Scarlet Awakening (Sweet Secrets #2)

by Taylor Henderson

  My grandfather was sitting in the rocking chair watching an extremely boring golf tournament in the living room with me, and occasionally trying to strike up a conversation. Each time that happened I did my best to lead the conversation into a dead end. I needed to focus.

  My search had begun on Facebook, where I had opened up my mom’s friend list and typed in the name John. The twenty-something people who came up in the search with the name John didn’t surprise me. After searching the name, I narrowed the findings down to the men with John as their first name. That only removed four people, which left me to the tedious task of looking at each picture to try and see if any of the men were the John from the picture with my mom and the twins.

  If only everyone had actual pictures of themselves as their profile picture, then everything would have been easier, but they didn’t. A surprising majority of the guys had pictures of their favorite sports team’s logo, or their children as their profile picture. There was one who even had a picture of a cartoon penguin, and another guy who had a Pokémon character as his avatar. For both of them it was their only picture on their entire page. I concluded that they were both camera shy, and therefore couldn’t be the John that I was looking for before I exited their profiles. Annoyingly, the Facebook search led me nowhere. None of the men with actual pictures, or non-private profiles, matched the John we were searching for.

  A last name would surely do me some good right now. The only way I would get one though was with my parents’ help. I could go about that in three ways. The first option would be by asking my mom, which would be the worst possible thing for me to do. The second would be to ask my dad, who I hadn’t spoken to on the phone yet since I had gotten here and didn’t want the reason that I called him to be related to the twins. The last option was by going through Mom’s journal again in hopes that she referred to John by first and last name at some point. The first two options were undoubtedly the most effective, but I was worried about how they would react, especially Mom. Her emotions were still fluctuating easily, and ruining her good mood with a question about the man she had given her children up to might devastate her. I couldn’t handle that. I just wanted her to be happy, and if that meant that Ella and I had to go behind her back to find out the information we wanted, then we would.

  Sighing, I exited the page on my computer and closed my laptop. The sound of it closing brought my grandfather’s attention over to me. He offered me a smile. “All done playing around on the Internet?” he asked.

  “Playing around?” I questioned, sliding the laptop off my lap and placing it down onto the empty space next to me. “I wasn’t playing around. I was just messaging some friends from back home.” It wasn’t so much of a lie, because I did send Violet a long message about what Ella and I were up to—it just wasn’t my main reason for being on Facebook.

  Grandpa let out a loud booming laugh. For a moment I thought he was laughing at the idea of me actually having friends to message, until he said, “Home? You are home! You’re a California girl through and through. You were born and raised here. Your home is in the West, sweetheart. You know what they say, ‘home is where the heart is.’” He used a large hand to pat the right side of his chest.

  I shrugged, not wanting to get into a debate about where I considered my home to be. He was right that I had grown up here, and lived here for a majority of my lifetime, but I had friends and felt more comfortable in Virginia. I was able to be myself, and I had enjoyed my short time there far more than I ever had when I lived here. Of course not everything was all bad, but there’s something about the feeling of going somewhere where no one knows who you are and you can’t be judged by your past actions. It’s nice not to have a reputation for being hot-headed, or known for who you dated, or who you were friends with. Honestly I didn’t think that Grandpa would understand that, so instead I said, “You’re right,” as I stood up from the couch. That’s what I always said when I wanted to avoid confrontation, and when I didn’t actually believe that the person was right.

  I returned his smile as I headed into the kitchen to join the chefs. Ella focused her eyes on me as soon as I entered the room. It was obvious she was curious to see if I found anything. I shook my head no, and gestured for her to follow me into the other room just as my mom looked up and smiled at me.

  “Did you come to join us?” she questioned while stirring contents together in a large mixing bowl.

  “No, I just came to grab Ella for a second.”

  Mom pouted at my response. “So you aren’t coming to help, but you did come to take away my current helper.”

  I nodded slowly. “Yeah, sorry about that, but I’ll bring her back in one second.”

  She shook her head, but her smile returned, and stayed as she continued to mix the goo together in the bowl.

  I led Ella out of the room and up the stairs to the main hallway just to be sure that we were out of everyone’s hearing range.

  “You really didn’t find anything?” she whispered, taking another precaution since we were standing at the top of the steps.

  I shook my head and frowned. “No, not a thing. I went through every single one of the Johns that she had as friends on Facebook and didn’t find a single match. There isn’t anything else that we can do without a last name.”

  Ella huffed out a breath of air and placed her hands on her hips. “So what do we do now? Give up?”

  “Yeah right,” I scoffed. “It means we need to search through the journal again and see if we can get any more information. It will be easier this time around since we won’t have to waste time looking for it, and can use that time to find the information that we need.”

  “It may be easier, but I doubt that means that it will be easy.” She rolled her eyes and went to lean against the wall. “So, what do we do? Go and grab it now?”

  I raised an eyebrow at her absurd question. “No way, that’s far too risky. What if she came up?”

