Chapter Nine – Remembering Home

I wrote letters to Lana, Jesse and Dad as often as I could, telling them how everything was going. I tried to keep the unpleasant stuff out of Dad and Jesse's letters. I didn't want them to worry about me anymore than they already did.

But I did tell Lana everything. The threats from my half sister and grandmother, the secret room and diaries and most of all Adam.

He was really the only person who would give me the time of day at school. Everyone avoided me like the plague thanks to Julianna. Nevertheless I did enjoy going to school. I liked all my classes and private school teachers really were better than public school ones.

Mr. McCoy, my English teacher was my favourite. He knew so much about literature and he loved teaching. I talked to him often about authors I enjoyed like Hemmingway and Charles Dickens. He was very passionate about his work.

That was something I liked about Adam too. He was very ambitious and passionate. He told me he was at White Hills on scholarship. His marks were all very high and he wanted to go into business after high school. He said he lived with his mother whom he rarely saw because she was always working. I knew what that was like.

Right away I felt like I could tell him anything. I told him the real truth from the beginning because I trusted him not to spread it around the school. He wasn't like the other snobs here who lived each day to hear the next juicy piece of gossip.

He laughed when I told him that Julianna was my half sister because she had always gone out of her way to tell people how grateful she was not to be related to me.

Adam told me he wanted to help me find out what was in the secret room but I wanted to try to figure it out myself first.

The year was passing by pretty quickly and before I knew it, it was Valentine's Day. The school was beautifully decorated. The school had this thing where you could send a rose secretly so I decided to send one to Adam.

They were delivered first period, the class we had together and one was given to each of us. We looked at each other and laughed. We knew whom they were from.

I saw Julianna walking around with a handful of roses in her arms. She had an arrogant smile on her face. I felt sorry for anyone who liked her.

"Do you want to go to a movie tonight?" Adam asked me at lunch.

"Sure," I said. Maria never asked where I went or with who. It was like she was still determined to act as though I didn't exist. Nadine never followed through on her vow to screen my friends. I guess she was too busy, which was fine with me. Gary was the one who seemed worried about me. He drove Adam and I to the theater. He asked Adam questions likes he was my father. I didn't mind. I missed having someone care about me like that.

Adam held my hand through the whole movie. I was very content just sitting there with him. This felt different that it had with Carter. I like Adam a lot more than in just a friendly way.

When the movie ended, we sat there watching the credits. Finally it was just too much for me to take. I turned to him and kissed him hard on the lips. He kissed me back, putting his hand on my neck. It was wonderful.

He pulled away and smiled, "Wow," he murmured.

"Exactly my thoughts," I whispered.

We continued to see each other everyday after school. My feelings grew stronger and stronger for him. Only a month after our first kiss I felt like I was falling in love with him.

One day I came straight home after school because I was expecting a letter from Lana. It was on the counter by the door waiting to be read. I took it up to my room and ripped it open:

Hey Lucky!

Sounds like you Valentine's Day was a lot better than mine! Don't get me wrong, Nathan's great, still, but I don't know, I guess it's just getting to be too much of a routine. I know your just going to tell me to suck it up and stay with him because I can't dump a guy just because I'm comfortable with him right? I guess I just solved my own problem.

So anyway, I miss you so much. I really want to visit and meet this Adam Goode. I'm sure he's totally in love with you, just like Carter still is. He is always calling me to find out about you. That guy has got it bad. You totally broke his heart. And he's so cute too!

But, you should write to him, maybe then he'll stop bothering me.

Have you found out what's in that mysterious locked room? I'm dying to know. Your letters are like a mystery novel for me!

Well I gotta get going. The phone is ringing. If that is Carter...

FRIENDS FORVER!!

Lana

Carter was still in love with me? What did I have to do to get him to get over me? I told him I only wanted to be friends and then I moved six hours away, what else could I do? Maybe Lana was right. I should write to him. Let him know that I've moved on and so should he.

Despite myself, I did miss his friendship. We had been so close.

There was one thing that Lana had mentioned in her letter than I hadn't made any progress on and that was the secret room. I had been so preoccupied with Adam lately that I hadn't even thought about it. But now it was on my mind again and it was going to be hard to forget it.

I knew that neither Maria nor Julianna was home, but it was Friday so Randall was. I had barely spoken to him since I moved here. He was always working. Now was the perfect opportunity to talk to him about my mother, his wife.

I found his office and knocked loudly on the thick pine door.

"Come in," he called. I opened the door and approached his desk. He didn't look up until I sat down on the brown leather chair across from him.

"Oh hello, Lucky," he said. He looked surprised to see me.

"Hello Mr. Porter," I said smiling.

"Please call me Randall," he said smiling back, "What can I do for you?"

"Well I just came to chat, I haven't spoken to you much in the last few months and I wanted to thank you for letting me home," I said. I pained me a little to lie to him because he seemed like such a mice man. I noticed over the last few months that Maria was always bossing him around and walking all over him. He obviously wasn't very strong willed but he still didn't deserve to be anyone's doormat.

"Oh, it's our pleasure," he said.

I wondered if Maria had even told him I was coming before I arrived.

"You have a beautiful home," I said.

"Why thank you, my great grandfather built it you know," he was quite proud of his house, that was apparent.

"I've heard it's haunted," I said just to see his reaction.

"Gary told you that I presume," he said raising his eyebrows.

I nodded.

"My older family members have claimed to see things but I just think its their minds playing tricks on them along with the racket the old pipes make," he assured me.

"How long have you and Maria been together?" I asked him, changing the subject abruptly.

He hesitated and gave me a strange look before answering, "Almost seventeen years," he told me.

"How did you meet?" I asked.

"Our parents introduced us and it was love at first sight," he said smiling softly as if remembering. I wondered if Maria felt the same way. After all she'd had me less than a year before meeting Randall. That meant there was another guy before she knew Randall. Of course I didn't know if she had loved my real father but I hoped she had.

"So it was almost arranged," I said mostly to myself.

"No, it was just a meeting," he said. I hadn't thought he heard what I said but I guess he did. I saw a littlie doubt in his eyes. So it might have been arranged.

But why? Was it just a coincidence they had met so soon after Maria had left me in St. Thomas or were Nadine and Marcus trying to focus my mother's attention on something or someone other than my real father?

I didn't think there was much else I could learn from Randall since he himself was denying that his meeting with Maria was arranged to become something as serious as marriage. The only people that could really tell me about that were my Grandparents. I was about to ask Gary to take my on a little drive to their house when Randall found me again.

"You have a phone call," he said, "You can take it in the living room,"

I assumed it would be Adam. He was pretty much the only person who ever called me.

"Hello?" I said.

"Lucky," a voice said softly. It sounded weak and defeated but familiar.

"Jesse?" I asked, "What's wrong?" my heart was pounding against my chest. I sat down on the couch.

"An accident...on his way home," he stuttered, "Dad was killed,"