Chapter 10: Regrets

With Jake...

Jake wasn't quite sure of what Chad had told him to do. He knew it was right, yet he knew it was wrong. He remembered how Chad said to do it, but he was still unsure of himself...

Jake walked back into his dark house. It felt so good outside, but he needed to tend to Stella. He walked down the hallway and carefully opened a door. Jake peered in, and he saw Stella face down on the bed. He cracked open the door a bit more, and he whispered, "Stella, do you need anything?"

Stella looked up carefully and whispered, "What do you want?"

"I was wondering if you wanted something to eat or something," he mumbled.

Stella sat up and whispered, "I guess."

Jake walked toward her and grasped her paw. He stood her up and pulled her out the door. Stella weakly followed him. Her will was obviously broken in pieces.

He walked her over to a table in a small dining room and pulled out a chair for her. She reluctantly sat down in the chair, and he pushed the chair in close to the table. Jake glanced down at the ground and whispered, "What would you like?"

Stella shrugged. "I don't care," she murmured.

Jake nodded and walked out of the room into another. Stella glanced around the small dining room. It was a bit dainty, and the walls were an off-white while the floors were a slight beige. It was alright, but not quite Stella's tastes.

Jake came back into the room a few minutes later. He put a basket of sunflower seeds in front of Stella, and Jake sat down at the table and intently watched her. She stared back at him a bit, and she stared around the room. She knew someone else was watching her...

Jake turned around toward the doorway. "Is my big friend bothering you?" he inquired Stella.

Stella looked at the doorway. The bulky, dark brown hamster was there staring at her and Jake. She braced herself and asked, "Who's that?"

Jake turned toward Stella and whispered, "Oh, that's my big friend. Uh, he doesn't have a name, and he doesn't have a larynx, which means he can't talk."

Isn't that impossible not to have a larynx?, Stella asked herself.

"My big friend, come over here and meet Stella," Jake told the dark brown hamster.

The dark brown hamster drooled.

"Oops, sorry," Jake apoligized. "Come here, big friend. Meet Stella."

The bulky hamster walked over to Jake and Stella. He bowed toward Stella carelessly and stared at the hat on her head. The hamster pointed at it and drooled.

Jake blushed violently and whispered to Stella, "He thinks your hat is fuzzy."

Stella glanced at the hamster. Fuzzy?

"How do you know that?" she inquired.

Jake shrugged. "I've known him long enough to know what he means," he replied with a tone of proficiency in his voice.

Stella nodded slightly. "Do you have my suitcase?" she asked since she suddenly remembered her suitcase.

Jake turned toward the cumbersome hamster. "Suitcase," he told him.

The dark brown hamster nodded and walked out of the room. Jake stood up and pulled Stella's chair out. He offered her his paw, but she refused it and got up herself. She and Jake followed where the bulky hamster had gone.

The hamster was pacing around the living room as he pointed at one of the chairs with a pale green slipcover. On it was the suitcase. Stella gingerly picked it up and whispered, "I'll go back into that room now."

Jake nodded and walked down the hall. Stella followed close behind, and when he opened the door to the room, she entered and unhesitatingly closed the door behind her.

Inside the room, Stella set the suitcase down on the bed and thrust it open. She looked at all the things she had packed so carefully the afternoon before. She reminded herself of how much she cursed while she packed it, and she remembered how angry she had felt. Now she wanted to go back home, to the Bad Hams Place. She wanted to see and love Mike, she wanted to read Roger's letters to her, she wanted to hear Becky's curses and have a fight with her, she wanted to watch the Numbers play their card games, she wanted to see the occasional visit from Caitlin, and she even wanted to see her bills that she had thrown into the fire the day before. But now, she was alone with Jake and his no name friend, and she knew Mike didn't know where she was. He probably didn't even know she had been kidnapped. He probably didn't even remember seeing Jake at her father's funeral. He probably-just probably-didn't even care.

Stella looked at all that she had carefully included in her suitcase. There was her big check that she had inherited, most of her jewelry, numerous multi-colored ribbons, her journal, and her laptop. She opened up her journal and dug out a pencil from the bottom of the suitcase. Stella sat down on the bed and opened it up to her last entry, the one she had written before she had left the Bad Hams Place the night before. It mentioned how much she loved Mike, how much she hated Becky, why she was leaving, and what she thought the day before.

Stella shook her head and turned the page. It was a blank page, and she began writing:

Dear Journal,

It's me, Stella, once again. Everything bad that could've happened to me did! You remember how I said I was running away last night? Well, yeah, I didn't get very far. I've been kidnapped by that Jake guy! Do you remember him? He has me trapped in this small place, and I don't know where it is! I wonder if Mike knows anything about what happened? He prolly doesn't, for all I know. He prolly is wondering where I am, but he prolly doesn't think anything bad has happened to me. I'm not gonna write much because I'm not sure who might look at this. Oh, why did I run away? I shouldn't have, right? I wonder what's gonna happen to me? Oh, God, I don't wanna think about that! I think I know, but I'll keep it secret for now, but I'm sure you know... Well, I'm gonna go now, hashaa-sha.

Stella

Stella stared at what she wrote. She didn't spill out much of what she felt, but she knew her pain was indescribable. Stella closed her journal silently and slipped it back into the suitcase.

Stella took out her laptop and turned it on. She looked through her folders, and she couldn't bear it much. Stella had the biggest collection of pictures of her and Mike on her laptop that she had scanned. All of them reminded her of how much she loved him, but she didn't know if she was going to ever be able to see him again in person.

Stella whispered to herself, "Mike used to captivate me by his grandeur love, now I'm just in the loving memories of him..."