ALL THAT GLITTERS...

06.

"If you want to say something just say it, I'm kind of fed up with you staring at me like that." I sighed putting my pen down.

We were sitting in the lounging area after Selene had cancelled our plans I got stuck with Ben's company whilst I tried to finish my report on the Egyptian civilisation, one of my favourite topics but I couldn't exactly enjoy it with Ben's eyes boring into the side of my head.

"Is it true?" he eyed me seriously, his mouth in a hard line.

"Could you be more specific? Is what true?" his vagueness was irritating me.

"That you've been hanging around the Blackwells. It's all the people on campus can talk about."

"I don't know what you're talking about. I don't even know who the hell they are!"

You would think that these Blackwells walked around in black capes with the word 'Villain' tattooed on their foreheads.

Ben gave a humourless chuckle as he stood up to pack his books.

"I didn't peg you for a liar, city girl. Or is this something Selene has been teaching you, they are the experts after all."

I wanted to jump and ask what Selene had to do with this when realization dawned on me.

The stares and whispers and the girl that didn't seem to quite fit in. Of course, now that made a whole lot more sense, Selene must be Selene Blackwell. No wonder she never talked about her family or had any friends, people didn't seem to like her or me, now that I was hanging around her but I didn't get why. Having a lot of money didn't seem like a punishable offence yet people avoided her like a plague.

"By the look on your face, I can safely assume you didn't know. That explains it, they are hardly likeable."

That wasn't true. Selene was a very likeable person, she was funny and incredibly smart quite the opposite of what you would expect of someone of her status. Very different from the friends i used to have.

"That's not very fair, do you even know her?"

"I know enough. I'm leaving, see you around."

The Blackwells were proving to be a sour topic for Ben, I didn't get why but I wasn't going to judge Selene cause of her surname and hearsay from a bunch of judgemental people.

It was around midnight when I heard the front door open and close. I was still awake doing the final touch-ups on my report, I was a perfectionist at heart so my work had to be perfect or as close to perfect as it could be. I usually passed out with exhaustion around the am, at least then I wouldn't have any night terrors.

It had been the same dream every night, opening wounds that were supposed to be healing, I was grateful for the school workload, it kept my mind off the worst of it. Turning off the desktop, I went out to greet my aunt but stopped in my tracks at the top of the stairs when I saw her in an intimate embrace with some guy in a black leather jacket. Aunt Lorraine and my mom were around the same age but I suspected her busy life travelling from one place to the next was the reason why she never settled down for a husband and kids. She had never mentioned any boyfriend to me, when she said she was going to be out all day I thought it was for work, I hadn't realised she was going on a date.

Feeling like I was prying on an intimate moment, I slowly retreated to my room as quietly as I possibly could.

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The following day I found myself on the door of my aunt's study room, she had a bunch of boxes stacked up and a bunch of papers all over the place.

"Can I come in? Lend a hand or two."

"Of course, I'm just fixing this place up. I had so much junk lying around in here. You can start by picking up those old files and throwing them in that empty box."

"Sure."

It was a lazy Sunday and this was better than being copped up in my room with my thoughts.
We shifted into silence as we both began cleaning up the room, there wasn't a lot just some of her old review drafts that needed to be thrown away and a little bit of dusting on the shelves.

"Oh, and before I forget, I have something for you." She jumped over a pile of books and handed me a small blue box.

"What's this?" I asked placing some files I had in on a dusty stool so that I could receive the blue box. Inside was a bunch of old photo albums and frames, I knew without looking that they were of Lorraine and my mom.

"I kept most of these all my life but I want you to have them, you need them now more than I do."

Her eyes were sad but tried to hide it with a small smile before she turned back to finish what we was left of the mess.

"No way." I chuckled as I picked up an old photo of my mom with wild red curls dressed in the skimpiest dress I had ever seen. She looked around my age at the time and looking at her was like looking at an unrecognizable photo of myself, the red hair was something I hadn't known about.

"Ah yes, our first college party. I convinced your mom to wear that, she used to be so conservative but that all changed that night." Lorraine laughed, a small twinkle in her eye as she walked over to where I had planted myself on a dusty chair.

"My guess is that you weren't aware that your mum was a redhead just like you."

She was right, I didn't. I was a spitting image of my mother but I had grown up seeing her with a black bob with no sign of redness in her hair. But in all these college pictures she had the longest red curls I had ever seen, it was slightly comical.

"Why did she change her hair?" I asked as picked another photo of them at the country fair wearing the ugliest cowboy shoes on the planet.

"I don't know. One day after we graduated she went on a 'self-discovery' trip for an entire week and when she came she was a whole different person. She had a new hairdo and the party animal I had created in college had disappeared, she came back more responsible and more self-aware. She met your dad around that time and the two eloped a month later, it was a bit quick but the two were head over hills in love and you came as a result of that not so long after."

I knew the details of their love story very well, my dad said it was love at first sight and mom couldn't agree more.

After going through all the pictures and my aunt sharing the story behind each one I noticed something odd, it had never struck me till now. I had never seen any photos of my mom when she was growing up, there wasn't a single photo of her as a toddler or in high school, the only ones that seemed to exist were the ones from when she was a young adult till the moment she died.

"Hey aunt, how come there are no baby photos around here. Mom told me that you kept all of them but there isn't a single one here."

"Oh. Did Mona say that? Umm, I thought she had them. There is still a box at my mom's old house, they must have been forgotten there."

If I didn't know her well I would have missed the change in her demeanour, she gave a small nervous laugh and wouldn't even look at me when she replied. It was something she did when she was uncomfortable or lying. That was odd cause I had seen her baby photos but none of my mom, it almost felt like there was no trace of my mother's existence before college.

Aunt Lorraine and my mom were adoptive sisters, my mom had been abandoned at an orphanage but was adopted by the Carters when she was just a toddler, It didn't make sense for my aunt to lie to me so I brushed off her uneasiness as nothing.

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