  She shrugged. “Yeah, you’re right. So what’s our next step?”

  I leaned against the wall across from her and focused my eyes on hers. “We need to get her out of the house again.”

  Chapter 9

  Mom was laid out across her bed with her eyes glued to the television screen in front of her when I knocked on the door. She barely glanced our way as she invited Ella and me inside. She just watched the screen with wide eyes for a few more moments before pausing the movie with her remote and facing us.

  “Hey girls. What are you two up to today?” She sat up and patted her hands down on either side of her, gesturing for us to have a seat.

  Ella took a seat instantly, while I remained standing. The plan was to get Mom out of the house so that we could go through her journal again, and we wouldn’t be able to do that by getting comfortable.

  Shrugging, I answered with, “Nothing much. We just came to see what you were doing today.”

  Mom brushed some of her brown hair out of her face as she glanced between Ella and me. She looked suspicious. It was as if she knew we were up to something.

  “Why?”

  “Because we saw that one of your favorite movies is playing at the old cinema and we thought you would have fun going to see it,” I answered smoothly, trying to avoid adding to her suspicion. I think it worked, because in response she sighed and tossed an arm over Ella’s shoulder and made firm eye contact with me. The suspicion was gone from her face, replaced by a despondent expression. She cast her eyes downward momentarily.

  “Oh girls,” she began, sighing again. “You guys do know that you don’t have to worry about me so much, right? I am doing so much better since I moved back here. You don’t have to find things to keep me busy. I can do that myself now. Part of my therapy is that I have to learn how to find things to do on my own. When I’m feeling down I have to find a way to pick myself up and go out and do things that will lift my spirits. Of course it’s healthy for me to get up and go out, but just because I’m in the house doesn’t mean that I’m sad.
I can enjoy my time in the house too.”

  Ella made eye contact with me for a moment before she looked over at Mom and nodded. “I get it,” she said. Mom hugged her close and kissed her temple.

  “What about you, Lena? Will you stop trying to force me out of the house as well?”

  I nodded, and she beckoned me over to give her a hug. She kissed my forehead before she pulled back and smiled.

  “I know that you girls were behind the spa day.” She narrowed her eyes at us jokingly. “Thank you, girls. I needed that relaxation time.”

  “You’re welcome,” we said simultaneously, although our reason for getting her to go wasn’t nearly as altruistic as she thought it was.

  Mom patted Ella’s leg and said, “Now, will you girls take your own advice and go out! I’m the one who should be worried about you. You’ve barely left the house since you’ve gotten back in town.”

  I shrugged. “We don’t really have anywhere to go. We didn’t keep in touch with any of our friends in the area.”

  Mom furrowed her eyebrows and frowned. “That’s going to stop you from going out together and having fun? You can easily reconnect with old friends, or even make new friends. I know you girls, you’re very personable.”

  “That’s because you’re our mom,” Ella mumbled.

  With a sideways look at Ella, Mom went on. “How about you two go to the mall? I know your father gave you spending money, and I know that my little Gabriella could spend a day shopping.” She poked Ella’s side, causing her to stand up from the bed. She frowned at the usage of her full name.

  “Okay,” I said, gaining my mom’s attention. “We’ll go to the mall.”

  Mom clapped her hands together and smiled. “You girls have fun. Now, let me get back to my movie.” She waved her hands, shooing us from the room as she went to lay back on her stomach to continue watching her movie.

  Ella pulled her door shut behind us as we exited the room. “Are we seriously going to go to the mall?”

  I nodded as I continued down the hallway toward the attic. “She’s right. We haven’t really left the house to do anything for us since we’ve been here. I didn’t want to run the risk of bumping into anyone, but I think shopping would be fun. We should go out and take a day off from our detective work.” She followed me up the stairs and through the door into my room. “Besides, it might look strange if we don’t leave the house.”

  “All right, all right,” she groaned.

  I furrowed my eyebrows and tossed her a confused look. “You, Gabriella Marie Snotty, don’t want to go to the mall? Where is my sister, and what have you done with her?”

  “Ha ha,” she feigned a laugh. “I just don’t want to put off finding Taylor and Cameron. We’re so close.”

  I laughed at that. “We’re just as much in the dark as we were months ago, except now we know their names.”

  “And their adoptive father’s name and what he looks like,” Ella added.

  “Yeah, and that. Either way, we can take a day off from sleuthing if it means that Mom won’t be suspicious.” With those words, I turned and headed toward my closet. I heard Ella leave the room and the sound of the door shutting behind her.

  Once she was gone I let out a breath of air. I felt like my body was filled with tension ever since I had found that picture. I was on edge, and a day at the mall could be just what I needed to relax. To most people the idea of carting around bags full of stuff, spending money, and trying on clothes for hours might seem stress-inducing, but I have always found it to be relaxing. I loved shopping, and it had been so long since I had actually done it.

