Why? Chapter Two

The next morning, I wake up to the sun shining through the window of my room. This is probably the most normal thing that has happened to me in the past day. I sit in bed for a few minutes and review the past events in my head. I woke up, not being able to remember anything. My memory loss was supposedly caused by a concussion. I’m a foster child and my foster parents seem to be hiding something from me… That’s definitely something that happens to children on a daily basis.

I then notice the sweet smell of food and the faint sound of people talking coming from beyond my door. I slowly get up and out of bed—to avoid getting dizzy because I have a ‘concussion’—and walk towards the bedroom door. I slowly open it and examine the hallway. It was extremely plain… just like the room I was sleeping in. That’s odd. If there was more than one child living in this house you would expect to see at least one family picture.

I walk down the hall towards the stairs. Still no pictures. There were no decorations whatsoever. I walk down the stairs and head towards the direction I hear the voices coming from. Eventually, I find myself in a dining room with twelve or so children. One of the children seems to notice me standing awkwardly in the doorway and walks toward me.

“You’re just in time for breakfast. We didn’t think you’d be up this early,” she says, “The others are going to school but Sapphire is staying here to look after you.”

I look towards the other children to see if I can find Sapphire and Felix among them. When I do, Felix and I make eye contact and he smiles at me. I give a small smile back and turn back to the girl, “Umm… I’m sorry but what’s your name?”

The girl looks at me quizzically, “You don’t remember my name?”

I examine her face to see if I can recall anything, but as usual, I can’t. I shake my head, “Sorry, I can’t. I can’t remember anything... Apparently, the concussion gave me amnesia.”

The girl nods her head slowly, but still looks a bit confused, “Well… My name is Skye and I’m the second oldest. The first is Sapphire, in case you were wondering. We’re basically in charge of all the children if Elaine and Adrien aren’t home.”

“Exactly how many children live here?” I ask, letting my curiosity get the better of me.

“Twelve. There used to be fourteen, but two ended up leaving. Elaine and Adrien still won’t tell us why…”

I nod, slowly taking in all the information. So Elaine and Adrien weren’t being secretive towards just me… That’s interesting. I wonder if they were those types of parents that watched their kids’ every move and withheld important issues from them. I also wonder why they have no pictures of the children in the house. If there were fourteen of them, shouldn’t there at least have been one picture of them all together? Maybe they just didn’t like taking family photos. Trying to keep fourteen children under control at one time is kind of hard.

I’m instantly snapped out of my thoughts when Sapphire walks up behind me and taps on my shoulder, “You should be in bed. Mom and Dad said that you shouldn’t try moving around much until you’ve fully recovered.”

I resist the urge to roll my eyes. There goes that ‘fully recovered’ thing again. It’s not like I’m undergoing physical therapy or anything. All I had was a concussion. I’m pretty sure that it was severe—considering the fact that I couldn’t remember my own name—but it’s not like I’m completely incapable of doing something. I sigh and make my way back to the stairs.

“I’ll make sure to bring some food up for you,” Sapphire calls out to me. I nod and start trudging up the stairs and back to my room. Today was going to be a long day if I was going to be babied like this all the time.