Isolated // H.S {ON HOLD}

ch 2: Sunday school

The song for this chapter is on the side, please listen to it:)

*Chapter 2: Sunday school*

Two days before I was taken, I was sitting in my Sunday school class, surrounded by a group of other fourteen- and fifteen-year-olds. There were maybe seven or eight of us, a mix of boys and girls. Some of the kids were listening, but not everyone, for we were teenagers, you know. Looking around me, I was comfortable, for these kids were my friends. I had grown up with them, gone to school with them, eaten snacks at their houses, giggled with them on the playground. We knew each other well.

Though there was some horseplay among the class, for the most part I was quiet. I don’t know if I was shy, but I guess I was. I just didn’t feel a need to stand out. It surprises some people when I tell them that. Most of them picture me as an outgoing teenager. A cheerleader type, I think. But I wasn’t. I was kind of quiet. A very obedient child. A 4.0 student. I played the harp, for heaven’s sake! How un-cheerleader is that!

Some people say I’m pretty. Blond hair. Blue eyes. But I promise, I’ve never thought of myself that way. As a fourteen-year-old girl sitting in my Sunday school class, I certainly didn’t think of myself as beautiful. Honestly, I don’t think I ever thought about it at all. Some of the girls I knew were boy-crazy, but I never thought about those kinds of things. 

I didn’t wear makeup. I had never had a boyfriend. The thought had never even crossed my mind. My favorite things were talking to my mom and jumping on the trampoline with my best friend, Aria Bentley. We just liked to have fun together. But our idea of fun wasn’t chasing boys, or prank calling other kids in our class.

Later on that day, I went to the bedroom I shared with my little sister, Emma, and shut the door. I went into the bathroom and locked it. On the other side of the bathroom was a walk-in closet. I went into the closet and shut that door too. I have three younger brothers, a younger sister, and one brother who is a year and a half older than me. With six kids, our house was always chaotic. Full of life and voices. But there, in the closet, I was as alone as anyone could be in a home with eight people.

Sitting down, back against the wall, I quietly read until it was time for dinner.