Trapped in his cage

Chapter 7

Mellany

When Matthew leaves, my body gives in to exhaustion, I finally have peace and quiet. My concern for my best friend's actions still doesn't dissipate, Gabriela had a strange time a while back when she smoked too many... illegal substances. As a result of the guilt she felt for cheating on her last boyfriend. It's been a long time since I've heard her talk about smoking anything other than tobacco, her favorite pastime, so her suddenly going back to it keeps me worried.

But at least I can enjoy a few hours of relaxation and time to think about everything that has happened in the last two days.

I sit on the couch, sighing.

I never thought I'd run into my brother's best friend, much less the way I did..... I got in a giant cage with a crazy man and a motorcycle! Matthew freaking Reed. I didn't know he knew how to do that, I didn't know he could be such a jerk, such an edge, so self-centered and self-important.

I bite my lower lip, concentrating on trying to remember the last time I saw him before we saw each other in the party. He wore a stripe on his dark brow, his black hair was shorter than it is now, barely about 3 inches tall. His green eyes always sparkled with hesitation and his arched, pink lips smiled teasingly when Ethan refused to let me do anything. He had four tattoos on his right arm and two on his left. Yes it was quite a while ago...when Ethan found a new job and, instead of going home, he'd run around with Matt. They'd go to parties, biker meetings, drive around aimlessly.

Of course, I never saw him, Ethan would just tell me what he had done for the day when he got home. My day to day life boiled down to going to class, studying, reading, listening to music and sleeping. Occasionally I would go out with Ethan, it wasn't very often that I had a social life. I had a lot of anxiety and distrust in people after a bad experience with a friend I had.

Before I resumed my friendship with Gabriela, I met Chloe. A green-eyed blonde who suffered from the same self-doubt as I did. She was the sister of a friend of my brother's, so it was very easy to see each other or go to places together. We traveled together, slept together, did everything together for a year. She knew all my problems: she knew that when I was six years old my parents gave Ethan and me up for adoption. She knew we went through hell with them.

She knew that we were adopted by George Grawl, a man in his forty's with a pot belly, a lovely face and a full wallet. George had also had a hard time in his life, and he wanted to find happiness by forming the family he never had. He saw me first, but he felt such tenderness for my relationship with Ethan that he didn't object when the welfare people asked him to take him along with me.

George was always a very patient person, we were very fond of him, we loved him very much, but it was never the same after everything my brother and I went through. That's why, when Ethan turned 21, George understood that he wanted to go live alone. And I, in my great distress for Ethan, went with him. He always helped us financially, until one day he had a big argument with Ethan and they stopped talking.

Occasionally I visit or call him, but the relationship is no longer the same.

Anyway, Chloe knew all that. I never had a female role model, so I got into a lot of trouble about my insecurity and mistrust of people. Especially men. I was so insecure that when I went into a place surrounded by people I would come out crying and hyperventilating. Chloe helped me with that. For a while, she became a beautiful, confident and happy girl, until one day, we met a girl at a party who happened to live near us. We became great friends, but months later I overheard them talking about how my life was an exaggeration. About how my parents and my problems were an invention of mine to get attention, about how they wanted to get away from me but were embarrassed to do so.