Fostering Love

Chapter 6: Cheer Up

     "A traitor in the Black Swan, huh? How will they find out who it is?" Fitz inquired. Sophie had decided Keefe was right, and informed him about the recent news. Fortunately, he hadn't asked her about her secret. Yet.

     "I'm sure Mr. Forkle has his ways," Sophie replied. Fitz looked at her and flashed his movie-star grin. Sophie's stomach somersaulted.

     "I'm just glad that his ways resulted in creating you."

     Sophie smiled shyly, but her mind was screaming, EXCEPT HE MADE ME UNMATCHABLE! She realized then that he probably knew, too. After all, the matchmaking process depended on genetics, and her parents were unknown. That thought only made it worse. Mr. Forkle had always been adamant on never sharing that crucial piece of information.

     "Hey, is something wrong?" Fitz was looking at her with a worried expression.

     "No," Sophie lied. "I'm just tired." She knew Fitz cared about her, at least, even if they couldn't be matched. Though it was still a problem . . .

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     Sophie rose from her bed like a zombie. She trudged around Havenfield, constantly checking her Imparter or trying to reach Tam telepathically. But wherever they were keeping him, it was blocked off. And it had been over a month since Mr. Forkle started searching for the mole, still with no good leads. Each day was beginning to blur into the next. Sophie's thoughts kept repeating, No progress, no progress, no progress . . . She felt bad for making her friends and family worry and attempt to cheer her up, but she couldn't help it. A while ago she had come to the epiphany that this was the problem with how they were doing things: they were always planning, researching, over-planning, and waiting, waiting, waiting. That was why the Neverseen were winning.

     Sophie flopped dejectedly onto her bed and grabbed her iPod. She found a random playlist and set it on shuffle.

     "CHEER UP BABY! CHEER UP BABY!"

     Sophie pulled out one earbud and looked at her iPod in surprise. Dex's face flashed onto the screen.

     "Hey Sophie!" the video message said, "Sorry for messing with your iPod thing. I thought you could use some cheering up so I chose this song called "Cheer Up". Fitting, right? So-"

     Dex was suddenly pushed off of the screen so a different, blonde-haired boy could be seen. "Yo, Foster!" Keefe grinned. "Human music ain't bad after all! Check this out-"

     "Don't stop! Believin'! Oh oh ohhhhh. . ."

     Dex squeezed his way back on screen. "Anyway, we hope this helps." He offered a dimpled grin and Keefe flashed his trademark smirk. Then they blinked away.

     Sophie felt a smile crawl across her face. She really did have the best friends.

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     "Foster, you get our message?" Keefe asked when Sophie arrived at her first get-together with her friends in weeks.

     "Yup. Thanks so much you guys." Sophie set her overnight bag on Rimeshire's shiny floor and reached out to hug Dex and Keefe.

     Just then, a loud CRASH! echoed through the halls. "I better go clean that up," Dex grumbled as he slipped out of the hug to find the infamously mischievous triplets.

     And that was when Fitz walked in. "Hey, Sophi-"

     Keefe quickly stepped away and Sophie dropped her arms.

     "I'm going to leave now," Keefe said quietly and quickly kept to his word.

A/N:
I'm sorry, but I had to put some song lyrics in. There may be more in the future too... Have any song recommendations for me?

Anyways, this may actually be the first time I've updated on time (yay) and I know the story is progressing a bit slowly. So I kinda tried to jam in several developments in one chapter. And now there's maybe a bit of drama that we get to see play out...