SECRETS

Brianna Skyes always felt like she was not a normal fourteen year old girl. First of all, she was adopted, and everyone knew that the minute they saw her with her family. She had dark, black, straight hair with hazel eyes and her family all had blond hair with blue eyes. Secondly, Brianna loved dogs, but Nancy and Chris, her stepmother and stepfather, we’re allergic to dogs and preferred cats. And well, the strangest thing is yet to come.
One Monday morning Brianna was dreaming;  She was first in a meadow walking a golden retriever. She could feel the warm breeze in her face. Then, suddenly it changed from the meadow to her being in a long dark corridor. She walked into a room- which was really cold-  that said “No MORTALS Allowed” in big black bold letter on the door. She didn’t know why, but she felt like she had to go in that door. She knew something bad was going to happen, but she didn’t know what. A figure appeared in the distant darkness. At first it was not clear what it was, but then it turned into a girl. Brianna couldn’t see the girl’s face. The girl was saying something, but Brianna couldn’t hear her.  Suddenly her little sister Andi, who is five years old, came running into her room shouting, “Wake up, Wake up!”
“Let me sleep,” replied Brianna, she was actually glad that Andi woke her up. She was just having a nightmare that she didn’t want to go back to, but she was still sleepy. Andi leaped onto her bed, “But you need to serve me and Minimus some cereal, and the sun is awake, so you should be too.”
Minimus was one of the many imaginary friends Andi had, and according to her,  Minimus was a purple horse that had many birthdays, ate actual food, and was the reason why her room was always dirty.
“Fine, Fine. What kind of cereal do you want?” she asked as she looked at the time. She had overslept again, and on the last day of school too. “Oh no, hurry up Andi, I need to go to school. Just go ask mom or dad, please.”
“Okay fine, but you have to color with me later,” Andi said as she skipped out of the room.
Brianna had just finished the last day of school ( June 1, 2016) before summer vacation. Charlie and her were walking to Brianna’s house. Charlie was her best friend since first grade. They were suppose to be working on a project that was due on the first day of tenth grade, but like most freshman, they weren’t.
“You should try this app, it’s so cool!”
“What app? You have so many apps,” Brianna said to Charlie.
“FaceSnap, you just put a picture of yourself and it searches the internet for pictures of you,”Charlie said.
“Why would I want to do that?” Brianna teased.
“Fine then, don’t do it,” said Charlie angrily, not knowing that Brianna was just joking.
“I’m just kidding, let me see your phone,” she said as she reached to get Charlie’s phone.
She got on the app, and quickly looked for a picture of herself, which wasn’t hard since they always took pictures.
“How long does it take to load?” Brianna said  while looking at the phone’s screen.“Oh look, it loaded,” she said as she looked at Charlie and then back at the phone.
“Okay let’s see what pics you’ve posted,” Charlie said with excitement.
“That’s me at the park with Andi,” said Brianna as she scrolled through the pictures,“And look, it’s you and me…”
“When we went to Six Flags,” Charlie interrupted. They continued scrolling through the pictures and most of them were of Brianna and Andi. Andi loves taking selfies, especially when Minimus is in them.
“What the….” Brianna’s voice trailed off. They came across a picture of Brianna in front of the Eiffel tower. She was wearing a white dress shirt, a yellow skirt, white flats, and her hair was being held back with a pink headband, The exact opposite of what she would wear.
“When did you go to Paris, and why wasn’t I invited,” Charlie said.
“I’ve never been to Paris; I haven’t even been out the state.” Brianna said as she thought about an answer to why it looked like she was standing in front of the Eiffel tower.
“It’s me, but it’s not me. It’s like I have a…” her voice trailed off for the second time.
“You have a twin!” Charlie exclaimed, “How could you not know?” she asked, her face expression showed she was confused.
“No. It’s just someone impersonating me, they just... probably just took a picture of me and photo edited to make it look like I’m standing in front of the Eiffel tower, ” Brianna said.
At least I hope that’s what’s going on, Brianna thought to herself, If I had a twin, Nancy or Chris would have told me by now. Well, I think they would have.
“Are you sure? It would take a lot of editing and time to make it look like you’re wearing something different,” Charlie asked, sounding a little concerned about it.
“I’m positive.” Well at least I hope I am.
