My Dirty Little Secret

Chapter three

"Are you excited Philip? We're almost there?" Heather shrieks while patting my knee. I give her a faint smile to reassure her, but to be honest I was terrified. Living with complete strangers and a town that is completely foreign to me. How else am I supposed to feel?

Passing the sign that reads 'welcome to Tívoli' the reality starts to set in. This is my new home. My temporary home. Looking out the window, preparing myself for whats about to come, I close my eyes and focus on my breathing. This was a technique I had to teach myself whenever my anxiety would build up.

Watching the trees pass by in my almost blurred vision by how fast we were going, I realized how beautiful it was. How open and free it looks, nothing in the way, no distractions, just the open dirt road. Literally. I pull out my Polaroid and snapped a few shots of the new found scenery.

"Is that a Polaroid?" She points to my camera. "Uh yea. It is." I say while snapping another photo "my mom got it for me on my sixth birthday." I smile at the thought. "That's so cool" she responds.

"Here we are!" She says pulling onto their dirt driveway. The house looks really nice and big, bigger than I'm used to. They have a shed and a barn, I guess because of the vet that lives here. There's a truck and a jeep that reads sheriff on the side. That makes me nervous, I don't like cops.

As soon as Heather cuts off the engine a man walks out. The man I'm assuming is Gabe, he's big and tall nice looking with a warming smile, that seems almost to good to be true. Heather gets out the car first and greets Gabe. "Gabe how are you? It's so good to see you again!" She exclaimed going in to hug him.

"Philip! Get out the car and come meet your foster parents!" I do as I'm told, I walk around the car slowly as if I'm afraid. "Hi Philip, I'm Gabe nice to meet you" He says reaching out his hand, I hesitantly take it into my own and when I do this sense of relief came over me. Something unfamiliar, I felt safe and I felt like I could trust him. Maybe this won't be so bad after all.

We walk in the house to meet the wife. Helen. Her hair was pulled back into a low messy bun and she had comfortable clothes on. "Hi I'm Helen" she greets herself "sorry about my wardrobe, today is my day off" she chuckles out.

"Please sit down. Would like something to drink?" Helen offers. Heather and I both decline politely. "Philip why don't you go and your things out the car, I'm sure Gabe would love to help." She volunteered "uh I can get my things myself, you don't have too."

"That's ok I want to help!" He replies.

Walking out to the car Gabe tries to make conversation "so how are ya?"

I nod slowly "I'm fine I guess."

"Your gonna love it here Philip. I promise you." He smiles

"Oh will I?"

"Oh yea. You know Helen is from the city. Yea she moved up here with me after we got married."

"That's cool. How long have y'all been married for?"

"Uh for about five years. Our sixth year anniversary is coming up here soon. In November."

After our short conversion Gabe helped take my stuff to my room. The room was nice, it was big. The bed was a queen, the closet was ok, bigger than my old one so that's a plus. There was a dresser against the wall, a small tv sat upon it in the corner. Two night stands on each side of the bed with lamps and a window with two dark colored curtains in front.

"Philip!" Heather called. I walked to the kitchen to where she was "ok Philip I gotta go, I'm gonna miss you, you were my favorite. Don't tell anyone ok." She laughed out. It almost looked like she was gonna cry "call me whenever you need to, even if you just want to talk, I'm here ok. But promise me something, no matter how long your here promise me you'll try. You'll try at school, you'll try with your new parents, you'll try to make friends. Everything, if your lucky you'll find a boyfriend." She nudged smiling at me. "I promise" I smile, a real sincere smile while pulling her into a hug. When she hugged me back I felt her hands in my back pocket.

Waving out the door wishing Heather could stay with me, I suck it up and deal with it. I promised her. When her car goes out of sight, I close the door locking it. "I'm gonna go finish unpacking if that's ok"

"Yea of course" Gabe answered

"Philip, what do you want for dinner" Helen asked

"Um pizza? It is Friday."

"It is isn't it?"

"Ok new tradition starting tonight. Every Friday we'll do pizza family night." Gabe announced

"Sounds good" I say with a faint smile

Honestly I'm not that bummed out, having family time seems like you only see it on tv, not in real life. I actually do feel a little excited, people that actually want to get to know me and maybe even love me at some point. Wait. What am I thinking? I'm not staying here. My mom is going to get better, then I'm going home. I'm not staying here.

I get back to my new room and lay on the bed. It feels so good, not squeaky, not dirty from it being old, just calming and soft like how the really expense hotels have. But I wouldn't know, I just assume that's how they feel and I could honestly go to sleep right now.

Now that I'm alone I pull out the note that Heather left in my pocket. Just as I'm about to read it I get called for dinner, so I put the note back in my pocket and leave the room.

"I forgot to ask you what kind you like before I ordered, I hope pepperoni and sausage is ok." Gabe asked almost nervous of the answer.

"This is good."

At dinner we talked about school, the things they do for fun around the town, and they both talked about their work. Not so much of Helen cause you know it's classified or whatever. But Gabe did mention that they have horses, three of them two girls one boy named sugar, spice, and honey. Cliché, I know right. "Maybe tomorrow we can go out and ride, all of us what do you say?" I looked between both Helen and Gabe "I've never been riding before." They looked shocked. "Really? Never?" Helen asked " yea. I mean in the city there's no room for any of that unless you come out here." I laughed and Helen agreed.

After dinner was done they let me go back to my room. Turning on the tv climbing in to the bed I think about how fun it might be here. I really like my foster parents, better than anybody else I've been with. Realizing what I was just thinking about I shake my head and try and think of my mom.

I take the note out of my pants pocket and I finally look over what Heather left me.  It was nice and real just like she was. I'm really gonna miss her, but I have to keep my promise, but that shouldn't be so hard since I like my foster parents so far.

I start to read the note.

Dear Philip..........