Loving Ashlynn (#Wattys2016)

Chapter 17 - Three Sides to All Stories, The Cold Eyes Connection? (Faith POV)

A/n: Not Thoroughly Edited.

Chapter 17 – Three Sides to All Stories, The Cold Eyes Connection? (Faith POV)

Since Walsh came to my woods, I'd been going with my gut and a bit of fear. There has not been one thing I've openly refused to do, everyone has coaxed me along, but something did not feel right with Sonya. I was opening up to her, but... I mean, I could not understand everything swirling in my mind, but I would tackle the things that I could.

So, I said it. I openly refused to carry on seeing Sonya. The words, the hardest I've had to say in a while were stammered, said out loud, though I could barely hear them over my racing heart.

Forcing my hands to move, I gathered enough will to lift my hand, reaching for a fork.

Slowly eating, after I spoke, I expected Kalenah to bombard me with questions, but fortunately, she sat down, with her own plate of food only giving me a slight nod, before focusing on her meal. Eating quietly, glancing at me every once in a while until Samson took seconds and I couldn't even finish what Kalenah had given me. My stomach was overfilled but I pushed myself, each morsel left in the plate felt like a waste. Living alone, I made everything by proportions. I never let anything be discarded especially towards the end when my rations had dwindled and Dmitri had not returned.

Despite wanting, almost needing to finish, I sigh softly.

"I can't eat anymore," I mumbled and Samson just pulled my plate near his, his mouth a vacuum for the seconds he took as well as my leftovers. Shocked that he could eat any more, a small part of me was relieved that at least we wouldn't be throwing anything away. I may not be hungry or counting my rations down to the last grain, but somewhere in this world, someone was. When Kalenah ate the last bit on her plate, carrying it over to the sink, I knew that it was time for talking. I'm not sure how I even knew, but there was just this lack of subtly when it came to Kalenah... since the very first night, I was making the meal.

When Kalenah had something to say, she had a way of letting me know, almost as though she did not want to overwhelm or unload on me too quickly. I could not understand her nature or reason for being this way. I had already noted that she did not do this with her children. "Can you tell me why you don't want to see Sonya anymore?"

How was I supposed to explain how she made me feel? Or the distrust I had for her? It wasn't that she said the things she did, but it's the way she made my stomach churn, the way that I just felt deep inside that something was wrong with her, that I didn't trust her. How was I going to find the right words, because the truth was I didn't trust myself... I couldn't. I've been lied to endlessly and now, I seconded guessed not only the actions of others but myself.

"You said that I could trust her, talk to her... I don't feel that way, I can't explain it but I don't trust her," I say blankly. Kalenah nods, "I'll find someone else then?"

I breathed a sigh of relief because that was the easier part of what needed to be discussed.

"Faith, you said that you didn't want to see the lady with cold eyes, but I'm – I'm not sure what you meant honey?"

I swallowed thickly, "I – I know that I said that I was always inside, that I was never outside, but I've been having this dream..." Samson stopped chewing and Kalenah sat stiffly with wide surprised eyes.

"I'm little - younger - in it, and there is a woman, she's in a gray baggy dress and her face is distorted, her eyes are here," I touch my cheeks.

"But they're green, like my green but – but she yells at me, and there's a baby, he's two, his name is Andy," I swallow and my belly feels uneasy the food I just ate, rolls around unpleasant. "I was with her, she left me, wherever we were she left me and took Andy," my bottom lip shakes. But Kalenah's eyes dart over to Samson, before slowly focusing on me.

"And you saw the woman today?"

I nodded, "With your own eyes?"

Whose eyes besides my own would I see the woman with? I think frowning before answering. "Yes, I got scared that she was in the house so I ran into the forest," I leave out that I told Sonya about this and now the woman was here.

It couldn't be a coincidence.

Twiddling my thumbs under the table, twisting my hands my knuckles cracking slightly, Kalenah looked completely ashen. "She was inside our home?" I nodded. "Aunt Cynthia," Samson mumbled.

"You dreamt of her?" I nodded, "Yes, I don't understand why or what happened but then I saw her, and she was even holding the baby in her arms the way she held Andy and Ansel were laughing and," I gasp shakily.

"You ran," Kalenah finished.

I don't give away more details. My hands shake on my lap and I swallow thickly, counting my breaths. I cannot anymore. Forcing away the thoughts, it's too much to even consider, but I'm sure that this woman is my mother and that Andy was my brother and she left me behind. But there is a part of me that again I can't explain that deflates when I realize that Samson is probably my cousin. I had always wondered what it was like to have a big family, but it didn't feel as exciting to me that I may be related to him.

"Do you – can you tell how old you are in the dream Faith?" Kalenah asks as Samson pushes his plate away, a frown playing on his lips.

"I think older that three but younger than five years old, but I can't remember anything but her telling me that I-" the two of them are hanging on my every word, and yet I can't share that part of what I remembered about them. I didn't know what I had ruined for this Cynthia woman, but she was holding it against me. My whole body tensed when I wondered just what was going to happen now? Where would I go now that I had revealed I knew Cynthia, that there was a connection between her and me?

They probably wouldn't want to keep me, not when Cynthia told them what I had done before. I didn't know myself what I had done to be perfectly honest, there was much I couldn't remember.

Suddenly less sure in myself than ever, I pushed away from the table, muttering a soft goodnight, nearly sprinting up the stairs while echoes of 'goodnights' are whispered behind me.  

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