This Chapter is mostly Sarah's internal thoughts. Sorry if it seems to jump all over the place….just how I'm making her brain work :)

Maybe at a new school things would be different.

A school where no one knew where I came from, who my family was, or what had happened to me.

I wanted that… I wanted to be happy again.

That night we all had dinner together: Dad, Annie, Mary, Matt, Sarah, Lucy, Kevin, Danielle, Aunt Julie, Hank, and Aunt Susan.

Looking at us from the outside we were a happy family, sitting down to a family dinner, and all was right in the world.

The smiles on the faces hid what was inside…the doubts, the fears, the pain…the loneliness.

I sat there looking around the table.

Everyone was talking but I just heard muffled roars of the voices blending together in my head.

Everyone looked so happy.

I tried to be happy… I did… but they were missing, the table wasn't full.

The smile on my face was just a mask.

I was pretending…trying to make real what my soul wanted so bad…to be a family, to be whole again.

I caught Mary looking at me. I knew she could see what I was thinking. No matter how hard I tried I could never hide from her. She saw through the mask…she saw me.

I tried so hard to hide myself from her, thinking if I kept all the pain to myself it would spare her and everyone else the heartache I felt inside.

I tried to be happy…at least for tonight I just wanted to be happy.

A kid with a normal family gathered around the dinner table, I wanted to forget……

What am I saying…forget…I don't want to forget them.

I never want to forget them.

They are my past, my present…they were supposed to be my future.

They were my family…my mom and my brother.

I'm surrounded by strangers…people who know me, but I don't know them.

I just want to get away from it all.

I want to be alone.

I ask to be excused from the table.

I run upstairs to my room and shut the door.

I pick up a picture from my nightstand and talk to it like they were real, like they were standing right in front of me.

"I never want to forget you. I didn't mean it. You're every thing. Without you… I don't know who I am. You showed me how to be a caring person, who to trust, and how to love. But you aren't here now… when I need you the most you aren't here anymore. I've tried every thing to bewho I think you would want me to be, but it's so hard. Sometimes I close my eyes and I can't see your faces anymore. My memories are all muddled together. I'm so busy trying to figure out who I am supposed to be I'm forgetting who I am, who I was. You always knew what to say to make it stop hurting. You always knew what to do to make it right. What am I supposed to do now? Who am I supposed to trust?"

I looked up as a voice answered from the door," You're supposed to trust me."

Mary stood in the doorway.

She came over and sat down beside me on the floor.

She said," I know I wasn't there for you… I know. I love you Sarah. Trust that. Trust that no matter what from now on we are going to be here for you. We are you family and we will always be your family."

I looked over at her and said," I don't want to forget where I came from Mary. I just want everyone else too. I don't want to be treated different. I just want to be a kid whose growing up. Can't I just be a normal kid?"

She said after a minute of silence," You can keep getting up every morning, washing away the tear streaks, and putting on the mask to cover up how you really feel, or you can leave it off and be who you are."

I said," I don't know who I am…"

She answered," Yes you do. You do."

She looked at me waiting for me to say what she knew I wanted to say so bad but had never said out loud.

I took a deep breath and said," I'm scared I'm going to end up hurting everyone I love and end up spending the rest of my life alone. I'm afraid you're going to leave again. I want to turn back time and never have let you walk out the door without fighting harder to make you stay. I want a family. I want my family. I want to be whole again…and happy."