Nobody Knows

19

autumn

Curiosity killed me. It gnawed at my bones and played with my mind. It all started with Gem calling me something like Adie, and now Maddy, ex-best friend of Gem and school bully, called me Adie too. She obviously knows something.

Gemini and I had been friends for about half a year now. She knows almost everything about me, but I don’t know a lot of things about her. We’re supposedly best friends, but a shadow of a doubt blocks the way to ultimate best-friendship. Does she really want me to be my friend, or is this a trick?

I was sitting upright on my bed, looking around for some things to do. It was incredibly boring, and it was still dark out so I couldn’t really call anyone over like I’d normally do.

My eyes spotted something interesting at the corner of my room. A gleam of light shone on the clump of clothes and I noticed something underneath it all. The box, the box given to me by that man.

I crept out of bed, sleep following me. I sat down in front of the pile and brushed away the clothes on top. It was smaller than I had remembered it. I wiped away the little dust collected on top, and opened it. Nothing was missing; the letters and pictures were all still there.

The picture was on top of it all, and I took it in my hands. The girl still looked like me, and that still dazzled me. Adrianna. The name was familiar, like in the back of my mind I knew who this doppelganger was.

I dug in deeper, now feeling stupid because I hadn’t done it before. There was enough of letters; just by looking at the pile I’d say about a dozen. I opened the newest looking one, but even that was yellowed and the edges were torn.

I opened it slowly, afraid of what’d I see. Secretly, I was hoping it wasn’t so rotten that maggots had gotten to it before I could. Fortunately, there weren’t maggots. The letter wasn’t addressed to anyone, but it was signed off as ‘x’.

It read:

                To Whom It May Concern,

 I can’t say who I am for secrecy reasons.

if there was something I learnt in my life, it was that everyone has secrets. the girl or boy next door, they have secrets. your favorite teacher or boss, they have secrets, most defiantly. you wouldn’t be human if you never had a secret.

of course, secrets have to be exploited. mine never were. a small worry of mine is that they never will be. so now, I’m going to tell you mine.

my mother was a poor soul, who hadn’t experienced anything. not happiness, not love, not anger. she did know what devastation and sadness felt like though. why, with her father leaving her and her bedridden mother for a Romanian gypsy; her mother finally dying when she was just a mere seven years old. she didn’t know what to do. but she had a dream, and she left for the city.

along the way, she met a man. My father. he craved adventure and together they fulfilled each other’s wishes. my mother found out love, my father,  wanderlust. 

they stopped their adventuring when she got pregnant, with who other than I. my mother was in love with me, and my father looked at me with adoration. then she got pregnant again soon, but this child killed my mother. my father and I were devastated, what were we to do with this surprise child? we hadn’t enough money for food before, and we often skipped meals; what were we to do with the extra mouth?

together we made a decision: adoption agency. yes, we put this angel up for adoption, where she was coincidentally adopted by my mother’s sister, my—our aunt.