Outcasts

Chapter XV

Chapter XV

***************************Abbey’s P.O.V ************************

I walked the rest of the way home, because I couldn’t be bothered to catch yet another bus. As I walk through the door my foster dad is standing waiting for me in the lounge.

“Hi dad” I say

“ Hi Abbey,” he says “I think you better sit down.”

“What?” I say “why?”

“It’s about your friend Abbey, you know the one from the care home you came from.” He starts

“Who Katie?” I say.

“Yes, Katie. I’m sorry Abbey. I didn’t want you to find out like this.” He says

“Find what out? I don’t understand.” I say, confused.

“I’m sorry Abbey, but Katie has been abducted. She’s gone missing. And so has her new social worker. They think she must be dead.” He says sadly.

I stare dumbfounded at him.

“No, no she wouldn’t. Why are you lying to me? She wouldn’t leave. Not without telling me. She can’t have been taken. She can’t be dead. I never got to say goodbye.” I’m crying now full on big fat salty tears, that are rolling down my cheek. I try and run to my room, but my dad won’t let me, he grabs me and holds me, tight towards him and a big bear hug, like the one that Simon gave me this morning. I plant my face into Mike’s chest and cry my heart out.

Once I have composed myself I go up to my room. Mike tries to stop me but I reassure him that I will be okay, and that I just need time to think. When Sam (my foster mum) gets back she holds me tight and tells me that she loves me.

Mandy and Mike are so loving towards me. They treat me like their own child. When I first came I wondered why Sam and Mike hadn’t had children of their own. I was curious but didn’t want to ask, because I didn’t want to hurt any ones feelings, so I just dropped subtle hints that I was curious. I think that they picked up on the small hints that I dropped because one night after a family meal, Mike told me how Sam and he couldn’t have children because Sam had had leukaemia when she was 7 and that she could no longer produce the eggs to have children. He told me that he’d always wanted children and that when Sam told him she couldn’t have kids he was gutted. He said the when Sam told him, she told him that she was telling him because she wanted him to know that if he really desired to have his own kids then he should get together with someone else, and she said that she didn’t want to be the one that stopped him from having kids. He then got down on one knee and proposed, as he said that if she was willing to sacrifice their love, for him then she was worth living with for the rest of both their lives. Then Mike told me that up until twelve moths ago, they were perfectly happy, and they didn’t care for kids and that having each other was enough. But it was when they were walking down the streets of London one day and they saw people ten years younger than them pushing prams down the road that he realised that he did still have the desire for kids, so that was when both he and Sam decided to adopt.

I remember being told that story like it was yesterday. It’s really funny actually how close Mike and Sam are to real parents. The only thing is they just don’t know a lot about me. I don’t even think that they realise how close I was to Katie.

Later on when I’m up in my room Sam knock on the door.

“Come in” I say, and she does. She comes in and sits on my big double bed that’s covered with Laura Ashley bed linen.

“Hi, hun, how are you holding up?” she says in the calm quiet voice she has.

“I’m doing okay.” I reply “do you think that she is dead? I mean they say she probably is, but what do you really think?”