The Taken | Completed

Chapter 4

"16th June 2019" Aimie read aloud.
Leanne looked down.
"What has that got to do with..."
"Keep your voice down! You'll wake someone up!"

As if on cue, someone knocked softly on the door and opened the door, Leanne's heart raced, she could only see a blond messy bun and assumed Aimie had spoken loud enough to wake her mum up. She threw a cushion at her aunt but then realised it was actually Vicki not her mum.

"Oh, we didn't wake you up, did we?" Leanne whispered, leaning against the radiator next to her bed.
"Oh no, well yes, but that's not the point, " Vicki hesitated "Are you okay?"
Aimie jumped in,
"No, at first she refused to tell me but after some threatening..."
Vicki shot a look at Aimie.
"No, just no, I threatened to wake Natalie up"
"Ohhhhhhhhh"
"She said 'check the date'"
Aimie took her phone out of her dressing gown pocket, turned it on and put the phone in front of Vicky's face.
"16th June" Vicki read out loud.
After a minute of thinking Vicki exclaimed.
"Father's Day! That what day it is"
Leanne had sat back up and hugged her knees, avoiding both of her Aunts faces.
She then eventually spoke, choking on her words occasionally.
"Well, recently..ly..ly at school, we've been talking about the meaning of....."
"Father's Day," Vicki and Aimie interjected. By this point Vicky had sat down by Leanne's bed but leaning towards her to comfort her.
"And I felt like... I don't know... unloved almost but not.... lied to kinda. I just want to know why, and maybe even who. What could I have done that he wanted to never be in my life?...."

"It wouldn't have been anything you did," Aimie assured her niece.
"Did mum tell either of you anything about my dad?" Leanne stumbled on the last two words.

"I can honestly tell you she didn't" Aimie replied.
"Honestly" Vicki reiterated.

After 10 minutes of silence, both Vicki and Aimie had returned to their rooms. Leanne glanced over at the clock for the second time that morning. '4:12' it read. She decided it was better to get up than just lie in bed for another two and a half hours besides, her mum would be awake in 20 minutes or so.

After getting downstairs, she flung herself onto the sofa and put Coronation Street on, she had missed the last few episodes because it was Millie's birthday so she needed to catch up.
She struggled to focus on the show as her mind was in other places, she went to pick up her phone but realised it was still in Aimie's dressing gown pocket

She sighed and sat back down.