Switching Places

20. Chloe

   The coffee shop was busy. So busy, that Blair and I were stuck sitting in the worst booth right next to the garbage bin. Promise and Alec managed to snag a good booth near the door.

   "Are you sure this is going to work?" I asked Blair, who was sitting across from me enjoying a muffin.

   "It's worth a shot." He said with a mouth full. 

   "Are you ready? She just walked in." I hear Promise say through the cell phone sitting on the table in front of me.

   "Let's do this."

   From our booth, we couldn't see anything that was happening to Promise and Alec, but with the cell phone on speaker in front of us, we could hear everything that was going down.

   "Who's this?" Dana said.

   "My boyfriend Alec, and no, I'm not breaking up with him anytime soon so you can't sleep with him." Promise said.

   "She's going to blow it if she keeps acting like that." I told Blair.

   "That's nothing new, Promise has always been the kind of person to speak her mind, until she pretended to be you, that is." Blair laughed, but I didn't find it that funny.

   "So listen, let's get right to the point. Why did you do it?" Promise said.

   "Do what?" 

   "Why did you place that note on the shed?"

   "What note?"

   "Don't be stupid Dana! I looked at the security camera footage, I saw that it was you!" Promise yelled. A few people looked over, but they were more into their own lives to pay attention to what was happening.

   "Okay, okay. I put the note there!"

   "So how do you know about Chloe?" Alec said, finally becoming interested in what was going on.

   "And what do you know about my parents?" Promise said.

   "I've known about Chloe for a long time. Promise, you know my uncle is a doctor right? He's the one who was their when you were born, so of course he know's there was two of you. And he always brought up how you two were split up at birth whenever I mentioned you at family dinners and stuff." 

   "So what happened to my parents?" Promise asked, and I was anxiously awaiting the answer on the other side of the phone as well.

   "I don't actually know. I just wrote that in the note to scare you into making sure no one else found out about Chloe because I wanted to be the person who told everyone that Promise didn't have a perfect life like everyone else thinks."

   "So you lied and threatened to kill us? You're a bitch, you know that right?"

   After the coffee shop meeting, we all came back to my apartment and crowded into the small living room. We had a plan, and even though it didn't start off the way we wanted it to, because Dana didn't know what happened to our parents, we still had to follow through with it. 

   "Oh, Chloe, i didn't know you were going to have friends over, I would have cleaned up before I left for work." Jody said as she walked into the apartment.

   "It's okay, but I need to tell you something." I said, standing up to face my foster mom. "This is Blair and Alec," I said, pointing to them as I said their names. "And that, is Promise, my sister." Promise stood up, and came to stand beside me. 

   "Oh my gosh. You look just like Chloe." Jody said, coming to stand in front of us. "How is this possible?" 

   "We don't know. But we were born here, and split up at birth. Promise went to live with a great family, and I got put into foster care. We don't know what happened to our parents. But I met Promise at the coffee shop David works at."

      "I can't believe this is happening. Chloe, you know I love you, but does this mean that you want to go live with your sister?" Jody said.

   "No, no. I love it here! I just wanted you to know about Promise, I'm not leaving."

   "I guess there is something I should tell you. When I was signing the adoption papers, they told me what happened to your parents, though, they didn't tell me you had a sister. But anyways, Chloe, your parents were very young when they had you, and were not fit to be parents. They arranged for a family to take you, well, both of you I guess, and they did, but as you were getting older, your first adoptive father was getting sick, so they had to put you into the foster system because they couldn't afford medical bills and raise a child at the same time."

   "So our real parents are still out there somewhere?" 

   "They are."