Back Better Than Before

[14] Letters from the Heart

That night...

Adrianna sat on her bed with Caroline's laptop balanced between her legs. As much as she wanted to sleep, her thoughts were not allowing her to sleep. She went through all the pictures of the Hernandez. Adrianna also searched the web and read articles dating back to when Hernandez Corporation had just started. Not once was there a mention of a daughter of Xavier and Maria Hernandez. In fact, there was not a single female born in the Hernandez family in the last four generations. Adrianna couldn't stop the resentment for the Hernandez family, the perfect family. While they lived happily in their mansion, she had miserably served the Montclairs as a servant. While she was beat and starved every night, they enjoyed dinner together as a family. When she was alone at night, wishing for someone to hold her, tell her everything will be okay, the Hernandez were living together happily.

Adrianna knew that Stephen and Caroline expected her to be insanely happy that she was about to be reunited with her family tomorrow morning, but they did not understand the bitterness she felt towards them. They were the reason that she lived a horrible twenty years with the Montclairs. Adrian Hernandez was always smiling and cracking jokes, according to Caroline and Stephen, although Caroline had said it as if it was a bad thing to do. Adrianna secretly suspected that Caroline strongly disliked Adrian. Adrianna was about to tell Caroline that the reason why he was always happy was because he never had problems in his life. He lived perfectly happy with his parents, not having to work as a servant, get beat because one small mistake, have to gather money in small amounts whenever he had a chance, have to run away from his abusive, adoptive family, or live secretly so that family won't find him and take him back. No, he lived perfectly.

The pent up anger quickly turned into tears. Adrianna tried to muffle her sobs with a pillow in fear of waking up Stephen. Caroline had already left to go back to her apartment. She placed the laptop aside and picked up her sketchbook. With blurry eyesight, she started to sketch. She ignored everything and let her hands do her magic. After some time, she looked back at the picture. It truly reflected her mood. The clocked beeped as the hour changed and Adrianna's attention went to the time. The clock read 4:00 in bold, red letters. Only 6 hours to go before I have to meet the Hernandez. Adrianna thought miserably in her head. She wished she could tell someone how she felt. But just like the last twenty years, she was still alone. There was nobody who would listen to her and understand. Instead of telling someone, she took a piece of paper and started to write what was on her mind.

Sometimes, even when there are a million people around someone, they still don't have anyone to talk to. However, there is always paper and pencil that will understand. I was just a couple of months old when I was left on the door steps of the Montclairs...

***

Stephen grudgingly got out of bed. He let out a sigh as he saw it was only 8:30. He wished he could sleep a bit more but Adrianna was going to meet her family today and they couldn't be late. Maria had wanted to meet Adrianna the moment Stephen told her that he knew where she was. Of course he didn't tell them that Adrianna was staying at his apartment. Despite their caring nature, Adrian and Xavier were both protective of anything or anyone who was related to them. Telling them that Adrianna was staying at his apartment alone with him for the past couple of days was surely signing a death warrant. Along with that, he wasn't sure at the time how Adrianna would react to seeing her parents. Stephen figured she would need time to adjust to the situation. Seeing Adrianna's reaction yesterday proved him right. Caroline was oblivious to Adrianna's mood but Stephen had noticed her smile was fake, her shocked expression finding out that Adrian was his best friend, and the anger her eyes showed when she was looking at the old vacation pictures and listening to the tales Caroline told her. Adrianna wasn't happy to find her family, that was for sure. However, Stephen didn't know why she felt like this. Shouldn't she be happy that her family was found? Stephen had thought she wanted to know her family when she asked him to hire a private detective to search for them and now she was feeling resentment.