Since you've been gone

I

NOTHING HAD CHANGED. I didn't know what I had been expecting but my childhood home looked almost exactly the same as it had the day I'd left. Left being a word I used loosely. The front door was the same dark blue it had always been, the grey brick of the house exactly the same if maybe a bit more weathered, the front garden still over flowed with plants and flowers - not as well kept as they had once been but they were still growing. The car in the driveway was newer but I doubt anyone kept the same car for seven years. Did they? I wouldn't know, I didn't know anyone with a car.

I expected it to be bigger. But then again the last time I had stood outside my family home I had been ten. I was a lot smaller then. Despite not being as big as I expected, the house was still extremely daunting and I began to think about what waited for me inside. Addy had assured me after looking into it that my family still lived here and so I wasn't worried about knocking on the door and a stranger answering but how would they react? Would they recognise me? Or would they turn me away thinking I couldn't possibly be their daughter. If I'm honest I wouldn't blame them. Seven years was a long time for a child to be missing and if I were said child's parents I would probably wish they were dead rather than being held captive that entire time.

When children are kidnapped there are a few choice reasons that come to mind. All things no human being should ever have to experience and if I were a parent I would wish my child dead before experiencing any of them. However, my outlook could be considered unique, seeing as I had first hand experience in being a kidnapped child. I hated to think of how tortured my parents would have been the past seven years. How they would've sat up and imagined all of the things that could've possibly have been happening to me and how I could've put them out misery and come home sooner.

I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. I had to do this. I couldn't let myself down but what about Daisy? Daisy- my best friend, my sister. I turned and looked across the street at a house similar to mine except the front door was red. The grass was over grown covering the foot path up to the front door, the flowers that had once filled the garden with colour were dead and the house looked lifeless - like nobody lived there anymore. The only sign of life was the battered car that sat in the drive way. Daisy's house.

We had been best friends for as long as I could remember. Playing in the street together, learning to ride bikes together, dance lessons, joint birthday parties, sleepovers and everything you could imagine. We did it together. Even getting kidnapped. I hadn't spent a day away from Daisy in years and I had just left her to her own devices. What had I been thinking? I couldn't leave Daisy. And then I thought about what I had came here to do. What Daisy sent me here to do.

I had thought of returning to my family the moment we escaped the man who took us from them. But Daisy had other ideas, she said we had be sure he couldn't finds us otherwise he would just take us back. It made sense at the time and so for a couple of months we moved all over. Never staying anywhere too long, sneaking onto trains or coaches, sleeping in abandoned buildings and bus stations before settling in the city closest to our hometown. By this point although I wanted to see my family it seemed futile and Daisy... well returning to her family was the last thing she wanted. And I wouldn't leave Daisy. I wasn't sure why she never wanted to return, I could never get a straight answer when I asked.

"It's been too long they're not my family anymore, you and Addy are."

"I'm having too much fun here to go back."

I could tell Daisy felt bad that I wanted my family and she had tried countless times to convince me to go myself but I wouldn't leave her. But she wasn't all bad now, she had Addy to look after her I wouldn't worry so much now. However, Daisy had made me promise one thing before I returned and thinking about it made my stomach churn as I stared at her old house. Daisy wanted me to tell her family she was dead.

I thought back to earlier in the day when I was saying goodbye to Daisy.

"Are you sure you want to do this?" I asked her seriously.

She rolled her big green eyes "Yes Emma, I'm sure."

"And there's nothing I can do to change your mind?"

She flashed me a smile and shook her head. "Nope. My mind is made up. Daisy Jordan is dead."

I turned my back to Daisy's family home and looked toward my home. There was no time like the present. And so I opened the gate and walked up the front path, once I reached the front door I took a deep breath and rang the door bell. There was no going back now.