Miracles

Chapter 23

~Kim's View~

Eli and I have been in the park for almost an hour now. Stewart's boss never gave me the time to meet up with her and I also didn't bother asking. I called Stewart earlier but he didn't answer. I texted him and got no reply either. What's wrong with him?

"Do you think she's gonna come?" I ask Eli. "I don't know but I think you're stressing about this too much." He says not making eye contact with me because he finds something in the grass more fascinating.
I don't know what's up with him but it sure feels like he's hiding something. He hasn't made proper eye contact with me all morning and I'm beginning to get worried.
"Not to sound rude or anything but you know I should be the worried one, not you." He says, now looking at a woman scold her two whining kids.
"Uh, sorry?" I say, quite unsure of what to say to him.
"Don't be. What are friends for?" He says making eye contact with me for the first time today.
"What are friends for?" I scoff.
"What's wrong?" He asks.
"Oh, everything is perfectly fine Eli. I'm happy you still see me as a friend even after the way you kissed me last night. Can't you see that I'm real and not just a fiction of your imagination? Can't you see that I care about you and everything that has to deal with you?"
I pour out my heart and then I know how bad I've fallen for a boy I met not less than two days ago. He makes it so difficult t-to to not love him. I admit it, I fell too early for Eli and I care about him.
I take in deep breaths to steady myself before speaking again, "What did you think of the kiss?"

It takes a while for him to answer. With no trace of emotions, he says, "It was a mistake."
"What?!" I hear Eloise's voice through the device connected to my ear. She starts complaining and my mind drifts off into space.
It feels like my heart has been ripped out because I can't hear it beat anymore. All sound seems to have been sucked out of the world. It's just silence.
My vision goes blurry. Salty water trickles down my cheek. I don't bother to wipe it away because it's not going to change the fact that I'm about to breakdown and cry my eyes out.
"I'm sorry for causing you all this trouble," I say and walk away taking the device in my ear out. I don't want to talk to anyone or listen to them.

I don't know exactly where I'm going to or what I'm going to do. All I know is that, despite everything Eli said, I still have feelings for him.

Wobbly walking down an empty alley with a teary face and boots in hand, I'm happy to say I don't regret falling for Eli. I'm glad I met him and had spent time with him.
"Ow! Ow! Ow!" I cry crouching to see what had pierced my barefoot. It's a rusted nail.
"Shit!" I sit, leaning against a wall for support as I try to clean my bleeding foot. I'm gonna get tetanus if I don't do something about this soon.

"That's one bleeding foot." A guy wearing shades and sitting in a black car with tinted windows says. I've always been scared of cars with tinted windows.
I hope Agent Barnes can hear this.
"Can I help you?" I ask, wincing in pain as I accidentally touch my open sore.
"No, but my friend here can help." A scary-looking man steps out of the backseat of the car coming closer to me. I try to stand and run but my legs don't do me any good. I end up hurting my already injured foot more.
I scream as much as I can as the man drags me like a sack of potatoes and shoves me in the car. My eyes widen at the sight in front of me.
"Eli." I cry shaking his unconscious body.
The man pulls me away from Eli and injects a strange-looking liquid into my arm.
I let out a shrill cry as everything slowly turns black.

...

~Charlie's View~

"What happened?" I start panicking. Aster rubs my shoulders soothingly trying to keep me calm.
"Is their location still clear?" Agent Barnes asks Agent Lewis.
"Yes. The other agents are still behind them." He answers. I sigh in relief.

Thinking about the argument Kim and Eli had at the park makes me feel sad. Eli isn't like that. He wouldn't hurt Kim's feelings on purpose. I know he cares about her as much as she does him.
It also amazes me how humans grow within a short period of time. The triplets were just babies not long ago. Now, they have feelings for other people? They're all grown up.

"Are you okay?" Aster touches my forehead, checking my temperature.
"Yes, I'm fine but I have a problem."
"You can tell me what it is." He assures me.
"I'm scared that the children, I mean the triplets are growing up and they are going to leave us and go to the university, start working and get married. They are going to leave us." I say and he just smiles.
"Just like we left our parents." He says. "We can't stop them from growing up."
"We can be their guide even when they think they don't need us."
"We'll just have to remind them that no one can replace us as their parents. They will continue to love us the same way they do now. We just have to give them a chance to be with the people they love who are not us." He says.
"They're responsible children. They'll know what to do." He adds.

I give him a bear hug. "My babies will know what to do. Thanks, honey."
"I'm here for you." He hugs back.
Elliot and Eloise join.
I smile at my family.