Rachel looked around the huge bedroom she was in. The place could be a house. In every corner there were flowers, making the room smell sweet. The beautiful hand-carved canopy bed sat majestically against the middle wall. Beautiful paintings adorned the walls.
One was of her. She walked over to it and studied it. It was a portrait of her when she was sixteen. The sight of it always thrilled Rachel. She looked just like a princess.
Her hair was long, and the beauty that only came with that kind of youth was also present. Under the picture was a plaque. "Rachel Maria Leeds, 16." Rachel smiled softly.
Then turned to survey the rest of the room. Her room. Everything was the same. Exactly the same as it was the day she had first came here. What a mess that day had been.
She had runaway from home that day. It hadn't been the first time she had, but it was the first time she knew exactly where she was going to go. It had all started when she had found those letters from her father, written to her, hidden in a trunk in the attic.
She had confronted her mother about it, and was in turn sent to her room. Her mother had seemed genuinely upset. And she had good reason she had thought. Her father had abandoned them after all. But still that didn't mean she shouldn't get a chance to meet him.
She had begged for a month straight. She just wanted to meet her father just once. But her mother stood fast, and refused. This added on to the fact that she and her mother already didn't have the best relationship, was enough to make her want to run-away.
So she had. It wasn't like it was hard. Her mother was in some place called Del Oro at the time. And the servants were complete idiots as far as she was concerned.
She literally walked out the front door, and no one noticed she was gone until the next day! She had plenty of money so she had a taxi drive her to the address where the letters had come from. She was surprised to see the huge mansion when she got there.
It was even bigger than her mother's. She had almost chickened out. To this day Rachel kind of wished she had. But instead she gathered her bravery, and went to the door. She had expected to be greeted by a butler reluctant to show her in.
Instead she was greeted by guards who seemed to know who she was. The guards let her in and showed her to a very big office. There for the first time since she was a baby. She had seen her father. The man had rushed to her and hugged her like she had been lost instead of abandoned.
She was surprises so she just let him embrace her. When he finally pulled away, Rachel was surprised to see tears in his eyes. That had touched her. Her mother cried sometimes, but never over her. She never hugged her like her father just had.
She never…. She had found herself crying then.
It had literally been the first time in years. And to her surprised it felt sort of good. Her father immediately welcomed her into his home.
And two months later, she was a permanent member in his house hold. Her mother had tried to get her to come home, but she had refused. Her mother, she knew, wanted to force her to come back. But they both knew she'd only disappear again. So finally she has allowed to stay.
Even so she got a call from her mother every day asking if she was ok. She hadn't been able figure out what her mother was so scared of. She didn't know what her mother thought was going to happen. She soon found out what eight months later, when she was breaking into a weird place called N-Tek…..
A knock on the door brought Rachel out of her little memory trip.
"Come in," she said loudly.
Rachel's father walked into the room. Immediately Rachel sensed something was wrong. "What's wrong," she asked in a quiet voice.
Michael, Rachel's father, looked at his daughter sadly.
"Rachel, why don't you should sit down," his advised, pointing to a couple of chairs. Rachel nodded and moved to a chair, never taking her eyes of her father for a minute.
Michael also sat down. He looked at her lovingly, before beginning.
"My dear, I know you must have a lot of questions," he stated.
Rachel nodded.
"I want to answer them all," he continued.
Rachel nodded her approval.
Michael sighed and began again.
"Rachel, I want you to know I never meant for you to get hurt when I paid that worm Jason to leave you alone. You see love, Jason was in a lot of trouble when you to suddenly decided to marry. I'm assuming that was his idea?" Rachel nodded once again.
"Yes I thought so," Michael commented, "Well dear. I know you two were friends, but I'm afraid Jason was only going to marry you for your money." Rachel gasped at this statement, and stood up in a fury.
"You're lying," she snapped, "Jason loved me." Michael shook his head sadly.
"No my dear he didn't. Not the way you think he did anyways. Jason, he was…fascinated by you. Intrigued. Your beauty, your wit, and ultimately your money, all drew him to you. But Jason only wished to marry you because of your fortune and potential fortune. He owed a lot of people a lot of money. People who were not especially willing to wait for their money.
Rachel bit her lip.
"Now I couldn't let this young man take advantage of my daughter like that. So I offered him an alternative to his cruel decision. I would pay off all his debts plus put twenty thousand dollars in his pockets so he could start a new live somewhere away from you. I never told him to go about leaving you the way he did. He chose that way on his own."
Rachel, who was still standing, turned away from her father. Memories of the real Jason filled her mind. Things she had forgotten after he "died" were now surfacing. His drinking problem, the partying, his gambling problems.
All these things were things she had pretended not to see when she was dating Jason.
And all these things were things she had forgotten when he was gone. She suddenly realized what she had done. In all her sadness she had turned Jason into some sort of saint. She had made him the perfect man in her mind. But he wasn't.
He never had been, and never would be. He was just what her father had said. A worm. A useless lying worm. Rachel stared at the wall momentarily and let the last of her tears slide down her face.
Then she sighed and turned back to her father.
"So what now," she asked.
Her father shrugged.
"I don't know. I guess that's up to you. But if I may make a suggestion?" Rachel knodded.
"Good. Let's go get a pizza…."
Aww man. I almost made myself cry writing this chapter. Anybody ever notice how the picture is so much clearer in your mind then it is written down? You can actually picture what's happening… Read and Review.