Hey lovely and loyal readers! And welcome to anyone new
If you are here because you read my story Keep No Secrets before, I am so so sorry for not updating in uhm... 3 years? The last time I updated was only a few months after my dad died, and I wrote multiple chapters very quickly after his death, but after a few months became too depressed and got huge writer's block that has lasted till... about now. A lot of things have happened in my life and I'm... a very different person than I was then. Sometimes life is still a struggle for me, so if I go a long while without updating again, I apologize in advance but it's probably me just trying to take care of myself and actually stay alive. Please don't take it personally.
A few months ago I really wanted to start this story up again but when I read my previous chapters through again, I was APPALLED at how horrible my writing was and even more so how extremely out of character Emma was! There were huge holes in the plot, foreshadowing for things that would never happen, and many more mistakes. See, though I never actually wrote chapters or updated, I dabbled lots of scenes and further on chapters with Emma and played around with the story and things when I daydream (which is A LOT lol) so Emma is a very fully developed and complex character hardly anything like what she was in Keep No Secrets previously. Also where the storyline and her life will be going is much better and more realistic, though, I must warn; much more mature-themed. The title will still be Keep No Secrets since it still fits, possibly even more now.
This re-write will be rated T still due to mature themes that appear later on in the story. So let this stand as a trigger warning for some mature content. You will however be warned as they come up and be able to skip over them, so don't worry too much.
But anyways, now onto the story. This is just the introduction, and I will warn you that the other chapters will be a while in the making, but I did want to get this up to let you all know what's up.
Some bits of the storyline are borrowed from that story, but everything else is mine. As always, I do not own the Outsiders canon characters. Also I do not own Victoria or her friends. They belong to the talented texaskid and come from her amazing story From Greaser To Country Girl And Back, which is finished and I highly recommend you read
Anyways I'll shut up now.
Enjoy!
It was a hot Monday in June, two weeks before school was to end. Mom was at work because we had had a huge fight the night before. I basically demanded she go into her shift the next day because if she skipped anymore she would lose her job and we would be homeless. I'd gone to school that morning, and was at home now for lunch break, even though I knew I'd be late back to school because of how long the subway there and back would take.
I usually didn't come home for lunch. I'd usually get one of the guys to drop by and bring me lunch, or take me out, but today I had something I had to do.
When I came in the door I dropped my school bag and locked the door behind me turning both the dead bolt and sliding the chain on. I went through the living room and into the kitchen to grab some lunch, but when I opened the fridge I found there was really nothing there to eat other than the hamburger meat that was for tonight, and a small hunk of cheese. Sighing, I slammed the fridge door shut. I had the last piece of bread with butter, the rest of the cheese, and a large glass of cold water to fill me up.
She hadn't bought groceries again! It was the third time this month that we had an empty refrigerator because she had spent her paycheque on booze. Angrily I took all the beer from the fridge and emptied every bottle down the sink, then stormed off to her room and got her bottle of Jack from under the bed and emptied it too. Then I started searching for the cash I suspected she might have put aside and hidden somewhere in her room. If she wouldn't buy groceries, I would.
I checked under her mattress, but there was just an almost empty bottle of Vodka, which, what the hell? I left it there. She would find a way to get more anyhow.
Tossing some of her clothes onto her bed I dug around the floor of her closet, then I stood on the pile of clothing to reach her top shelf. I felt around for a bit, pushing aside a couple books and some other random junk, and at the back found a shoe box under some bags and bras. I grabbed hold of it and pulled it down.
Turning around, I sat on the bed with the box beside me, and took off the lid.
"Aha!" Just like I thought, there was a wad of cash in the box on top of a bunch of papers. Quickly flipping through the bills I estimated about $100. She had obviously been stashing little bits away for a long time. This would definitely be enough for me to re-stock the kitchen, and then I'd take the rest to hide on my own and make sure if we ever got down low again, I could get groceries.
As I went to put the lid back on the shoe box, a photo sitting on top of the papers inside caught my attention. It was of me, my older brother Tyler, and our friend James Bennett sitting on the front steps in our bathing suits after running around in the sprinklers. Tyler and James were about 6, and I was 4. It was the summer before John and Tyler left when I was 5. Curious, I went through the other photos. One of my first day of school, again with James and Tyler in it; when we first got our new puppy Monkey; me at ballet at 4 years old; swimming lessons when I was 3; our family Christmas picture after I had turned 5 that September. Someone had taken a pen and crudely scratched out Mom's face on the Christmas photo. I found that odd and vaguely wondered who did it.
Putting the photos down on the bed beside the cash, I rifled through the rest of the papers in the box. Tossing aside some legal papers of some sort, I found a bunch of letters. Flipping through them I looked at the addresses on the envelopes. They were addressed to Sasha Smith, my mom, and came from some Dennis Winston in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Some of them looked more worn than others, as if they had been read many times over, the envelopes wearing thin and the paper softer. Others looked pretty new and neat, except for some discolouring that I assumed might just be due to time and transportation.
'That's weird. I don't remember us knowing anyone from Oklahoma. I wonder who this guy is.' I thought.
Picking one up, I turned it over and pulled the letter out. It was dated February 16th, 1958. A familiar date, but I couldn't remember why.
"Dear Sasha,
I had no idea you thought that way about us writing. Considering you have still been writing me back for the last 5 years, and before that over the years as well. Besides, I have a family too; a wife, a 9 year old son, and a 7 year old daughter. My intentions of these letters were never to tear you from your family, or be disrespectful to mine. You were the one, anyhow, who wrote to me first. I'm very glad you did, too. I enjoy hearing about my daughter grow up, and I know you enjoy hearing about Dallas, also.
