Not Herself

Part 21

"Where's my room, Helen?" I ask, trying to sound normal.

"Upstairs on the right." Helen answers.

"Thanks." I say. I run upstairs and into my new room. I see there's a blacony so I go out there. I decide to call Jack on last time before changing my number.

"Hey, Kim." he says.

"Hey." I reply.

"What's wrong?" he worries.

"I-I can't call you until I get back." I answer.

"What? What's happening?" he asks.

"I can't tell you." I sigh.

"Why can't you tell me?" he demands.

"For the same reason you can't tell anyone you and Milton are spies. Jack, it's dangerous stuff being a spy. You know exactly what's going on." I tell him. I almost think he hung up because the other end is silent.

"You're a spy?" he finally asks.

"I love you, Jack. Goodbye." I say, then I hang up. I put my phone in my pocket and ignore all the texts coming in that I know are Jack's. I wipe my face then walk downstairs. "We should probably go change our numbers now." I tell Helen.

"Alright. Let's go." she says. She grabs her purse and I follow her out to the car. Ricky follows us and gets in. We drive to the nearest phone store and walk in.

"Hello and how may I help you?" a man asks.

"We'd like to change two phone numbers, please." Helen smiles.

"Alright. Right this way." the man says. We follow him to a counter and hand him our phones. He does something then hands them back. "Here are your new numbers. Have a good day!" he smiles.

"Thank you." we all say. I grab the piece of paper that has my new number on it and follow Helen back out. When we get home, there's another bus dropping someone off.

"Mommy!" a little girl yells, running through the house.

"Hey, Paris. How was school?" Helen asks, picking her up.

"Good. Who are they?" Paris asks, pointing at me and Ricky.

"They're gonna be your big brother and sister. This is Paige and this is Parker." Helen says pointing to each of us.

"Hi. My name is Paris Ayer and I'm six years old. I'm in first grade and go to Chicago Elementary School." she says proudly.

"Hey, Paris. I'm Paige." I smile.

"I'm Parker." Ricky nods.

"Cool!" she smiles. She squirms out of her mom's arms and grabs my hand. "I wanna show you something!" she says, pulling me through the house and outside.

"Have fun, Paige!" I hear Helen yell after us. I follow Paris to her backyard and see a trampoline.

"Come jump with me." she says. I get on the trampoline and pull her up after me. We jump around for a while then she asks if I can do a flip. I do a front flip and she claps. "Can you teach me to do that?" she asks.

"Yeah. I can also do karate." I answer.

"I wanna learn karate!" Paris says.

"Maybe I can teach you." I suggest.

"Please, please, please!" she jumps up and down.

"Of course." I smile. Geez this girl is cute.