Truth of Dark Pasts by Serena Wood (free children's online books .TXT) 📖

She stops my sentence by putting her hands on my shoulders. “Stop it, you worry too much. I didn’t force myself to do that. I do like you, so stop saying that before I pinch you.” that pulls a small smile out of me. For a minute we stand in silence before I finally get up the courage to ask “Does this make us… together or something?” her eyes widen to that cartoon size again and for at least two minutes she stands in silence. “Look… I haven’t dated anyone like, ever, and for good reason. I’m just… scared of people.” she admits that last part so quietly I think I hear her wrong at first. River, scared of people? I’m sure I heard her wrong, she’s not scared of anyone.

She’s scared of me. I realize after a minute. “You’re scared of me?” she moves away from me a bit, shifting her weight nervously. “Yes… Tell anyone I said that and I’ll deny it. But I am, it’s hard to explain… I’d have to tell you about my past, why I moved here.”

“Oh… You don’t have to, I know you hated talking about it when we were little. It doesn’t matter, we can just keep being friends…” I had the whole sentence planned out, I’d planned on telling her I’d be her best friend again and she wouldn’t have to talk about why she moved because I sensed it had something to do with a past relationship. I tried to get the sentence out but she cuts me off with a startling “No!”

She tries to collect her voice before speaking again. “You have a right to know, you’re my best friend. And I don’t want to go back to the just friends stage. I really like you, I just… I’ll tell you tonight, okay?”

“Okay.” I mutter, slightly confused. But if she doesn’t want to talk about it now I understand that. A small part of me gets overly excited that she trusts me enough to tell me something like that later.

“Good.” She moves to kiss me on the cheek before nudging me towards the door again, “Can we eat now? I’m starving.” She rubs her stomach dramatically and it pulls a giggle out of me. “Let’s go.”

When we get to the kitchen, Mom is already done reheating the wings she got from some store on her way home. She pushes the container of chicken towards us as we walk up to her. “Help yourselves. It’s nice seeing you again, River. What brings you by?”

“Just checking on Ellie. Oh and I left a shirt around here, you haven’t seen it by any chance, have you?” Mom thinks her words over for a minute. “You mean the blood stained one I found in Ellie’s room before I left this morning?” The mention of the shirt makes me lower my head, staring at the plate I’m fixing with extreme concentration. “Yeah… That one.” River cringes a bit at the mention of the blood and instantly mom catches on. “It’s in the hamper, I’d planned on getting the stains out later…” Already, River’s moving to the laundry room; walking by mom into the small room in the far corner of the kitchen like she’s trying to hide.

“Thanks, I’ll take care of it when I get home. I wouldn’t want to worry you with it.” She mutters as she digs through the hamper, finding the shirt quicker than she wanted. I watch her pick the shirt up carefully, staring down at the red stains grimly. “I’ll give you money for another one, I’d hate to keep it, if it were me.” Mom comments. “No… It’s okay, I have to give it back to my sister anyways.” River mummbles, balling the shirt up in her hand and walking back out to the counter; grabbing the last of the chicken.

“River… I can’t thank you enough for helping the other night…” Mom starts, her eyes already watering. River stares at the ground as she walks to sit beside me at the kitchen table. “Don’t worry about it, Addie, I’d rather not talk about it though…” at that Mom nods her head in understanding and we eat the rest of our meal in silence.

By the time the meal ends, River hints that she has to go home for something “important”. I’d expected her to leave, I’m just glad she gave me a warning first. And at least she did stay for a majority of the day, I can’t really ask much more from her.

I tag along as she walks to the door, when she gets there she turns and notices I’m still around. I notice at pretty much the same time she does, wondering why I hadn’t gone off to do something. What did she need an escort to the door for? I never did it before in all the years we were friends, do I suddenly have some reason for following?

“I’ll come by later, okay?” She makes sure her voice is too soft for mom to hear, not that she would; she’s all the way in the living room by now. “Yeah, okay.” I mutter, trying to sound placid through all my excitement. “Good, I’ll see you tonight.” She moves to kiss me briefly, just the small kiss leaving me dazed and lost when she leaves.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The day goes by at an excruciatingly slow pace. I must have paced back and forth in my room a hundred times, my thoughts racing with worry. Of course all I could think about was meeting River again and what I would say. I don’t know how I’m going to manage myself, I’ve never been very good with words. What am I suppose to say when she tells me whatever it is she wants to say? I don’t know how I’m suppose to react because for one, I don’t even know what exactly she wants to say. I know she has something going on, some past relationship she can’t let go or maybe someone hurt her. But whatever it is, I don’t know what I’m suppose to do. Is there something specific I’m suppose to say? Do I hug her?

