The Last Petal

Chapter 5

I was never one to cry.

I just didn't. I had grown up not meeting my parents standards and always not being good enough. I was bullied and teased but, Chip was my first friend. He was the first and only person who's saw me as worth their time. He was the first person to WANTED to know me. As if to him I was worth something.

As I continued crying I realized that this was affecting me far too much. Never in my life had I ever been that sad at losing friends or being left. So, why should I care what Chip says to me? What makes him different? There wasn't really one, he just was. So I stopped crying, walked back to school and drove home.

I knew my parents were going to yell at me for missing school but today I didn't care. When I got home I locked my self and didn't leave for a week. (Well except for food and water.) Eventually I decided to go to school but it decided to not talk or look or get anywhere near Chip. But I once again wanted to cry because while I was trying so hard to ignore him but he seemed fine to ignoring me. He seemed to have no pain in seeing me and in making me cry. And he was still dating that brat Kate-Marie.

But hey, that's life right. You bring your hopes up only for them to fall down. So, you might as well stay on the ground so that way you have less to fall.

When I got to class I sat in the corner of the very back row in hopes of not being noticed. However my teacher finally decided that she should pay any attention to me so when class started she brought up the fact that I was back and in the first time in a week I saw chip look at me. When he did he didn't look happy but he didn't look annoyed either, he looked confused. As if he didn't understand why I had been gone.

That was the last time we had any sort of "contact" with each other. And the year went on. The bullies kept bullying people with no lives like me. But honestly the best part of the year was when Chip and Kate-Marie broke up and how upset she got about it and now here I am sitting on a plane heading to Paris, France.

The plane ride was about eleven hours long and it didn't help that the flight was at four in the morning. when I arrived there was a taxi waiting for me to drive me all the way to Castelmoron-d'Albret, France the drive was about six hours. The man kept trying to make small talk and very lucky for him I spoke some french but while here I would have to try to learn more. I got to the house(my house) at about 11:30 and by then I was worn I had no desire to figure out what need to be cleaned or try to unpack or anything. So, I did what any normal person would do and I went to sleep.

I was woken up the next morning by a van arriving with the rest of my stuff. First thing on the to do list unpack. Next, check to see if there is anything that needs fixing. Last, pretend like I don't know that my parents are happy I'm gone.

After what seemed like forever I got my bed set up and one of my dressers. And I decided that that was good enough for today. I walked around the house and saw nothing major but then again I am 18 and I'm not an exterminator or anything so. I once again found the locked door and I realized how annoyed I really was by me not having the key. After about ten minutes of looking for a key I decided I'd just look up how to pick a lock, but of course the internet was not installed yet. So, I decided I would have to figure out how to pick a lock on my own y=using bobby-pins. Five minutes later I heard the doorknob click and I was able to open the door.

The first thing I noticed was how all the drapes were shut as if my aunt didn't want anyone to know what was in here but I don't know how they would be able to see considering that this room was on the third floor. But hey some people are just really paranoid.  

There was a desk in the center of the room it was clean and tidy. To my left there was a large metal filing cabinet and of course, it was locked because life doesn't like snooping around in my own house to be easy. The to my right was covered by a ceiling high bookshelf covered in more books than I had read in my entire life. Most of the books were written in English but there was a section of books behind a locked glass case that seemed to be written in french. One that seemed to particularly worn was La Belle et la Bête. The book was blue with gold letters. But, the spine of the book was connected only by tape.

 I looked through the drawers in the desk but I found that of course one of them was locked. I'm honestly not sure why my aunt was so paranoid or what made her so paranoid. I mean honestly, yes moderately secluded house in the woods is a good target for insane people but from what my aunt told the people in the  town she lived in were quite nice. The only thing that seemed to scare her was this case about 20 miles out of town. you could barely see it through the trees but she always said that it was a very dangerous place and to never go there or to wander in the woods.

But then my phone decided to ring bringing me out of my thoughts. I looked at the caller I.D. to see the name of a person I would never have expected to want to talk to me. Chip.