I would love to possibly meet Emma too, someday. I know you have a husband, and I have a wife, but I would really love to see my baby girl.
Dallas is more and more like you every day. Got your stubbornness and strong-will too. He loves Victoria so much, and they get along well. I've been thinking maybe I should bring Dallas on a trip up there to New York with me and see you and Emma. I bet he would like her, too.
I miss you so much. God Sasha, there isn't a day that goes by that I don't wish I had never left you. I should have stayed and married you. I was immature. We were young, I was scared that we had a kid. I wasn't sure if I was ready. I'm so sorry I ever left you Sasha. I still love you.
I'm glad, though, that you are happy with John. I really hope you have a great life with your new family. You deserve that and so does Emma.
Sincerely,
Dennis"
I couldn't believe what I was reading. My biological father wrote letters to my mom. They communicated, or did. And she never told me. I put the letter back in the envelope and picked up another one. This one was dated the December previous to the letter I had just read.
"Dear Sasha,
I hope you are doing well. I haven't heard from you in a while. Hopefully you are having a good Christmas holiday. There's no snow here, which is no surprise. We haven't had a white Christmas since I married Tina. I miss New York in the winter, it was so beautiful, all the snow. Is there lots of snow there? I bet Emma loves playing out in the snow. Do you remember our first Christmas together? We went to Times Square and bought hot chocolate in a little coffee shop near the park. Then New Year's Eve we went to that Irish Pub you loved and watched the ball drop on the television. Man, we got so wasted that night.
I got the present you sent Dallas. I got Victoria a new pair of shoes, I mean what else can you get a girl her age? And her mom swears she needs them.
I attached our family's Christmas photo and I bought Emma a present. It's a stuffed monkey. I really hope she likes it. I'm going to send it when I mail this letter. Let me know when you get it and what she thinks.
Are you going down to Texas this year to visit your mother and brothers? I remember you said Emma really loved the horses. Victoria loves them too. We saw them at a rodeo a couple months back. She said one day she's going to race them.
Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays Sasha
Dennis"
'So that's where that monkey came from.' I still had the stuffed monkey. It was really beat up but I still slept with it. I used to take it everywhere with me. Mom said it had come from Santa though. I named it Monkey, after the puppy we got that Christmas. Tyler named the dog and I wanted to name my stuffed animal after the dog, though I have no idea why. We did end up going to visit Nana in Texas that Christmas, and it was also the time I became terrified of horses.
I looked in the envelope, but there was no photo. I shuffled through the shoe box but it wasn't anywhere in there either. Maybe Mom had it somewhere else.
I continued reading through the letters. I found that they did go back about 5 years; the first one being a few months after I was born, obviously responding to a letter Mom had written telling him about me, though there were also letters over the years before that which were all about Dallas mainly and a lot more spread out. These letters were underneath the first pile, and were neatly stacked and tied with string. They were the most worn out, as if they had been read the most. Some of the envelopes even had tears or were missing the flaps. I noticed, too, that a couple of those letters that talked so much about Dallas growing up had odd discoloured splotches on them, almost like someone had cried on them.
I'd always known that Mom had cheated on John and that was when she got pregnant with me, but I never knew who or how. Apparently, as I've found out from the letters, Dennis just happened to be in town when John was away on a business trip, and a one-night stand brought me into existence. I guess John was bad at math because when he got back he really thought I was his. That is until he left when I was 5. I vaguely remember some of the things he said to Mom that night, with one comment about my eyes standing out. He said something about my light blonde hair and how my eyes were blue when they both had brown hair and eyes. When my mother responded that her mother's eyes were blue John had said with disgust, "Yeah well not like hers." I suppose maybe that's why I've always hated my eyes. Maybe if they hadn't been such a light blue, and had just been brown, John would have stayed.
Putting all the letters back I found one hiding that had been jammed up the side of the shoe box. It was unopened. I ripped it open carefully and pulled out the letter.
It was dated March 1958; a month after his previous one; the first one I read.
"Dear Sasha,
I am so sorry for whatever I did that offended you so much. I never meant to hurt you or your family. I only wanted to make you happy. That's all I ever wanted.
But I'll respect your wishes and no longer write to you, if that is what will make you happy.
Best wishes,
Dennis"
I was stunned. I wish I could somehow read the letter she wrote to him. Years of writing and suddenly she wanted nothing to do with...
But suddenly it all made sense to me. His second last letter was dated February 16th. The day John blew up at Mom and left with Tyler the next day. He must have seen the letter. Mom stayed at home every day while John worked, so she would have been able to get the mail before him and made sure he never saw the letters. She must have forgotten that day. She must have written Dennis and told him to stop writing her in anger and shock after John took off and she lost yet another son.
I couldn't believe it. All these years. All these years Mom knew exactly who my father was; she had kept in contact with him when she was married to John. She never told me. Never said a thing. She never talked about my brother, or the fact I had a half sister. She never let me meet him, even after John left. I was furious. I had no idea why she would keep such a thing from me, why she would stop contacting him and shove all the letters away in a box to forget, along with all photos of me as a child with John and Tyler .
I didn't have any answers, and too many questions.
But I knew one thing; I had to find my father and my brother. I had to see them.
Well I hope you enjoyed this introduction and it's piqued your interest for the story to come. I do apologize in advance because I will warn you the next/first chapter WILL be a while in coming, since I haven't even begun and I am unsure exactly how I want to begin the actual story, but I really wanted to at least get an introduction up and a note to let you all know what's coming and where I stand/what's been going on.
Please review and keep an eye out for the first chapter! Once I get it finished I'll be looking for at least 5 reviews before I post it ;) That's not too much to ask is it, lovelies?
Take care and see you next time!