The Secrets.

Morgan

“I need your coursework in by Thursday. No exceptions. See you all next week.” Dr. Smithson turned on the lights in the lecture theatre, making everyone blink rapidly and cover their eyes. We’d been sat in the dark for almost two hours watching a PowerPoint on diseases linked to smoking from the blatantly obvious to the bizarre. Dr. Smithson said it was important that we never rule anything out no matter how unlikely it seems.

I scraped my books into my satchel then left the theatre swiftly, I had decided to do another hour at work today to earn a little extra cash but it would mean that I’d have to run most of the way.

The Teachers Apple is a little café a few minutes off campus which always seems to have a conglomeration of people from high school teenagers to elderly couples. It’s bright interior and unique menu drags anybody in, but overall it is the main hanging place for any students wanting something besides cafeteria food and craves a quiet yet friendly place to study. I’d been one of the student regulars three years ago so when a job opened I jumped on the opportunity instantly.

“You got here on time,” Rhonda stated as I entered, obviously slightly aghast that I’d managed to make it so quickly after my lecture. “I was prepared to let you off with about ten minutes.”

I smiled brightly and pulled my mint green apron from its designated peg. “You forget that I’m a quick runner. When I’m not studying or working I’m at the gym.”
“I’ve never known someone so obsessed with health!” Rhonda laughed, “Is that why you wanted to be a doctor?”

The question made me freeze up. “Yeah,” I choked out, “Something like that.” I didn’t tell her that it was because it was my dead sisters dream job. Rhonda thought I had spent all my life alone in a foster home, she didn’t even know that I had siblings or that my mother and step-dad are actually alive and had simply dumped Lawrie and I in Monday Childs Foster Home when the depression made it impossible for them to hold a stable job, let alone look after two growing children. I’m glad they did it though, it made me a lot stronger and it made me more determined to chase Sian’s dream. I don’t know if Lawrie feels the same, I can barely remember anything about her after Sian’s murder, we hardly spoke at the foster home and when I left for university we didn’t even share a goodbye. It’s amazing how much damage one event can cause on the path of someone’s life.

Rhonda seemed to notice my hesitance and placed a tray of drinks into my hands. “Table three.” She murmured kindly, patting my shoulder gently. Rhonda’s a star when it comes to empathy, she can always do something to make you feel better even when she doesn’t know the problem. Letting me keep it all locked up inside and getting on with my job is the perfect way to distract me and putting the issue to rest.

But it’s hard when the problem is the questions still hanging round your sister’s murder.

Placing the drinks onto table three I smiled politely at the young family and asked if they’d like any food. Their small daughter jumped up and down on her seat excitedly, “Chips!” she demanded, “Chips, chips, chips!”

“One plate of chips, please.” Her father requests to calm his ecstatic daughter.

I scrawl the order onto my notebook and in brackets ask for extra chips for a lovely little girl with a smiley face. Everyone who works here are generally nice people so they’d happily give a cheery girl extra chips. In fact, we tend to give everyone a little extra that often that I don’t think anyone knows what the normal portion sizes are. You’d presume that everyone would be as happy-go-lucky, but with overfilled prisons and murders everyday you realise that the world isn’t as good as you’d first hoped.

I left the family to their drinks and went to tell Mary (the chef at The Teachers Apple) of their order. As I walked to the kitchen through the swinging door I noticed a large brown envelope sat on Rhonda’s normally immaculate desk. Suddenly intrigued, I decided to see what it was about but stopped when I saw who it was addressed to.

“Rhonda!” I called, my eyes glued to the envelope, “Why do you have a letter addressed to me on your desk?”

Rhonda stuck her head round the door, her expression slightly bemused. When her chocolate eyes rested on the intruding brown envelope she understood. “Oh that. Your apartment doesn’t have a letter box, remember? All your mail is sent to the place where you work.” She goes over to the desk, picks up the envelope and hands it to me.

I turn the large envelope over in my hands, suddenly scared of what it might contain. Normally the only mail I get is the occasional bills and bank statements but this seems so much more important. Taking in a deep breath I open the letter.

My eyes skimmed over the letter swiftly and I can’t hold back the terrified gasp.

“What is it?” Rhonda questions urgently, her hand resting on my shoulder to comfort me.
“It’s a letter from Crown Court.” I barely whisper. “They’re re-opening my sister’s murder trial.”

“Your sister killed someone?” Rhonda exclaimed, “Is that why you never talk of your family?”

I shook my head rapidly, tears welling up. “I never talk of my family because my sister was murdered.”



Angrily I slammed my fists onto my desk. Did she disappear off the face of the Earth?

The front door opened and shut and the sound of heavy footsteps on wooden floor reached my ears. The living room door swung open and Daryn walked in. He leaned on the wall next to my desk, his face troubled.

“Are you OK, Morgan?” He asked, staring at the Yellow Pages open on my desk. “What are you doing?”

My hands automatically reached for the envelope and I handed it to Daryn, too scared and angry to say the words myself. He’s a much slower reader than I and when he eventually finished a small smile played on his full lips.

