jeff was gone. I don’t know why I had expected him to say. I rubbed the sleep from my eyes and glanced over at the clock on the wall. It was just before six, which would explain why I was hungry.

I stood up from the bed and rearranged my clothing and shook out my hair with my fingers. I wanted to at least look like I hadn’t just slept in my clothes.

I left the room I had fallen asleep in and crept down the hall to the kitchen.

David, and Jade both looked up when I entered the room. They stared at my red eyes for a moment before covering up their concern with pleasant smiles.

“Just in time Natalie, dinner is almost ready,” Jade told me getting up to stir whatever was cooking on the stove.

I smiled weakly and swiped my fingers under my eye again to get the last of the sleep. Jeff looked up from where he was writing something and his face softened immediately when he saw me. His grew glassy with concern and his lips formed a small ‘O’. But he didn’t say anything.

I sat next to him at the table and looked over at what he was doing, it was just homework.

At dinner mostly Jeff and his parents spoke, they didn’t even seem to mind the fact that I wasn’t.

I could talk to Jeff fine now, it was just when other people asked me questions that I choked up. I just kept thinking about how the worst beatings has always come when Scary Man hadn’t liked an answer I had given him.

All through dinner I kept dabbing at my eyes, no one let on that they noticed. I had called all the numbers I had for Dad a little bit after we had gotten home from school. He always picked up when I phoned. Always. Or he called me back within an hour.

I had waited that hour. It had come and gone. Then I had just broken down into tears. Last night I was able to convince myself that Dad missing was just a misunderstanding, but now it was the truth. He was actually missing and I couldn’t hide form that fact anymore.

Now I know how Dad had felt when I had gone missing. It was my fault he was missing. I should have stayed in that house, I should have never left with Jeff. If I had stayed, Dad would be safe.

Possibilities of how things could be different ran through my head as I thought about what would happened if I had changed the way something had happened. I desperately wished I could go back and see if they would work or not. But this was life, not some project or something.

As I sat in bed sobbing by my lonesome, I had gotten scared. Scared of being left alone. Mom was gone now, there was nothing I could do to change that fact. If Dad was gone as well, I would be sent to another orphanage, somewhere I did not want to go.

I was proud of the fact that I had found a family that loved me and accepted me as their own. I was proud that I was chosen to become part of their family so soon. I didn’t want to be all that was left of said family. I wanted them to be with me.

Alone was something I had gone for at school because I had not known any different from my time at the orphanage. But alone at school, and alone in the world were two completely different things. Alone in the world was one thing that everyone could agree that they didn’t want.

I sat on Jeff’s bed and cried. Cried for my mom, my dad and my predicament in general. I wanted to be with them, I didn’t want to be alone.

Then I realized that there was no reason I should be. Jeff had looked pained the last couple of days each time I pushed him away, but he had stayed away nonetheless.