Amber Alert [KRISTEN STEWART]

THE DINNER

Karen was feeling awkward. The meeting with her real family at the police station had been too much for her. She needed time to adjust to being called Kristen. And she had to change all her documents to her birth name. How much work!

She had been proposed to join them for dinner to get to know them. Alas, their meal at the restaurant was not going very well, for now. Thanks God, her loving boyfriend had joined them, or else, she would feel even worse - all alone.

"So, Kristen," spoke Dana, her youngest brother, who quickly corrected himself, when she looked at him. "I mean, Karen. Tell us more about yourself."

Our heroine blushed. If she had been asked that question the previous week, she would have bragged with her Alma mater and career. She would have told them how in her free time she liked writing scripts and poems, hanging out with friends and taking care of her pets. But now, it was so hard. She didn't know who she was anymore. She was having a hard time identifying herself.

"Well, um, I," she started, unsure what to say. She felt as if their eyes were burning holes in her face and hair. It made her feel even worse than before.

"It's okay, Kristen," said Cameron. "You don't have to talk about it, if you don't want to," he gave her a warm smile, which she returned, despite the fact that he had used her birth name, not the name under which she had been brought up. But she had to get used to it.

"Did they treat you well?" , asked Jules, worried. Sometimes, she was worrying too much. But she was allowed to. She was a mother, after all.

"They did."

And our heroine realized - they all had memories. But she wasn't present in any of them. She had never met her nieces and nephews, she hadn't met her grandmother Eva that everyone cherished and praised. She hadn't been there when Taylor, her brother, had been adopted thirteen years ago.

"I've seen you on photos," Taylor had told her,  when she had first met him. She had gotten a bit upset and guilty for being kidnapped and missing out so much of her possible life with her real family.

Twenty years. Too long time in which too many things had happened. All of this, while she had been missing. They had moved on. But they hadn't dared to forget about her.