Christopher Andrew

Unanswered Questions

Dedicated to LiveLaughLoveMusicxX for becoming my first fan. It means a lot!!

I froze. I was shocked, utterly amazed, confused, sad, angry, baffled, annoyed, and hurt. I didn’t think it was humanly possible for one person to feel so many emotions at once. Suddenly, I felt sick. I raced to the bathroom, and emptied my stomach of this morning’s breakfast. I sat there for the longest time, not knowing what to do, or how to feel. My head swarmed with thousands of thoughts. I tried to think of every possible way that it could be not true.

Maybe my mother hadn’t written it. Maybe it was one of her friends. Maybe it had happened to one of her friends and she wrote it for them. Then my mind wandered back to the diary entries, hinting at the truth. Maybe none of them were hers. Maybe they were an old roommates she had accidentally packed with her things. No, that was definitely my mother’s handwriting. Maybe she had a secret twin sister that had the same handwriting as her. I had recognized some names, and events in the diary. My mother would never hide something that big from me anyway. Then I remembered, she had. Maybe, maybe...... It was hopeless. I was just trying to make it go away. I was running away from the truth.

Anger bubbled up inside me. I was filled with rage, and hatred. How could my mother do this? How could she keep this from me? From Leslie? Didn’t we deserve to know? Did Dad know? Had Grandma and Grandpa known? Did her brothers know? Did anybody know besides her? Was the whole family in on it, and never told me? How could they do this? Did they even think about what might happen if I found out? Did they ever plan on telling me? Or did they think they could take this secret to the grave? Why would family do this to each other? 

My mind wandered to a time, long before this, when life was much simpler.

“Okay class!” the teacher tried to get everyone to quiet down so she could explain the project to us. “Today we’re going to make something to help us all get to know each other a little bit better,” she said, much to enthusiastic for my liking. “Did everybody bring in their pictures?” Little heads bobbed up and down, eagerly waiting for more directions. “Good! Good! So, everyone gets a piece of paper. You’ll glue your baby picture onto the paper, and then write one thing about yourself, that most people don’t know about you, next to it. Then tomorrow, we’ll put the other picture of you on the inside! Then we can try to guess who all the cute babies are!” Yup, way to enthusiastic.

My seven year old self thought very hard. Most people didn’t know that I used to be a cry baby, but that was a secret. Nobody but Mommy and Daddy knew about the birthmark on my bum. I decided to keep that one a secret. No one knew she had a crush on Austin, but what if he read it? Or someone told him about it? I blushed in spite of myself.

I thought harder. Then, bing! Came an idea. I was sure a lightbulb had appeared over my head, and I looked up, just in case. I had never told Mommy and Daddy my secret wish. I knew it was foolish, as I would never be able to get it. It couldn’t hurt to put it on this. Could it?

I started scribbling as fast as I could. My baby picture looked nothing like me. I was very dark skinned, and had dark hair as a baby, as opposed to my now pale skin, and blonde hair. My parents had out me in pink that day too, something I wouldn’t be caught wearing dead now. Between the confusing picture, and amazing clue, no one would ever guess it was me!

It wasn’t fair! I had a right to know! Even if it was to late to ever get him back, I still wanted to know. Then it hit me. How am I going to tell my mother I knew? What if Dad didn’t know? How could I keep this from him? I burst into tears. I never cried. Not even when I took a slap shot to the back of my leg! That hurt so much, and I had a huge bruise for over a month. I hadn’t shed a single tear. I forced myself to be strong. Another thought popped into my head. Could I try to find him? Of course I could, but would I? Did I want to find him? What would I do if I did? Tell him who I was? Just move on? Talk to him through emails? Try to convince him to meet me?

Unexpectedly, I wished I could learn all about him. What was his favorite color? What did he like to eat? What are his interests, and hobbies? Did he like the same things I did? What if I met him? Would he like me? Would he love me? Would he hate me? Could he hate me? Would he hate Mom? What did he look like? Did he look like me, Leslie, or even Mom? Did he look like his dad? Who was his dad? What happened to him? Why didn’t he stay with Mom? Did he even know?

So many questions flooded my brain. I could answer none of them. I wanted to know more, but I was scared of the truth. Did I really want to know all of these things? What if they had upsetting answers? What if they had wonderful answers? What if I was to scared to ask and never find out? How could I live with this secret? How could I have lived before without it? What do I do? What do I do? What can I do?

I had to tell someone. This secret was ripping me apart. Who can I tell? My aunt Sarah. She was my dad’s sister though. I couldn’t burden her with this. Claudia. In my small group of girl friends, Claudia was my best friend. She would listen. She would know what to do. She was the one I would tell.

How do I start? Should I start with my troubles? Should I tell the whole story? Where does my story begin? Ah!! See, this is why I needed help. I’ll just tell her. Then explain it. Yeah, that’ll work.

I pulled my phone out of my back pocket, dialed the memorized number, and held the device to my ear. Brrring. Brrring. Brrring. I bit my lip nervously.

“Hello?” I heard the all to familiar voice on the other end. I started shaking, very scared at what was about to come out of my lips.

“Hey Claudia, I just called because I have big news,” I said slowly, trying to steady myself.

“What is it?” She asked casually. I started crying again. This time I wasn’t about to stop anytime soon.

“Gina?” she said, alarmed. “What’s wrong? Regina? Hello? Talk to me. You know you can tell me anything, I’m here for you,” she said, pausing in between each sentence, hoping for an answer.

I looked at my finished work. It was amazing. The teacher came over to look at it. She had a red pen in her hand, that she wrote what we had written at the bottom so everyone could read it, even if ourhandwriting was poor. She looked at mine and asked me what it said- my writing skills weren’t so good back then. I pulled her close and whispered in her ear, so no one could hear. She smiled, and started to write in perfect neat letters:

I’ve always wished that I had an older brother.