Chapter 4 : Hidden

Peter was sitting in his office at his desk. His head was in his hands. How could Alice do

this? He thought to himself. She kept my letters to Shelby and Jess from them. He picked up a

stapler and threw it at the wall. Just then, Sophie came in.

"What's the matter mountain man?" She questioned.

"It's Alice. She took away my right to contact my daughters." He looked at Sophie with

anger in his eyes.

"Why would she do that?" Sophie asked sitting on the edge of his desk.

"I don't know. Maybe she just wanted to keep us apart. Because I loved my daughters

more than I did her." Sophie gave him a questioning look. "You see Soph, Alice always drank.

And I didn't wanna be in that world. I tried to be away from Alice when she was drunk. But then

she just drank more often. I couldn't take it anymore. So I left. But I tried to get Shelby and Jess.

Alice took me to court."

"Hang on. If she was always drunk then she'd look like the bad one." Sophie replied.

"You'd think so. Well the alcohol test only went two weeks back. And we found out our

court day was posponed for three weeks. So she laid off the alcohol for a little while. When she

took the test she was clean."

"Ok but how did you not at least get one of them?"

"My past, Soph. It's on record. All my alcohol takes and all the drugs I did. They figured

that there was no solid proof of me not doing it all over again. So I lost. I lost both my daughters

that day. But I said I'd write. And I did. Except Shelby just told me she never got any letters."

Peter sighed.

"Can Alice do that?" Sophie asked.

"It doesn't matter if she can do it. She did." Peter sat back in his chair.

"So what are you going to do?" Sophie asked. Peter was silent. "PETER! You have to tell

Shelby. She deserved to know."

"I know. But how do I explain that the only person that could've saved her couldn't be

there because of a hidden past."

"Peter, everything about this is hidden. Shelby doesn't know about court or the letters.

Maybe if you just told her..."

"Tell her what? She'll just think less of me."

"I don't think so. Shelby may be tough. It doesn't mean she won't understand. Promise

me you'll try." She took Peter's hand.

"I can't. Not now anyway. We have to let Shelby open up before I through out that

someone else betrayed her."