Strive

Chapter 15

Please please please listen to the song on the side!!!!

SARAH’S POV

            To say the meeting with my parents was a disaster is an understatement. Not in the sense that they attacked me or I made a scene. It was just an awful experience. The entire time they were there, it felt wrong. I would look at their faces, hoping for recognition only to be left more lost than I’d started. Neither of them were my parents, that I was certain of. No mater how many times I was reminded that, yes, our DNA was a match… they just weren’t them. Even if I’d forgot every single detail about them, even if I started on a blank canvas without the outline I’d repeated, they were just not right. They weren’t what I wanted.

            Believe me, I tried. I tried harder than anything, to find something, anything I could love about the couple. But as always I found nothing. Every breath they took, every adjustment caused me to jump. I was on edge the entire time, not once willing to release Justin’s hand to shake theirs. To say the least, they terrified me. The fact that two strangers, both tired and sad, could walk in out of nowhere, and know more about me than I did was simply horrifying. They knew everything. It wasn’t just that they claimed to recognize my face, but the woman remembered my outfit and how my hair was on the day I’d been abducted. Not even I remembered that, and it was my hair and my clothing. For a woman to remember such a detail for so long was anything but believable.

Both of their lies just got worse from then on. My father kept mentioning how stunning my hazel eyes were and that I looked just like the woman who’d came with him. I know he meant it as a compliment, seeing as how despite the bags under her eyes, his wife was stunning. However, I knew he was lying to me. Daddy had been strict about what I could and couldn’t do. For one, I was never aloud to bathe myself. Until I was eight I just brushed off that fact. I assumed it was just a normal parenting thing and he was simply being over protective. I blew off a lot of what he did back then. Looking back I regretted a lot, and honestly, I suppose I couldn’t deny the fact the most of it was my fault.

Another one of his rules was that I wasn’t allowed near anything that could harm me. To most, that would just consist of knives and hammers, normal things to keep away from a child. Daddy was much more protective of us. There were the obvious rules that I couldn’t cook or go anywhere near tools. The tools part didn’t apply so much to me as it did Justin. Seeing as how I was a little girl with the mind of a six year old, the thoughts of weapons and such never occurred to me. One of the rather odd ‘dangerous objects’ was glass, mostly meaning mirrors.

I suppose it’s illogical to say that I didn’t believe the man’s description of my appearance, seeing as how the last time I saw my reflection was when I was seven. Still, I just knew I didn’t look like the woman. Daddy had always told me, since the first day I arrived, that I had the largest, prettiest brown eyes. Brown. Not hazel. Daddy had known me for eight years, and despite all he’d done, I still trusted his words much, much more than a stranger’s. So if Daddy said my eyes were brown; they were. If the man said my eyes were hazel; he was lying. I was not a reflection of the woman, and I was certainly not her daughter.

Though I tried my best, I knew my anxiety wasn’t hid well. The entire time they spoke, I was tapping Justin’s palm, begging him to make a distraction so I could leave. He wouldn’t listen though; his grip remained still along with his reassuring looks towards me. As much as I wanted to be as calm as him in that moments, believing it’d all work out, I couldn’t. I could never understand how Justin could be so strong while I was just… weak.

The couple definitely took notice. The entire time they did their best to keep a good distance from me. They each sat along the wall of the room in some fold out chairs, allowing me to remain sitting comfortably on the bed. Each time I jolted or gasped for a quick breath, there eyes widened. Often the woman would apologize for moving to quickly, though I could tell she didn’t understand why it had scared me. They treated me like a frightened animal, as though any sudden movement or loud noise would send me running, which I suppose was true.