The next morning Brianna had had the same dream she had the day before.She woke up again before she could hear what the girl was saying. But she tried to forget about that, and think about her having a twin. Charlie’s right, it would take lots of time to edit it, but if I do have a twin that would mean Nancy and Chris lied to me about not having any siblings.
“Do you want some eggs with your toast?” Nancy asked, interrupting Brianna’s thoughts.
“What? Sorry. Just lost in my thoughts.”
“Eggs, do you want some eggs?”
“Oh, yeah please.”
“Do you want them sunny-side up or scrambled?”
“It doesn’t matter,”Brianna replied.
“Okay, Sunny-side up it is,” Nancy said.
“Do you want me to go tell Dad that breakfast is ready?” Brianna asked.
“Yes, and go wake up Andi and tell her too.”
Once Nancy, Chris, Andi and Brianna were sitting at the table, Brianna wanted to ask if she had a twin.
“Andi, your cousins are coming over today, so I expect your room clean by the afternoon,” said Chris.
“I know, but Minimus isn’t going to let me, everytime I clean up he just makes a mess, so I just rather not clean it,” said Andi said.
While Andi and Chris continued their argument, Brianna was playing with her food. Suddenly she couldn’t take it anymore and burst out, “I have a twin, don’t I!”
Nancy and Chris looked at each other. Then Nancy said, “What are you talking about? Andi go upstairs to your room.”
“We told you already, you don’t have any….” Chris started to say, but Brianna didn’t let him finish his sentence. She said “Then what’s this.” She slid her phone down the table towards Chris and Nancy. The screen showed the picture Charlie and Brianna had seen the day before.
“Oh my God,” Nancy said. She looked at Chris, “It can’t be.”
“See, I knew it. You guys lied to me!” Brianna shouted as she ran up the stairs to her room.
“I knew she would eventually find out,” Nancy said, “We should have just told her about her twin.”
“But we decided not to tell her, I mean what were we going to tell her; that she has a twin but her mother didn’t want her so she sent her to be adopted?¨ Chris said.
¨Oh Chris!¨ Nancy said. Her face expression made her look disappointed.
¨Well, that’s what would happened, and we can’t tell her. Remember?¨
“Yeah. I do, but now we have to tell her something.”
“Like what?” Chris asked.
“Anything….Anything she wants to know.”
“We can’t tell her everything, not till she’s….”
“Not till she’s fifteen. Yeah. Yeah. I know,” Nancy said. She said it as though she was mocking someone. Like someone keeped on repeating this to her, and she has grown annoyed of that.
Brianna was so mad at her parents; Why wouldn’t they just tell me I had a twin, and not just a twin, but an identical twin, she thought.
¨Brianna are you okay?¨ asked Andi as she walked in the room. She was holding something in her hands behind her back.
¨Go away!¨ Brianna shouted from under her covers. I can’t be mad at her, she didn’t do anything to me.  She sighed,¨Yes Andi I’m alright.¨
¨But why were you screaming at Mommy and Daddy then?¨ Andi asked, walking towards Brianna, ¨What did they do?¨
¨Nothing, they….they just didn’t tell me something…. something important.¨
¨Like when they don’t tell me about my surprise parties?¨
¨No¨ Brianna laughed, ¨ They aren’t suppose to tell you about those, because then it won’t be a surprise.¨
¨Oh, really?”
“Yes.”
“Okay, well here,” Andi said as she revealed what she had behind her back. “I brought you my pony. I hug everytime I’m sad, or mad,”
“Thanks,” Brianna said with a smile. Now go clean your room. I think aunt Tracy is going to get here in an hour or two.”
“Okay take good care of Zuki ” Andi said.
“Zuki?”
“Yeah, it’s my unicorn’s name.”
“Okay?”
“ Take care of her,” Andi said as she skipped out the room. Brianna got up to close the door, and then went to lay down on her bed. She felt like she should take a nap, and forget about what just happened. She closed her eyes and ten minutes later, she started to dream; Brianna was walking down the long dark corridor. Now, in the distance something was approaching her. She quickly ran into the same door- the door with the sign “NO MORTALS Allowed”. This time the girl was facing a window and said, “ Help me, help me please.” The girl was about to turn around when Brianna woke up. She sat up and her heart was beating, as if she had just seen a ghost. “Oh my gosh,” was all she could say.
  An hour later, after Nancy and Chris had decided what they were going to tell Brianna they  walked to her door and knocked, “Brianna, honey, can we come in please?” Nancy said.
