ILL-FATED MATCH

SECRETS

SECRETS

Selena groaned in pain as she sat up on the bed.

She tried to gingerly feel her back with her fingers and winced when she touched a swollen bruise. She dreaded how much it was going to hurt when she took a bath.

The events of the previous night came back to her, including the dream she had had. It had felt so real. As she mulled over the events of the dream, trying to decode it's hidden meaning, she heard her father's footsteps as he walked past her door.

At once she was filled with dread about facing her father. She debated about staying in her room all day and concluded that it was an act of cowardice.

She was almost twenty. A grown woman. She thought. She must learn to be bold and start trying to address uncomfortable situations instead of ignoring them.

On the bright side, she had a new job and a seemingly nice boss who was so sexy, as attractive as hell and…. She mentally shook her head. There were far more important things to ponder on than the good looks of Gabriel Adams.

She took a few deep breaths to prepare herself for the long day ahead. It wouldn't do for Gabriel to come pick her up as he had promised and find her unprepared.

Selena brushed her teeth, had a quick, quite painful shower and got dressed. Her usual baggy t-shirt and jeans. She started to pack a bag but stopped and decided to first go talk to her parents about it.

She took a deep breath and stepped out of her room gently closing the door. Her heart beat harder as she walked slowly and silently down the short, narrow hallway leading to the living room.

She overheard Nancy and Gerald having a conversation. No, not a conversation. It was more like an interrogation. Gerald was asking questions and demanding answers.

"I swear it to you, she's our child. Your daughter." Selena heard Nancy's shaky voice declare.

She got to the living room just in time to see her father wrap his hands around Nancy's neck.

"Tell me the truth now Nancy. She's definitely something other than human. She doesn't even look like either of us, and don't you dare give me that bullshit about her looking exactly like your great grandmother because I don't buy it"

"Please.." Nancy managed to choke out. "I'll tell you…. everything."

He released his grip on her neck. She coughed and took deep breaths to steady herself.

"Our baby died at the hospital Gerald" she sobbed. "Few hours after she was born"

Selena slapped her palm over her mouth to stifle a gasp.

Gerald blinked uncomprehending for a moment.

"But—but when I called you sounded so happy. You told me we had a strong and healthy baby girl. You…. What in God's name happened and why did you lie to me?"

Gerald had flown out of the country for a spiritual retreat two weeks before his wife's due delivery date and had spent an extra two weeks away after the delivery. He had been overjoyed to hear that he had become a father and had found it difficult to even concentrate on the retreat programme.

"I didn't know what else to do. You know how hard we had been trying for a baby before I finally got pregnant after seven years of our marriage. You had been so happy and full of hope and love and all. I thought telling you was going to break you so much. I'm so sorry Gerald".

A gave a guttural sound of pain as he punched the wall space beside the television over and over again bruising his knuckles.

"Then where the hell did the witch come from?" He asked as he turned abruptly and pointed directly at Selena. Obviously he had known she had been there all along. Selena gulped in fear.

"I don't know"

"What do you mean you don't know?" He thundered and Nancy visibly cowered.

"I found her on the porch. Someone left her there covered in a blanket inside some sort of basket with a note, a……ummm…. sealed envelope and a weird necklace." She said in a rush.

Nancy took a deep breath and continued. "At that moment I didn't really think much of it. I just felt glad and relieved that you were going to come home to a baby. I thought I was protecting you from some sort of breakdown by keeping this away from you."

He laughed. A harsh sound. "Protect me? You brought into our home something that tried to kill me"

"Do anything you can to get rid of her. I mustn't find her in my house when I return." With that he stormed out of the house.

Selena stood still at loss of what to do or say. She just stared dry eyed at her mother as she wept.

Nancy turned to face her and said simply, "you must leave"

Selena found her voice. "Where do you expect me to go?"

"Anywhere. I don't know. Besides, you've always wanted to leave. You should be happy"

"I've always wanted to leave but not this way. Not like this"

"It doesn't matter now. Just…leave."

Nancy brushed past her and headed straight to her room.

Selena sighed and also walked to her room. Numbly, she folded pieces of clothing and put them inside her leather box.

Nothing made sense and at the same time everything made perfect sense. She understood now why her mother had never really loved her. Why she had felt comfortable emotionally abusing her.

She thought of the first time she had summoned the courage to tell her mother about how Gerald had defiled her.

Nancy had called her a liar, manipulator and an attention seeker, and had gone straight ahead to report her to Gerald. Selena shuddered at what had happened next.

When puberty had hit and started to cause her curves to become fuller, her mother had looked at her with distaste and insisted on her wearing baggy shirts and jeans.

When she had grumbled about it, her mother had said, "Now honey, we don't want to lead the men astray, do we?"

"Or give you any opportunity to level accusations against them." She had added, alluding to what Selena had told her about Gerald.

She remembered the few times Nancy would come to her room weeping after Gerald had whipped her for something as silly as hugging an old male acquaintance, and tell her she was the one thing that kept her from leaving.

"I wish I had never kept you," she would say.

Selena wondered if Nancy would leave Gerald now that she was going out of the picture.

She was pulled out of her reverie by her mother who came inside her room and dropped a basket on the bed.

"Your mom left that"

Nancy got to the doorway and hesitated. "I'm sorry" she said without a backward glance and with that she walked away.

Selena gave a mirthless laugh. "Yeah, sorry is definitely going to solve all this" she thought sarcastically.

She observed the content of the basket and first picked up the baby blanket. She took a sniff trying to catch any unfamiliar scent, perhaps belonging to her birth mother.

The only scent she got was the typical smell associated with old clothing that had been long unexposed to air.

Next she picked up the note. It read,

I'm so sorry to burden you with this. It is with the deepest regret that I leave my daughter in your care but I have no other choice. It's either this or her death.

Please care for her as you would your own. The sealed envelope is for her eyes alone and to be given to her when she's of age. You will know when.

Thank you.

Selena reread the note trying to gauge the emotion with which it was written. She sensed a deep sorrow.

She ran her fingers over the words of the note and tried to imagine the fingers that had written them. She wondered if she looked like her or her father. She wondered if her birth parents were still alive. If they ever bothered to take a quick peek. To see how she was faring. If she had other siblings who had been distributed to other families.

A tear slipped down her cheek and dropped on the note. She angrily wiped it away and wondered the great danger she must have been in for her mother to have made that decision.

"Or had they been too poor to care for her?" She thought

Selena picked up the creepy necklace Nancy had mentioned earlier. A silver chain with a creepy eyeball as the pendant. She unhooked the clasp and hung it around her neck.

She examined the sealed envelope and debated whether or not she should open it there and then or wait till she arrived at Gabriel's house. From the tone in her mother's note she sensed it contained something very important.

Her curiosity won. She opened the letter.