Not What It Seems

Chapter 1

Sigh. The empty feeling hits me once again as I enter my dark and cold apartment. It's Christmas Eve, and I can't find it in me to be in the least bit cheerful. You see, four years ago, around this exact time, I was in an accident.

I was on the highway and a drunk driver struck my vehicle, causing it to flip off the road and into a ditch. I was in a coma for 3 days and suffered from a mild case of amnesia. Doctors said that it was a miracle that I made it out alive. However, It feels as though a large part of me is dead. This unknown, desolate feeling in my heart alerts me that something is missing, and I can't figure out what.

With the help of my parents, they've led me to a smooth recovery. Despite my father's protesting, I moved from Seattle to Chicago. To be perfectly honest, I couldn't stand being in that house another second, let alone that town. Despite being doted on, it feels like my parents were hiding me from something. It's as if there was something they hadn't informed me about my life after the accident. My mother always pauses and my father's mouth forms a hard line and he walks away. It's as if it's a joke, a secret that I'm being left out on. Maybe it's paranoia. Maybe it's logic.

I needed to leave, so that I can branch out and get things right on my own, yet that isn't going so well. Here I am, 27 years old and alone on Christmas Eve.

Don't get me wrong I made friends in the short year I've been here; it's just we haven't gotten close enough for me to be invited or accept an invitation to spending Christmas with them.

I turn on my television and sure enough I'm attacked with Christmas commercials, movies, ect. It's too much to bear, especially seeing happy couples kissing under the mistletoe, children dreaming of santa, waking up their parents with exuberant grins on their faces from seeing the gifts, this is what I hate.

This sharp pain that always touches my heart when I see that. Loneliness and familiarity accompany that. My mind is flood with a scene of me holding an overgrown belly and a masculine hand reaching for me, and then it's gone.

I let out the breath I'd been holding and the tears flow freely. Sometimes these scenes are so real. I see the happiness and love, but what I am and who I am contradicts every little part of them.

With a frustrated sigh, I toss my remote to the side, head to my little kitchen, and grab a beer from the fridge. As I head towards my room, I look at my reflection in my hall mirror. My hair a mass of curls, my large lips chapped from the cold, my dark skin marred with a scar left from my accident, and my eyes lost, empty, and afraid.

Shaking my head, I sit the beer down with a reminder to throw it away in the morning, and I head to my room.

****Christmas Morning****

Bzzz bzzz zzz

Disoriented, I go in search for the hellish device that I call my phone.

Once I find it, I'm greeted with the face of my friend Angela. Angela and I are different in that: she has a husband, kids, and her whole family lives here. Me? I have nada. The first time I met Angela was at her bookstore where she offered me a job. When she asked me about my work experience, I burst to tears and informed her that I didn't know. That day she found out about my accident, and that was the day she was going to help me find out who the hell I was.

"Hello," I gritted out because who honestly calls someone at five in the morning?

"Hey...um Bella," she stuttered. That caught my attention because Angela is the most articulate person I know.

"Ang what's up?"

"Bella remember how I told you that Ben knows how to hack into records and stuff like that?"

"Y-yeah"

"I think you should come over. Like now…..There's something you should see. Fuck it's a lot you should see"

My stomach dropped. My mind went into a tailspin, and for the first time in what seems like forever, my heart picks up home.

Hey all, lemme know how you like it. What did Ben find? You'll find out in the next Chapter. See you on Friday 3

BTW..this is my first ff, so be gentle lol.