My footsteps made no sound as I tiptoed across the lawn of the orphanage, heading for the gate.
Finally, on this crisp, cool night, one of my lifelong dreams was about to come true. All I had to do was get past the gate and sprint towards the town's dock as fast as my legs could carry me. The long black cloak tied around my neck, concealed the locket that was my most prized possession.
Reaching the gate, I grasped one of the rusted bars with my hand and breathed out a sigh of relief.
Finally
I started to push it open, but stopped short when a sharp voice whispered from behind me.
"What do you think you're doing?"
My feeling of relief and happiness was suddenly washed away and replaced with dread as though someone had dumped a bucket of water over my head. I slowly turned to find, not an adult as I had feared, but a blond haired girl around my age staring at me with a horrified and angry expression.
"Carla?" I breathed out, my sense of dread vanishing; and instead relief returning, I was suddenly nervous.
"What are you doing?" She heatedly whispered to me once more.
"Me? I was... Uh…" I started to say, but stopped when I couldn't think of an explanation off the top of my head.
"You're trying to sneak out again, aren't you?"
I sighed; I really needed to work on lying off the top of my head.
Carla rolled her eyes. "Well, if you are, you better be back by morning."
She started to leave but I reached out and grabbed her hand, making her turn around once more.
"If I sneak out this time…" I started, and bit my lip. If I said the rest of my sentence, I knew that she would kill me. "I'm not going to come back."
Her eyes widened and her jaw dropped; she appeared surprised and I braced myself for a punch in the face.
"What?" She asked after a moment.
"Carla, I'm leaving."
"You...can't..."
"Yes, I can; and I am."
We didn't say anything for a few moments, which surprised me. I would've thought that I'd be laying on the ground unconscious and beaten to a pulp from what I'd just told her.
"Why?" Her voice was hardly more than a whisper and sounded as if she was about to cry.
"Carla..." I sighed, letting go of her hand and dropping mine to my side. "I feel as if some part of me is blank and empty, and it needs to be filled in...with something."
I absentmindedly raised my hand to the locket and stroked it, feeling the hole on the side where a key was supposed to unlock it, a key that I didn't have and probably never would.
"Are you having one of those moments, again?" Carla said, interrupting my thoughts.
'Those moments' were when I was thinking about my mother, why she dumped me in an orphanage, and if I left if I could find her.
You see, I was born at the orphanage about ten years ago. As far as the people working there could tell me, my mother came in one night after coming over from some island faraway and gave birth to me. She hardly told them anything, not her name, where she was living; only what she wanted to name me.
Cassandra Livingston
"Her grandmother's first name and my maiden name." She had explained to them.
Then, the very same night while everyone was asleep; she left. Leaving me at the orphanage with no information about her; just a locket she had left that wouldn't open without the key, which I did not have.
I tried many times to open it by picking at the lock, but it would never swing open to reveal whatever may lie inside it.
Carla suddenly snapped her fingers in front of my face, making me jump and look at her.
"Yeah, you were, weren't you?"
I groaned slightly; I hated it when she did that.
She looked positively alarmed. "Look, just cause you always get one of those moments doesn't mean that you can suddenly decide to leave one night to try and find some woman you know nothing about!"
When I didn't respond she threw her hands up in the air. "For all you know, Cassandra, she could be dead!"
"I know."
"Then why are going to leave?"
"Because..." I started, turning my head and looking in the direction of the nearby dock. "I feel like...I have to. And if I don't, I'm going to miss the most important thing that will ever happen to me."
It was her turn to groan; she ran her hands through her hair and looked up into my eyes.
"Nothing I say is going to change your mind, is it?" She asked me, after a moment of complete silence.
"No."
She stood there for a moment, then took a deep breath and pulled me into a hug.
"I'll miss you."
"I'll miss you as well."
We pulled apart, our eyes about to overflow with tears. I stepped back, turned, and pushed the gate open. I stared at the wide open road in front of me for a moment, then took a step past the imprint of the gate was when it was shut.
I'm free.
I didn't know what caused me to do it, but I screamed with joy and ran down the path. I never looked back, even though I wanted to see Carla's look of either sadness or annoyance one last time.