Identifying Sara

Chapter Two

Brown hair, brown eyes, a new name, and a few states later, my new house stands in front of me.

I have a box in my hands, and I'm supposed to be carrying it into the new house, but my feet won't budge, my eyes keep their place staring intently at the new, white house before my eyes.

I feel a deep ache in my stomach. Moving gets harder and harder as I get older. I dont know how much more of this I could take. I just left one of my best friends, Chelsea Merrick. She will never see me again, and she wont know where I ever went or what ever happened to me. She was my best friend, she knew almost everything about me, except for my messed up life behind closed doors. I couldn't tell her much because rules are rules, and according to the "rules" I must remain as closed off as possible to keep my identity a secret.

It's not very hard to be closed off, everything thats ever happened to me has pretty much traumatized me and just naturally I became very quiet and kept to myself. But Chelsea worked her way past my barrier, she let herself inside my personal bubble and taught me how to be happy again, and I will forever thank her for that. She made my life have the rays of sunshine that it was missing and I just wish I could've said goodbye, she deserved to know everything, she really did.

My mom nudges me with her elbow and I jerk my head in her direction.

"I'm sorry honey," she gives me a sympethteic look, "I just want to keep you safe."

I don't answer her. Instead my feet bolt inside the house, away from my mother.

As soon as I step into the house I stop and look around frantically not searching for anything in specific. I feel so out of place, like a fish out of water. The pressure of starting my life all over again is weighing down on me like a bag of bricks on my shoulders.

Every new person I meet I know I have to tell them a lifetimes worth of lies because that's all my life seems to be, lies.

My mom walks into the new house with a box in her hands. When she sees me, she sets her box down and takes the box I was holding out of my hands.

"I'm so sorry you have to live like this sweetie, I really truly am." My mother says softly. She wraps her long arms around me enveloping me into a warm hug. I don't hug her back though, instead I stand there wondering why this had to be my life.

I sigh, "this is too much for me. I tell you the same things everytime we move, but you still keep doing this to me."

She pulls away keeping her hands gripped on my shoulders she stares at me showing slight anger in her expression.

"Do you think I want to live like this? Annaliese, I have to go through just as much as you do-"

I cringe, that name makes me want to throw up my entire lunch. "Mom, could you stop calling me that, the name, I just can't take it."

Her face drops and suddenly becomes as pale as the white wall behind her.

"Mom. . . Stop" I say quietly, suddenly extremely uncomfortable.

She lets go of my shoulders and turns her attention to the boxes on the floor. "Go up to your room. Unpack, Kristy will be here soon." Her voice is cold and emotionless, as if a robot's voice is speaking instead of her own.

The confused expression on my face doesn't fade as I climb the stairs leading to my new bedroom.

I reach the top of the stairs and pause to look at the three doors, all facing eachother. I open a door at random and knew it was my room in an instant; my name was on all of the boxes that were piled up around the room.

I looked around the room filled with all the boxes which contained every last bits of my life in them.

+++

I stopped counting the minutes after I got to sixty-three. Lying on the floor counting every single second that went by was not in the least bit exciting.

I felt myself immediatly shoot up into a sitting position when my bedroom door opened.

"I see you've been being productive." My mother says eyeing the boxes sitting in the same exact spot they were an hour and three minutes ago.

I keep myself silent, what is there to say?

"I'm heading over to the highschool to register you, and you have to be there." My mother says. I mentally groan, I completely forgot it was Sunday meaning I would be forced to attend school tomorrow.

I avoid her eyes as I get myself up off the floor. I follow my mom down the stairs and through the house to the car, when she begins to speak to me.

"Kristy will be joining us, in the car she'll tell you all your new information and all of that fun stuff."

"Yeah," I remark sarcastically, "so fun."

We stop in the doorway before we go outside, and for the first time I notice my mom's hair color has changed. It's a few shades darker then mine, and her eyes are green this time.

I reach up to touch her hair but she gently grabs my arm stopping me.

"I want you to always remember that I'm doing this for your own safety." She tells me, and then she disappears into the sunlight flooding the doorway. What's that supposed to mean?