Loving Ashlynn (#Wattys2016)

Chapter 3 - Hiding in Plain sight (Faith POV)

A/N: Not Thoroughly Edited. I'm so pleased that by adding more to this story those that are reading again enjoy it with the minor details I'm adding here and there. 

So... this main difference so far is: knowing where Faith came from. 

Enjoy.

Chapter 3 – Hiding in Plain sight (Faith POV)

On the mountain, it couldn't be helped and I'm not sure when it began to bother me, but as I sit in my new dorm room, I miss the excess space I once had. Here, though I knew I had the freedom to join the world, I did not have to sit alone and listen to music. I could venture out. Actually doing so however, well I found I didn't have the motivation – and even then that was only partially the reason. For the nearly two months that I spent with Patricia and Walsh, both taking time away from work to help me, I had only learned so much.

I did not know enough to interact and keep up a full conversation.

Patricia once suggested that I should just say that I'm Amish, a group of people she explained that lived simpler lives, without electricity and venturing out of their communities. I could say that I had been banished for frolicking with a young man. I gazed blankly at her, on top of pretending not to be myself, I had to pretend to be something entirely other... it didn't matter what I pretended to be though, not in my mind. I'm fairly certain that these Amish she speaks of, even they would know that the air was not poisonous. They would not remain in their wooden community built homes never venturing out because they needed to wear body suits.

Plus, what happened when someone asked a question about living like the Amish? What then?

The fact of the matter was, I knew too little to really interact, but just enough to blend in and try not to call attention to myself. In the last week I took to binge watching movies that were current, hoping to not stand out, and to just make it a year without anyone finding out my secret. Then there was the other nagging feeling that I had as I watched and learned these last two months.

What was Dmitri really hiding me from? Walsh and Patricia had scoured all the data he left on me, however there wasn't much written which, led me to believe that maybe the air was not poisonous but I had been in danger. I just could not merge the two opposite pieces together.

There was Dmitri, the man that was my family, that kept be fed, alive and happy in a mansion on top of a hill and at the other end was the man that did all those things, but lied about the air being polluted, society being at war with one another. Loyalists, Independents, the Regime... all of that. Things that Walsh and Patricia claim they know nothing about. So why would Dmitri lie?

It's my revolving door thought, why did Dmitri lie to me?

"There are no mentions of how he truly ended up with that girl Walsh," Patricia whispered once when we stopped for gas driving across the country, fast enough that everything was a blur, but also fast enough for me to really realize that I had not grown up as many others had, "Did he – he must have harmed the child's parents and – and instead of you testing her, you do as his letters say-"