Jesus, I’m acting ridiculous. I’m over thinking things, I just need to relax. Things were so much easier before I kissed her, when we were best friends. I’d be a lot better off if thoughts like that would stop pestering me. I need a distraction.

“Ellie, I’m going to the store. Do you want anything?” I jump to my feet and rush to get ready, I really need to go with her. I haven’t been out of the house in weeks. “Wait up, I’ll be down in a minute.” I shout in reply, she’s silent for a few minutes. “Oh… Okay.” I can barely hear her reply from up here and I know she’s thinking. I rush down the stairs and slip my shoes on. She smiles at me when I look up at her. “Hey, I bet we can find a shirt for Zoey. If I know River well enough, she’ll never get that shirt fixed up.” she chuckles a bit and somehow having her around and joking like that just melts my worries away.

☯River☯

I’d spent most of the day trying to get the stains out of Zoey’s shirt but most of the time I lacked the concentration or the desire to do it long enough to get the stains properly removed. I give up on the pointless project around noon, I’ll just get Zoey a new shirt at some point.

I end up back in my room again, passing the time by staring at either the ceiling or the clock hanging on the wall. I try watching the little tv my dad had set up but I can’t seem to focus on that either. I try anything to pass the time but nothing seems to pull me out of my thoughts. I’m too worried about seeing Ellie again. I honestly don’t know how on earth I manage to get in the situations that I do. I could have found something better to say but somehow I let my past fuck me up again. I could have just told that I’m not good with relationships and at this rate she would have understood that instantly.

But somehow I’d managed to tell her I’m scared of people and it sunk even further when she’d asked that one question that made me falter. ‘you’re scared of me?’ something about the way she asked just made me feel weak, like I had let what happened to me turn me into this pathetic child. It may have screwed me up a lot but the prideful side of me would never admit that and that’s why I slipped up. I told her I had a past and worse yet I told her I would explain what happened. In a few hours I’ll be over there again spilling the story I never wanted to speak of again. Just the thought of retelling it sends my mind reeling. I roll over and try to push the thoughts aside, eventually dozing off.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I was only ten when it started, I didn’t understand anything when it came to things like that. I was only a child after all. If you had told me at that age what would happen to me in the future, I wouldn’t understand. But I would understand later, I would understand when it happened. I would understand every other day then on for the rest of my life what it meant. But I’ll never really understand why he did it.

On my tenth birthday, my dad had thrown me a party. It was the first birthday party he had set up for me, he thought I was old enough to start having parties every year like my sister.My dad’s always been strange about certain things, some would say he was like that to save money but I know it’s just some kind of odd tradition he has. A family thing.

On that party, everyone in my family came to see me. Most of them I had never seen in my life before and on my next birthday I wouldn’t see most of them again. But there was one person that I can remember 100% that always came to every birthday party. My father and Uncle Neil were always close so it never came to me as a surprise when he should up on my tenth birthday party. He was always around, he’d become just another part of the family.

He got me a toy pony that year, I burned the damned thing years ago but I still remember playing with it in our back yard with my friends. That’s all I did on that first party. Until everyone’s parents had picked them up and took them home. Uncle Neil had picked me up and took me out of the back yard, carrying me into the kitchen. “Here, Ira. I brought you something.” he plopped me into my dad’s arms and at the time I was giggling up a storm. Dad set me down and I finally quieted myself. I brushed the pony’s hair as Dad and Uncle Neil talked. Uncle Neil came up to me before he left and smiled, I was too young then to know the smile was strained.

“What a beautiful girl your daughter’s turning into, Ira.” He fluffed my hair and that’s when it started. No one had said anything specific, no one knew. Maybe at the time he didn’t even know, but that’s when it started. He had this troubled look in his eyes and a little thought came to him for a split second. I’m no mind reader but I knew, somehow I just knew something had came to him. And that little pestering thought would come back to haunt him.

He fluffed my hair one last time when he was getting ready to leave and kissed my cheek before walking to the door, my dad not far behind