Letters To My Mate

Chapter Twenty-Six

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I tied the ribbon around the letters from Ethan as it was previously and placed them back into their hiding place as I realised that I had yet to find the letters that my father had hidden from me. I had to find them. I needed to read them before Ethan woke up – if I still didn't have them and he found out, he would keep asking questions which may lead to the truth. I can't ever let the truth come out; it would destroy everything good in my life.

Cautiously standing up, I put my ear to the door and listened out for any sign of my father. If he was home, I wouldn't be able to sneak into his room in fear of being caught... I didn't know how bad the beating would be if I was caught.

Once I heard no noise I hurried across the hallway to my father's bedroom and slowly opened the door, closing it softly behind me. Looking around the room, I had no idea where to start – last time I searched and saw no sign of the letters anywhere.

For the next ten minutes I lifted up the mattress and the pillows, opened cupboards and boxes, looked behind paintings and under other papers all around the room – but no hope. I sat down on the bed and sighed, holding my head in my hands to try and calm myself before the tears fell. "They're only letters" you may be thinking but no – not to me – those letters are the only thing left to link me and Ethan together until he wakes up... they're the only things holding me together.

Then I had another idea – I was so stupid. My father has a small office at the end of the hallway; one that he often stormed into when he had finished hurting me or when he had received bad news. I stood up quickly and rushed out of his room, ensuring that everything was left as I had found it, and walked towards the tall, intimidating door. I was nervous as I had never been allowed to enter his office, even when I was a little girl and my mother was still here, and I do not know what lies behind the door – what would I find?

I opened the door slowly, warily searching around the room for anyone or any cameras that my father could have had installed – this office always sounded important so I would have thought it would be harder to get into. The room looked very professional; I assume that this had to do with the business my father used to be a big part of.

In the middle of the room was a medium-sized circular table with 6 wooden, sophisticated chairs scattered around it – this must have been a meeting table when this room was actually in use. On the other side of the room was a wooden desk, which must have been made with the same dark oak as the meeting table. Files and papers were scattered over the desk and it seemed as if he had been busy in here recently; maybe Avia and David wanted him to become a partner in their business or something. I don't know how these things work... All we are taught in school is how to analyse poems that we will never look at ever again or how to simplify long algebraic expressions.

On the right-hand side of the room behind the meeting table was a tall, wooden bookshelf that was filled with title-less books that appeared to be important. However, they also looked as though they were unnoticed and became part of the rooms decoration compared to how they once would have been picked up and cherished. I gently ran my hand over the large bookshelf as I slowly paced the room.

On the wall to the left of the bookshelf and behind the circular table there was a detailed map pinned onto the wall, with red pen circled around multiple locations – some had crosses on and I don't think I wanted to find out the reason why. I don't know where the location of the map is. I had never seen these grounds before or even heard of the places and they all have such weird names for towns or parks; like, "Blue Moon Pack" and "Green-River Pack". I bet that they aren't exactly attracting tourists with their strange names. Why did they all have 'pack' in the name, anyway?

I stopped getting distracted and started searching in the drawers of his desk for the letters – they had to be here somewhere...

"Aha!" I whispered to myself as an envelope came into view. I turned over the crumpled envelope and smiled in relief when I saw the easily recognisable handwriting of the man I had learned to love – there's one... where would the others be? There had to be at least two more unless Ethan truly never did write to me during this period of time. I heard a car pull up on the driveway outside and quickly shut the draw and exited the room with the envelope in my hand – I'd be back to look for the others another time.