“Please? It’s important,” added Chris. After a while Brianna still hadn’t answered.
“Come on, we’ll tell you what you want to know,” Nancy said.
“Fine, come in,” Brianna finally answered. Nancy and Chris came in her room, Nancy sat on the bed next to Brianna, and Chris sat on her desk chair. Nancy gave the phone back to Brianna and Chris simply said, “ Her name’s Anahi, Anahi Sierra”
“Listen Brianna, we’re really sorry for not telling you about having a twin, it’s just… well… we did it for your own good,” Nancy said.
“How was that for my own good?” Brianna asked.
“We just….um…. didn’t want you to worry about why your birth mother left you and not Anahi,”
“Well I really don’t care about that right now, I just want to worry about Anahi,” Brianna said. “Does she live in Paris?”
“ Last we heard she did, but she could have moved already,” her dad said.
“ Your father’s right, but if you want to know more, we can drive you to the adoption center where we adopted you,” Nancy said.
“Ding, Dong” the doorbell rang and all anyone could hear after that was Andi yelling “ Aunty Tracy’s here!”
“Come on Brianna I’ll drive you over there,” Nancy said.
“Okay,” Brianna said. She got up her bed and went downstairs to greet her aunt. When Brianna was out of eyesight Chris said, “Why are you going to take her? What if she finds out. . .” Nancy cut him off, “She won’t. Don’t worry, I have a plan.”
After Nancy explained everything to racy, she drove Brianna to “Families For Children” in San Francisco, where Brianna was adopted. When they got there, Kim, the manager, told them that all the paperwork they had about Brianna (or anything that had to do with her) was given to the people that adopted her. “We didn’t receive any paperwork the day we adopted her,” Nancy had replied.
“That’s because they were mailed to you a week after the adoption,” Kim had said. When she said that, Nancy turned pale, “Well, they probably got lost in shipping, come on Brianna, let’s go. Thank you, Kim.”
Brianna felt like her mom was hiding something from her. Nancy had turned pale when Kim said that they were mailed, and then she said that they were lost in shipping, Nancy didn’t even ask if they had found them, or if they had any copies of them.
She had so many questions for Anahi, like if she like dogs or not, if she loved sports as much as her, and what she really wanted to know was: why her birth mother didn’t put Anahi for adoption. Brianna was starting to be less mad at her step parents and more mad towards her actual mother. At least Nancy and Chris love me, I mean sure, they lied to me, but my birth mother, she...she gave me up for adoption. Just me, not Anahi, but just me...it’s like she didn’t love when I was born. I mean why keep Anahi, what’s wrong with me? Brianna thought to herself. She suddenly didn’t want to find Anahi, especially not her mother. She felt mad at Anahi too, What’s so better about Anahi that made my mother want to keep her and not me? Suddenly, she remember the dreams she was having. Could they mean something? she asked herself. What if Anahi is the girl, the girl that needs help?
The next day, Brianna asked Chris if maybe they could go to the main Families for Children  adoption center, and see if they had the paperwork there. “ I don’t think they will have them,” Chris answered.
“Yeah, but it wouldn’t hurt to try,” Brianna said.
“They are probably closed right now,” Chris replied.
“I know, but maybe….”
“NO! Brianna. No.”
“But why? Why can’t we….”
“I said no! Just forget about Anahi and your birth mother. They obviously didn’t want you!” Brianna gasped, and her eyes got watery. She couldn’t believe he just said that. Chris covered his mouth with his hands, he couldn’t believe he said that either. Brianna ran out the kitchen, passed her mom- who was coming down the stairs- and up to her room. She slammed the door behind her. Nancy entered the kitchen and saw that Chris had his head buried in his arms. “What was that all about?” Nancy asked, “She looked upset, like big time.”
Chris sighed, and lifted his head up, “I said something that I shouldn’t have.”
“Well it couldn’t have been that bad, she’ll get over it, like she always does,” Nancy tried to sound cheerful.
“No, not this time. It really hurt her.”
“Well what did you say?”
“I. . .I told her that her mother didn’t want her, and that’s why she didn’t keep her,” Chris answered. Nancy gasped, “ Why would you tell her that?”
“ I don’t want her to keep asking questions about Anahi. she wasn’t suppose to know till her 15th birthday.”
