The Silent One ✔

Chapter Thirty-Three

In my life, very few people have the ability to surprise me. I've seen people go to prison, watched people die, friends tell me they are pregnant.

However, none of that could compare to Chris revealing to me that he has a child.

I stay paused for a few moments, staring at the toddler in his arms.

"Your...Your...what?" I stutter.

"She's just had her first birthday a few months ago" Chris explains as holding his daughter in his arms.

How can he have a child? How could I not have known that he had a child?

"You have a child?" I raise a brow "you're only eighteen years old"

"Elise and I got pregnant when I was a junior and she was a sophomore"

Elise is dead. Has been for over a year. She would have died around the time Cleo was born.

"How did she die?" I widen my eyes.

"Childbirth complications" he explains, as showing me his fore arm, "you asked me what my tattoo meant...its an Ankh symbol...an ancient Egyptian hieroglyphic ideograph..meaning life...I got it for my daughter"

Her name's Cleo. So to get an Egyptian symbol makes sense.

Her face is sweet. Her eyes filled with innocence.

"How come you didn't tell me sooner?" I question as looking at the child who begins squirming.

"I need to protect my daughter," he says simply "I need to be careful who I let in and out of her life...very few people at school know that I'm a father"

Then everything began making sense. The going upstairs to make phone calls at parties. The no drinking. The going home at lunch to check on 'something'.

"What do you know about Elise and Chris?" Blake questioned.

"Nothing," I told him "but I'm assuming that they used to date"

"Yeah they did"

"I'm sensing that I'm missing something"

"If you don't know then it's not my place to tell you"

"Tell me what?"

"Chris will tell you in his own time be patient"

So that's what Blake was talking about.

"Dadda" she squirms, causing Chris to place his child on the floor, where she begins walking around.

"I get that" I nod as glancing at his daughter "she's beautiful Chris"

"Thank you" he smiles.

"So that's your big secret? That you've got a kid?"

"Yeah that's my big secret" he nods "When Elise died...Ned's parents gave us a roof over our heads...Elise's childhood nanny takes care of Cleo when I'm at school or doing other stuff...there's a baby monitor in her room...the other is in their home"

I assumed that he wouldn't leave a child alone in their home. Ned's parents and a nanny are in the house with a baby monitor.

This kid is a dad. He's a responsible adult and I had no idea. He never drinks at parties and is always the designated driver. He has that fatherly instinct that makes him want to take care of people.

"You don't drink" I start slowly "is that because of her?"

"When Elise died I thought I could fix my problems at the bottom of a bottle...I can't... If I want to truly be here for my child I can't drink...Blake's drunken car accident last year also had something to do with it"