MEGAN

Chapter 12

Megan

"Niklas, how about we go into the kitchen? I think these two should talk in private." James said as he looked between his wife and Megan. Neither of them had moved since Rachel had come into the room.

Niklas nodded, and soon enough, the two of them left, leaving the childhood friends alone.

Megan didn't even notice. She could hear or see nothing except Rachel. She was the same and yet so very different. She was smaller, shorter than Megan, something that had seemed impossible before. She was pretty, though there was something cold in the way she carried herself, so different than the girl she had been, but for her eyes.

They were soft, honest, and good, kind, just like they were once upon a time. Her body had changed, but her soul remained the same, Megan just knew.

How?

After everything that has happened to her, after being tortured by her own mother and almost getting killed all because of Megan's big mouth, how could she stand there and smile as if seeing Megan again was the best thing to happen to her in a while?

"You grew," Rachel said, her eyes traveling over Megan's body as if trying to catalog all of the changes. She would find many; Megan was just a child of ten when they last saw each other.

Megan blushed like she always did when Rachel looked at her, her stomach doing the funny thing. Except now that she was an adult, she knew what the funny thing represented.

Love.

She had loved Rachel when she was a child.

Just as she thought that Nik's face drifted through her mind, making the sick feeling come back stronger than ever, so she put all thoughts about her troubling emotions aside and concentrated on why she had come there in the first place.

She finally left her place by the window and walked toward the sofa, taking the place Nik had just vacated.

"I couldn't remember. Dissociation or detachment from reality, I believe my therapist called it. I couldn't remember anything from my life before I was adopted."

Rachel sat on the armchair across from her, listening to Megan as she talked, that soft smile still on her face. Rachel's smile was the same that had been reserved just for Meg in another life.

"What happened? How did you remember?"

"I kept getting these dreams; I couldn't remember them either, but for a feeling. A good feeling. You. I dreamed about you, although I didn't know it at the time."

She glanced at Rachel, feeling embarrassed to talk about it, but it was so easy talking to her; it always has been.

"Then, a few days ago, I remembered my last name, and one quick Internet search later, and I had my answer."

Rachel nodded, an intense look on her face, and Megan had to look away. She felt so guilty for what she had done and even more for what her parents had. Monsters; she was the offspring of a couple of monsters.

"I'm sorry," she whispered after a while. She kept staring at her fists, her knuckles turning white from how hard she was clenching them.

"You have nothing to be sorry for," Rachel said. Megan looked at her in disbelief.

"Nothing!? How can you even say such a thing!?" she exclaimed, jumping from her seat and starting to pace.

"I was the reason they found out about you! Me! You trusted me, and I betrayed you! You were my friend, and I almost got you killed!"