Secrets of the Harts

11 November 2009
It definitely had not been my specialty to act like a frosty bitch. I had done better with blending in but it hadn’t been an option here at Spencer’s Academy for Troubled Teens (or as the locals called it, SATT) since I would’ve gotten eaten alive by the kids here.

I had managed to get by with my half-assed impression of one but I knew that I had not been in character yesterday because I had ran away from Dylan and Luke, instead of brushing them off with some icy cold stare.

I was just going to have to try a different method; especially since there was no way he could still believe that I was an unflustered, disinterested girl. The only problem was that I did not know what to do with him. Besides, I had a gut feeling that I hadn’t lost my key, which had my name on it, but that he had somehow pick pocketed it from me. It was ridiculous, of course, that anyone could ever be skilled enough to do that to an Agent like me.

But I couldn’t shake the feeling that he was not as simple as he presented himself to be.

Giving up on that particular thought, I squared my shoulders and pressed a button cleverly hidden under my bed.

“Hart,” said Calloway as her face appeared on the screen, where the top of my study table had been. “What’s your status?”

“Code 68, safe and secure.”

She nodded. “Anything else?”

I wondered for a moment if I should mention my new neighbours and how I felt that there was something a little strange about one of them but from the vague impatient expression on her face, I knew that this was not something she would care about. “No.”

Her face disappeared from the screen. No goodbyes, no hellos. This was how my guardian operated.

I went to my bed, closed my eyes and dreamt for something better.

July 1993
“I’m leaving you,” announced Alessandra to her plate.

His cutlery clattered to his plate, resounding in the air. But Paul said nothing.

“I’m leaving you and I’m taking Kristen with me,” she continued, more firmly, but still not daring to look at Paul.

“Why?”

“Because...because I don’t love you anymore.”

He knew that Alessa had changed ever since she found out his family’s secrets. The fact that she had found out a month before their baby was due was a terrible coincidence as Alessa had already started pulling away from him since her pregnancy, due to a mild form of prenatal depression. Her condition had simply worsened as the baby’s due date drew closer.

But after she discovered the Harts’ secrets and became even colder to him, Paul could no longer attribute her iciness to depression. Instead, he had started to wonder if she was drifting apart from him because of her depression or because she no longer knew him, much less loved him. Now, he supposed he had his answer.

Alessandra looked up, uneasy with the silence. Then, she saw the look on his face, how he was starting to believe her words and wondered to herself—how could he so innocently overlook the truth?

And almost immediately, she knew why. She never lied to him like this before and he didn’t know how to tell when she did. Though she didn’t like it, this was her only way out.

So she silently apologises to Paul.

12 November 2009
“Hey, hon. Miss me?”

I cast a flinty gaze at Dylan. “What are you doing here?”

“You’re a C. I’m one to.” He took the empty seat next to mine and I get up instinctively, ready to shift to somewhere else. But Dylan grabbed my hand and said, “Hon, you’re not going to get rid of me. I’ll just follow you wherever you go.”

It was a mistake to tell him that I was graded C. I shook his hand off and sat back then, silently fuming at my novice’s error.

At SATT, students of different danger levels attended different Creative Writing lessons. Basically, these lessons were a type of Reflect and Change essay writing class. For those of us graded C, we had a special teacher, Jane Something, who led us in discussions before the essay writing part, since we were considered to be one of the more at danger type.

Dylan Fuller was dangerous all right, but probably not in the sense that SATT was concerned about. He was probably here to annoy me.

“You don’t think that I’m only here because you are, are you?” asked Dylan, with his eyebrows raised, as though he had read my mind. “Because that kind of thinking’s just egoistical.”
“How am I supposed to know if you are?” I pointed out. “You’re a stranger.”
“Strangers are just friends you haven’t met yet.”

I wanted to retort but realising that I’ve already spoken too much to him, I laid my head on the table and effectively ended our conversation.

My tiredness wasn’t all pretend. Though I had fallen asleep immediately last night, it had not been a restful one because I had gotten a nightmare. I couldn’t really remember what it was about, but I knew that Dylan had appeared in the most random parts of it and that I had some...strange thoughts about him. Now that he was next to me, I tried not to be too self-conscious and to stop myself from analyzing why he was inside.

I preferred to keep my thoughts innocent.