The Secret (Book 1 of the Secret Series)

Chapter 6.

KATAR

ONE WEEK LATER

I sighed as I lay in bed. It was nearly noon and I was so tired of laying here. I wanted to get up and move around, but I was forced on bed rest. I had a broken rib and it hurt when I moved, I had to stay in bed until it was okay to do otherwise. At least my stab wound was almost healed. That was a start I guess.

I was so bored.

I was so bored that I started to hum. I never hummed or sung, these days, but what else was there to do? I wasn't able to sit up long enough to draw and I couldn't roll on my stomach to do it either. I was literally stuck in one spot. I couldn't even take a shower without someone at least around to help me get up. I wasn't too happy with that one. It was normally someone I didn't know and it was a little scary that they were aloud to do that.

At least it wasn't Kyle.

Kyle scared me. He scared me more than Jarrod did and Jarrod scared me a lot...

There was a knock on the door and I immediately stopped humming. The door opened and Max walked in. I smiled a little.

"Well," I said and he raised a brow. "To what do I owe the honor of seeing a friendly face?" he smiled a little came and sat on the bed. He lay down beside me and put his arm behind his head and looked at me. Secretly, I liked it when he came in and sat (or in this case, lay down beside me) and talked to me. He was kind. Even Jonathan will come in and talk to me. Not much, but he did twice this week.

Jonathan and I had talked about random things the first time that he came in, but the second time, he wanted to know things about Corrie. For some reason, it had seemed easier to talk to him about his brother, than it had ever been with Dell or someone else. It was easy (easier) to talk to him that way than any other way. After the first few days, he'd started warming up to me and he became more comfortable. It felt good being able to know that I had some people to talk to while I was here.

"How are you today Katara?" he asked me.

"Better, thank you." I answered and closed my eyes again. We were quiet for a little bit and I started humming again. It was easy to be around Max. He wasn't as bad as he had seemed when he brought me in and that's what I like about him. He was a kindhearted person, but he was dedicated to his job, even if it was wrong. He understood me better than anyone really does. Sometimes, over the past week, I thought that maybe he understood me more than Corrie or Dell had ever understood me. Other times, I knew that one of them would understand other things better than him.

I still like him because he understood me though.

"You have a great voice." he said and I looked at him with a laugh. "I'm serious." I knew he was, just coming from him, it almost sounded like affection.

"Thank you." I nodded and looked back up. "It's only humming though." I sighed now. "I haven't sung for a long time. I haven't had the heart to sing." I was quiet a minute and hummed a little more. "I used to do it all the time and... and Tonnie would pick on me saying that one day I would lose my voice and I'd never be able to sing again.... I guess that in a way he was right." he looked at me as I watched my ceiling fan go round and round, until it made me dizzy. I closed my eyes again. "I haven't sung in a year."

"After Corri?" he asked and I nodded reluctantly. The last time I had sung was when Corri and I had been in his truck. We were on our way to the movies and a song that I loved, our song, was on the radio and we sang it like the crazy fools we were. That was the night before that horrible day. I didn't ever sing again. Today was different though. I wanted to open up. I wanted to be me again, but then again, I didn't want to. I wanted to be in the shell that I had been in for the past year.