Elvin's parents laughed, agreeing with what their son had said while Teri Matthews, Elvin's younger sister sat quietly beside me, staring at her plate of food.
"You excited to be a junior next year?" I asked her quietly. She lifted her head, eyes meeting mine hesitantly. She was on the verge of answering me before Elvin hijacked our conversation, directing the topic away from Teri, as usual .
This was part of the reason I didn't want to join Elvin's parents for dinner. Sure, they usually kept me over well into the night, but I couldn't care less about that.
But each and every time I was here, they either ignored Teri completely, or they would steer the conversation away from her before she could say anything.
They controlled every aspect of her life; she couldn't hang out with her friends on her own, she couldn't go anywhere by herself , even though the crime rate in Fort Oakley was literally non-existent, and as I had come to learn, she wasn't allowed to voice her thoughts or opinions to her parents either.
I wanted to help her, I really did, but what could I do? Her parents were smart enough to keep their manipulation private, and even if I reached out to someone who could help, the Matthews' parents would either buy themselves out of the situation or play the situation into their favor.
I reached for my phone and typed a note beneath the table with one hand, pretending I was deeply engrossed in what Elvin was telling me.
I nudged Teri's foot with my own and tilted the screen towards her, letting her read the message.
If you ever need a place to go or want to get away for a while, you're more than welcome to hang out with me.
We both knew her parents wouldn't come into the woods to look for her, even if they knew where she was.
As with the majority of the people in Fort Oakley, Aiden and Kyla Matthews wouldn't dare to step foot in Fort Oakley's woods. This was because of old bedtime stories their parents used to tell them as children, and the fear of those stories followed them into adulthood.
Claire had told me about this, as she had also been raised with these stories. But common sense and a desire to be away from the rest of the town had prompted her to build a house in the woods everyone was so scared to entered.
Because of that, no one had ever bothered us at the house, including Elvin, which I was thankful for.
Aiden and Kyla had passed those bedtime stories onto their children, and while Elvin followed his parents' beliefs, Teri was similar to Claire, who knew the stories was a bunch of bullshit.
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When dinner finally comes to an end and Aiden and Kyla lets me leave, I head straight into the woods behind their house, deciding to walk to the meadow before I headed to the house.
Like many things in the woods and Fort Oakley, I didn't remember how I learned about them, I just knew they were there.
The memories I had lost up to my twelfth birthday were hard to come to terms with at first, but as days turned into weeks and I realized I had lost nothing vital, I moved on. The doctors had told Claire that the possibility of me getting my memories back was near zero. When months of me not remembering anything turned into years, we accepted the fact and I stopped trying to hang on to what was, rather focusing on the present.
The route to the meadow came easily since I knew a big part of the surrounding woods like the back of my hand.
I would never be able to explore all of it, because the woods around Fort Oakley went on for miles and miles, but that was okay.

YOU ARE READING
Fort Oakley | Part One
Mystery / ThrillerCharly Priace is about to turn seventeen, and she's determined to uncover the secrets of her forgotten childhood. But when Charly stumbles upon a police officer about to be killed and the mysterious Jacey Andino tries to warn her about the pills she...