“You could have just. . .Oh I don’t know, you could of not said anything at all,” Nancy suggested. He’s right, Brianna thought. That’s why kids are usually sent to be adopted, they’re not wanted by their family. Brianna wiped her tears of her face. She looked at her calendar for the first time since Summer started-it wasn’t that important to her to know the date. “Wow, only 3 weeks till my birthday,” she said, “I should be thinking about that. I shouldn’t worry about Anahi. If she really cared about me, she would have tried to get in contact with me.”
Brianna called Charlie. “Hey Charlie guess what?” She said when Charlie answered the phone. “What?” Charlie said curiously.
“It’s almost my birthday! Can you believe it? Only 3 weeks till I’m fifteen.”
“I know! Are you going to have a birthday party?” Charlie asked.
“I don’t know,” she shrugged when she said that, “Nancy is probably just going to make me a nice diner, but I”ll invite you.”
“Okay. Hey, how’s it going finding your twin?” (Brianna had told her that she did have a twin the day her mom took her to the adoption center). Brianna sighed when she heard Charlie say this, she just wanted to forget about Anahi, and anything related to her. “Um. . . I'm just going to forget about it for now. You know? I’ll worry about that after my birthday,” Brianna lied.
“Oh okay. Well I have to go, call you back later?”
“Okay, bye.” Brianna headed downstairs to see if she could talk to Chris and tell him that she didn’t really care about Anahi and that he was right. When she got to the kitchen, she saw a sticky note on the fridge. It read; We went out. Order some pizza if you get hungry. Andi’s at the Smith’s house and will be sleeping over there.We’ll be back by 12:00 pm. Be good!The Smith’s were their neighbors across the street. They had a five year old daughter named Mia, so that’s why Andi went over. “Oh well,” Brianna sighed, “So much for talking to dad.” She walked out the kitchen and went into the living room, where she sat on the comfy couch and turned the TV on. She skimmed through the guide for something to watch, and finally settled on Spongebob Squarepants. She new she was a little too old to still like watching that, but she didn’t care. She was watching the TV, but then she drifted off to sleep, and again, she had the dream. She was in the dark and cold corridor. She felt a chill go up her back, she walked into the same door, this time she thought in her head; Am i not mortal?Why do i keep going into this door? She went into the room and the girl was there, across the room, looking out the only window in the whole room. “Help me, help me Brianna,” said the girl. She whispered it though, she wasn’t screaming. When Brianna heard the girl say her name, she freaked and woke up. Chris putting a blanket on her, but when he saw Brianna sit up fast, he backed away in shock. “What’s wrong Brianna?” he asked. He looked very concern, because Brianna was breathing really fast. It looked as if she was holding her breath and now she was finally breathing. “I’m fine, really. I just . . . just had a nightmare, that’s all,” she said.
“Oh, well would you like to talk about it?” Chris asked. He hoped that she would, so he could apologize for what he had said to her earlier. “No . . . no it’s okay,” she replied.
“Alright then, got to bed, unless you want to sleep here,” said Chris.
“Okay,” she looked at Chris and she felt like Chris was expecting something else from her. “Um, dad?”
“Yes?” Chris said.
“You . . . you were right, i need to forget about Anahi, and think about my real family, you guys,” Brianna said with a smile.
“Okay. Thank you Brianna. Go to bed now, it’s late.” Brianna kissed her dad and went to sleep.
Two weeks past, and three days past, and it was almost Brianna’s birthday. She kept on counting down the days. Finally her birthday came and she was excited. She wasn’t going to have a birthday party, but she was going to receive an important and special present from Nancy and Chris. This, she knew, because Nancy had told her a week before her birthday. When she woke up she could smell the pancakes her mother had made for her. She got dressed, but before she went downstairs, she went to the window and said, “Happy birthday, Anahi.” She went to downstairs and her parents and Andi greeted her. They were just going to have a special dinner for Brianna. At about 5:00 pm, Brianna was setting the table and Nancy was finishing the blueberry pie. “All right, Andi go call your father please,” Nancy said. Chris and Andi came in the kitchen a few minutes later and they all sat down. Nancy had made Brianna’s favorite dish; Shrimp Alfredo. “Happy birthday Brianna!” Andi said.
“Yes, happy birthday sweetie,” said Nancy.
“Oh and Brianna, when you’re done eating, there’s something for you on your bed,” Chris said. “Ok. Thanks so much,” Brianna replied. Brianna gobbled up her Shrimp Alfredo and ran upstairs to open her present. When she got to her room, she closed the door and