Secrets

Chapter 3: Reporters

Secrets

Chapter Three: Reporters

“I’m sorry, guys! I have to go. Clean up for me?” Dennis rhetorically asked all of us with a blinding smile before he wiped his mouth with a table napkin and hurriedly headed out for the door, leaving all four of us, actually, aside from me, so that’s three of them to wash the dishes.

“Where’s he going?” I asked Arianne who just finished licking the last bit of egg yolk from her spoon.

She didn’t answer my question for long while, instead, she first stood up and gathered the plates then went near the sink and submerged them all under water.

“Dennis?” she asked me looking back as she raised one of her eyebrows at me before she continued what she was saying when she saw me nodding my head in approval, “To work.” She simply answered, returning her attention back to the dishes under the sink.

“Where?” I asked her again while I was trying to stand up on my two feet by making the table as my support, but unfortunately, I almost immediately fell back down to the chair when I felt the slightest hint of pain.

“Dear, be careful! You’re feet are not healed yet!” Gran-Gran exclaimed behind me, showing much concern when she told me to stay where I was before she went out of the kitchen to go find the sticks Dennis had given me this morning.

I tried telling her that I was fine and that I didn’t need them, but Gran-Gran stubbornly insisted that I would need to have them by my side all the time—not that they were much of use to me, considering I was forced to crawl out of my room this morning. Diverting my attention back to Arianne, I found her looking at me with the same look as Gran-Gran had.

“I’m fine.” I mouthed to her before I asked her the same question about Dennis once again.

“I don’t know.” Arianne answered back shrugging her shoulders before she turned her back on me and continued washing the dishes.

“No one here knows who Dennis is or was for that matter.” I heard someone suddenly voiced out from behind me, and looking to back, I saw Matthew looking at me straight in the eye before he continued carrying the chairs we used a few moments ago, and placed them all against the wall.

“What do you mean?” I asked out of curiosity.

“What do you mean ‘what’, Sore-face?” Matthew bluntly retorted to me as he threw the chair against the wall and immediately glared at me with the hint of annoyance.

“It’s a done deal. Don’t you understand?” he exclaimed suddenly raising his voice to me as if I asked something wrong.

“Matthew!” Arianne hissed at him.

Matthew grunted on his way out of the kitchen after he threw another chair against the wall, signifying his undying frustration for me.

Geez… what’s wrong with that guy? What did I even say to make him act like that?

I thought to myself before Gran-Gran snapped that thought out of my head when she handed me the two wooden sticks from my room. Looking at the two sticks now in my hands’ possession, I dreaded the fact of falling on the floor on my butt for the nth time today. Whatever it takes, I got my mind resolved. I was not going to use those to sticks to get to places, and so, I refused those sticks and gave them back to Gran-Gran, resorting my way into crawling out of the kitchen before she could even deny my decision.

“As much as I want to see you crawl all the way out there, I have to say that you have a stubborn mind, Solen.” Arianne snickered at me following it with her charming laughter as she walked to where I was, got the two sticks from Gran-Gran, and helped me stand up on my two feet, which caused me to wince at the stinging pain when I accidentally bumped my foot at one of Michael’s toys on our way to the sofa.