Someone I Used to Know - By Blakney Francis Page 0,107
but it didn’t fool me for a second. She’d gone out of her way to visit me. It was a genuine insinuation of friendship. It was as good a sign of true human emotion as I’d ever get from her.
Out of the corner of my eyes, I saw Fran beaming like a proud mother whose child had just taken their first steps. She hastily wiped at her coconut-brown eyes, knowing just as well as I did, it was best to keep Madeline in the dark to her own personal growth.
“I’ve got to get back to the room before Maria wakes up…The little hellion is so excited about finally getting to go to Australia with me she only sleeps in two-hour intervals. She really is convinced we’re moving in with a mermaid princess’ brother.” Fran stood, covering up the previous heaviness with a twinkling snicker. “I’ll send Alfred to get the car. I’m sure you’ve got class tomorrow, Adley.”
She hugged me, again swamping my senses with something I wistfully recalled as motherly. It was me holding onto her a moment too long the second time we embraced. Madeline walked us to the door. Alfred was standing just outside, ever the consummate bodyguard.
As the four of us gathered together for what was undoubtedly the last time, I shook my head with bemused amazement. I’d finally realized what I should have seen months ago.
Against all odds, in the most unlikely of places, I’d unknowingly made three real friends.
The knowledge didn’t fill me with peace though. If anything, the gaping hole Declan had left in my chest seemed to double in size.
I’d felt love again, and even that warmth did nothing for the encompassing chill that had frozen my heart.
Chapter Twenty
Adley
Back in the car with Alfred, my restless hands showed my inner turmoil where my silence did not. I had nothing to say, and everything to know. Did Declan’s irritability have something to do with me? Some twisted part of me wanted it to be true. I knew he’d cared for me, but I was also sure it had been a passing fancy. It was perverse to be delighted by the idea that my loss still hurt him, but I soaked up the possibility that I wasn’t the only one subjected to the agony of longing.
Absently I trailed Alfred’s charm, the Fish Bone Hook, along the palm of my hand, enjoying the distracting tickle. The bracelet jingled, jostled by my anxious movements. Alfred glanced at me pointedly, annoyed with my edginess.
“Madeline was right, you know.” I turned his charm over and over again, admiring the way it caught the lights of the interstate as we flew past. “I don’t deserve this…I’m a coward. That’s never going to change.”
He didn’t even blink, his focus solely on the road. I’d given up on him responding when he finally spoke, a familiar gruff edge scratching his deep voice, “Did I ever mention that I was adopted?”
I was not so shocked that I couldn’t cast him a look that said ‘when have you ever mentioned anything to me.’ I was still pretty shocked though.
“I left the hospital with my adopted parents. I never lived with my birth mother,” he continued.
“Do you hate her – your birth mother?” I blurted the same question that plagued me every day.
He shook his head.
“My mom spent her whole life thinking she’d made a mistake. Her regret consumed her. It was all she could think about. Her obsession pushed her past the point of rational. She worried constantly about me, convinced the family who’d adopted me was mistreating me or that I thought she didn’t love me. I met her when I was in my twenties, and she told me all of it, how she’d spent every moment since my birth dealing with the repercussions of her decision.”
“But you knew she loved you then.” I felt some subconscious need to defend the woman I’d never met. “You didn’t have to think that she just threw you out without a second thought.”
“Yes, any miniscule worries I’d had were cleared, but it didn’t make me feel any better. All that time I’d been growing up, having fun, making memories, loving my parents, and she’d been stuck in the past, unable to climb out…All meeting her made me feel was guilt and pity. Ever since I’d known I was adopted, there had always been this thought in my head that the sacrifice meant there was some higher purpose to the whole mess.