“This is good, Morgan! They’ll finally find out who killed your sister. Why are you so agitated?” Daryn said happily. I find it hard to be happy when jailing the murderer won’t bring my sister back to life, it won’t affect the past. Sian is still dead and I can never change that.
Yet that wasn’t the main reason I was angry. It was much more complex than the pain everyone who has lost someone to murder feels.

“I’m agitated because I have another sister, Daryn. Another sister who needs to be in court with me to sort this out! I need to find Lawrie!” I explained loudly. My years of being alone had altered how I felt about my living sister and the sudden memory reigniting that I had one made me bitter. Why had she never attempted to make contact with me? Did she not want to know how University was? How I was doing in my exams? If I enjoyed taking over Sian’s life and leaving my dreams in the gutter? It’s selfish of me to think such things but I’m the one living the life Sian always wanted whilst she gallivants around with her dreams being fulfilled.

Daryn pulled the Yellow Pages out of my grasp. My hands snatched for it but Daryn grabbed my hands and drew me close, placing a delicate kiss on my forehead.

“Come to bed.” He murmured as he wrapped his muscular arms around my tiny waist and moved me even closer to him. I rested my head on his chest to hear his heart beat. Daryn had a good strong heart beat; he wouldn’t die on me anytime soon. That strong heart beat comforted me when I was in my darkest place; it reassured me that not everything around me died when Sian did.

“You need a distraction, come on. Let me distract you.” Daryn’s hands crept down to my backside and he began to kiss my neck.

It felt brilliant to know that someone still cared for me but I couldn’t. Not tonight.

I pushed Daryn away with little force and sighed, “I’m tired, Daryn. I’m not in the mood.”
Daryn stopped kissing me and mimicked my exasperate sigh, but he took my hand in his and stunted anymore advances to bed me. I was normally extremely willing but tonight I really was too tired and my eyelids were beginning to become heavy.

I unbuttoned my shirt and slipped off my skirt then slid into bed next to Daryn, turning off the bedside lamp as I went. Every part of me suddenly wanted to break down into tears and it felt stupid that I was going to sleep when I should be searching for my remaining sister.

“Just sleep.” Daryn whispered kindly. “You’ll feel much better in the morning, I promise.”
Using Daryn’s heart beat as my lullaby I allowed my eyes to shut and the inevitable slumber take over. Maybe everything would be better in the morning.



I must have spent all night tossing and turning. Sleep came easily but as soon as the clocks stuck witching hour my dreamless sleep became fraught with nightmares. I’d never seen Sian’s body after the horrific crime but in my unconsciousness the images suddenly appeared. Her slender ten year old body was barely recognizable. She was smothered in her own blood and her visible skin was ghostly white. Slowly, her wounds began to appear. The gunshot wound through her temple, the parts of her body tearing apart from each other and the crack of her delicate bones breaking. I tried to wake up, tried to drive the scene from my head but it would never end. Sian became less and less recognizable and the blood gushed from her in the gallons. She was dead but I could still hear her screams echoing around my skull.

When I finally awoke I couldn’t scream in fright. My voice had been stolen by the gruesome sights I had just witnessed. I breathed heavily as I tried to regain my strength. Eventually I managed to tumble from my bed and stumble into the kitchen.

Light poured through the windows and there was a note from Daryn stuck to the fridge. He said I was sleeping like a baby so he dared not wake me when he left for work. I almost laughed at that. How could I remain so calm when my dreams had been petrifying?

My breakfast was nothing more than a small apple and a dry piece of wholemeal toast washed down with a glass of water. I didn’t need much to keep my going and that tiny meal would probably last me until lunch in four hours.

I switched on the TV and slouched onto the sofa. Tuesday the 12th 2011 the screen stated as I flicked to the news channel but that was the only thing my eyes could focus on. Tuesday is the only day I don’t have classes and already I cannot bare the boredom of spending all day at home.

The Yellow Pages is laying at the edge of my desk so I grab it and begin to scan through the M’s once more. I find Morgan Miller but Lawrie Miller is still not there and I know if I read through it over and over again it won’t appear.

Something is now telling me she’s dead but I know she isn’t. Lawrie was so much stronger than Sian and I when we were children. She was the daredevil and I was the timid one. Sian was the glue which stuck us together. She could always find a game that suited all three of us, the main one being doctors. The most common storyline was that I was a gardener who had injured herself from falling on my gardening sheers and Sian was my genius doctor. Sian’s imaginative mind conjured up many extra characters for Lawrie to play in the scene like a chirpy, over-eager nurse, a nervous friend who kept worrying over me excessively and an elderly mother who kept barking comments about how gardening was more dangerous than working with sharks. Without Sian it was obvious that mine and Lawrie’s friendship would fall apart and when she was killed that inevitably happened. If Lawrie is dead I think I would be able to cope. She’s been absent in my life for so long that sometimes it feels like she is. It would explain why that little voice keeps saying to accept that I’m now an only child.

Twenty one years old and I could have gone from a triplet to an only child in the space of eleven years. I really don’t understand how I can still be holding on.