  I took a deep breath before I started digging through my closet to find something to wear. My legs had been looking pasty since I wasn’t getting a lot of sun lately, so I decided to put on a maxi dress that covered them up until I had a chance to go to the pool or the beach to tan. The dress was a light blue and was so long that it lightly grazed the ground as I walked over to my dresser to find a necklace to wear with it. Once I finished adding my accessories, I dragged a brush through my curly hair and pulled it up into a high ponytail. Afterwards, I applied a little eye makeup and lip-gloss, and slipped on a pair of black flip-flops.

  Once I was dressed and ready to go, I grabbed my small black cross body purse with my wallet in it, and left the room. I couldn’t explain how, but I already felt better now that I knew I would be going out and having fun. My dress made me feel light and airy as I walked down the stairs and into the foyer to wait for Ella.

  Thankfully I didn’t have to wait long because she descended the steps moments after I did. She was wearing a pair of distressed jean shorts, a tribal print crop top, and flip-flops. It was obvious that she didn’t care about her lack of a tan from the amount of skin that she was showing.

  “Let’s go,” she said as soon as she reached the bottom of the steps.

  With that, I pulled the front door open and we headed out into the bright sunlight and intense heat.

  ***

  “This pizza is so delicious,” Ella moaned, pulling a piece of pepperoni off of her slice and placing it into her mouth. I watched in disgust as the grease from the pizza soaked through the paper plate it was sitting on. I swear oil had dripped from the pepperoni and back onto the pizza when she had lifted it up.

  I pushed my plate away. Just watching her eat was making me sick. I had already choked down half of my slice. Just half of it had made my skin crawl, and I was sure that I could feel the potential acne bubbling up under my skin. Ella felt differently though; she was on her second slice.

  We’d been shopping for the past two hours, and in that short timespan we had worked up an appetite. We had both managed to buy enough stuff in the two hours we’d been here that we each were carrying more than four bags from different stores. Ella had found a cute new bikini to wear for the summer and had even planned a whole day around it. Since she’d splurged and purchased it, we had to find a good day to go to the beach and walk the boardwalk. She even came up with the horrible idea of inviting Carter along—as if that was going to happen. I was perfectly content with spending the summer with just family, and she knew that. She was just trying to get under my skin, like she knew how to do so well.

  “I don’t see how you don’t like it,” Ella replied, rolling her eyes. She raised the slice up and went in for a huge bite. The greasy imprint on the plate was so oily that there was most likely an imprint on the table as well.

  “I don’t see how you do like it,” I countered, reaching for a napkin and wiping my mouth, hands, and anything else that may have been in contact with the grease.

  Ella raised an eyebrow. “I appreciate a nice greasy pizza every now and then. I can find the beauty in everything.”

  I scoffed at her words. “Then why are no guys ever good enough to meet your standards?”

  In response to my question she shrugged her shoulders. “That’s different. A greasy pizza is one thing, but a greasy man is a whole different conversation.” She raised her pizza up for another bite, but froze moments before it reached her open mouth.

  I furrowed my eyebrows at her strange action. “Did you just realize how gross the pizza is?”

  It was as if she had seen a ghost. Her green eyes were wide with shock, and so was her mouth. Her whole body was rigid and frozen.

  Following her gaze, I went to turn and look at what she was staring at, but Ella jumped back to life and barked, “Don’t look!”

  “Don’t look?” I repeated. “At what?”

  Ella set her pizza down and wiped her hands quickly. She leaned forward across the table and focused her eyes on mine. “Okay, turn your head to your right just a little and look at that group of girls sitting near the Subway. Don’t make it obvious, but do they look familiar to you?”

  Slowly, I turned my head to the right just enough so that I was able to see a group of girls sitting nearby. They were all leaning into the center of the table, giggling about something. One of the girls in particular ca
ught my eye. She was wearing a dressy top with a pair of skinny jeans that were rolled up to her ankle and had carefully placed rips on the knees. Her long, toned legs were crossed, and as she laughed she bounced her heel-clad foot up and down. Her strawberry blonde hair was cut into a stylish bob that I had to admit framed her face nicely. When she turned her head slightly and the freckle that dotted her upper lip became visible, recognition dawned on me. I turned back around to face Ella hurriedly with what I assumed was a look of shock on my face.

  “Wait, is that Eleanor?” My mouth dropped open to form a small ‘o.’ Eleanor Daniels was also known as the girl who’d made Ella’s first year of high school the tragedy that it had been. If manipulating Ella and forcing her to do all of her and her friends’ dirty work wasn’t enough, she ended the year with a bang when she drugged Ella and left her in the men’s restroom in a bar. One of the bartenders who had seen the girls enter the bathroom, and then exit without Ella had come to her rescue. I had been furious with Eleanor and her friends for what they had done, and even now I still felt a bubble of anger swell up in the pit of my stomach, but I pushed it away. We couldn’t change the past, and I had already confronted Eleanor about how wrong her actions were that night. Anything could have happened to Ella if the wrong person had found her, and that was what had frustrated me the most.