Family Ties (Hidden Secrets) Read Free Page A

next to my bowl.  I smiled at him and took it. We ate the rest of the meal in silence. Exhaustion finally hit me and I wandered my way upstairs to his spare room.  My head hit the pillow and I passed out.
    “That’s not what I meant,” I said loudly.
    “ Are you yelling at me?” Kyle said.
    “ Uh, no. I’m just saying…”
    SMACK!
    “You know better than to raise your voice to me!” He roared.
    “ Kyle…”
    SMACK!
    “Shut up!  Don’t talk to me unless I tell your dumbass that you can!”
    SMACK!
    “We’re going to get two things straight around here.  I am in charge and you do what I say.  Not too hard for even someone of your level to understand. Is it?”
    I shook my head vigorously. Holding my face, he moved back to the seat he was in and stared at me.
    “Now what were you saying?”
    “ I don’t want to wear those kind of things on stage.  Little girls look up to me and I want to uphold the right type of image for them.”
    “ So you are still choosing to argue with me on this then?”  He said as he pulled his belt from his pants.
    “ NOOOO!” I screamed, shooting up in the bed.
    Nate was by my side with a worried look on his face.  My lip started trembling.  Nate pulled me into his arms and laid down spooning me.  Running his hand through my hair he kept whispering ‘it was going to be okay’ in my ear until I finally fell asleep.
    A week passed and the swelling had gone down.  I went down to the kitchen that morning and found Nate.  He was making his specialty, cereal.  I laughed as I entered the room.
    “Do you live on cereal?”
    “ Sometimes,” he grinned.
    “ I’m going to get out of your hair today. I’ll go home and see my family.  The swelling in my face is gone and the bruising is down enough that I can cover with make-up and pass as a dancing accident.  I think I’ll be safe.  The deeper bruising is hidden by my clothes.”
    “ You know you don’t have to leave. I don’t mind you being here.  In fact, I like you being here.”
    “ I know Nate, but you need to get back to your life.  And I want to see my family before I have to go back. I miss them.”
    “ I’ve enjoyed having you here, though.”
    “ I’ve had fun too, Nate.  I’m better now.  I thank you so much for helping me when I had nowhere else to go. But it is time now for me to be with my family.  Let you have your bachelor pad back.  Call whoever it was back and apologize for kicking them out. Say that you had a family emergency.”
    “ Yeah, family emergency,” he grumbles.
    “ Why are you getting angry? I thought you’d be happy to get me out of your hair.”
    “ No, I’m not and I happen to like you in my hair. Please stay,” he said without looking at me.
    “ I can’t.  As it is, I barely see my family anymore.  To be this close and off for two more weeks, I need my family time.”
    “ I need you Mare,” he whispered, looking at me sadly.
    “ Nate, you need to get back to your life.  And I need to get back to mine.”
    “ You don’t have to go,” he says, pushing his spoon in the bowl of cereal with enough force to cause some of the milk to spill out.
    “ Thank you for breakfast. You are my best friend.” I kiss his cheek, walk upstairs and grab the clothes I had Nate buy for me.  Then I said goodbye. He seemed sad standing there on his porch watching me pull out of his driveway. I don’t know what has gotten into him.  He has never been like this with me.
    I turned down the road and make the twenty minute drive to my parents ’ house.  My excitement was building the closer I got to my childhood home. I couldn’t wait to spend the next two weeks with them. Two weeks of nothing but my family…
     
    ** *** *** **
     
    The time with my family went by so much faster than I wanted it to.  Before I knew it, I only had a week left before I had to go back to the nightmare that was my life. I loved my life as a singer songwriter, but it was outside of that that I