Taken (SLOWLY RE-UPLOADING)

Without You

          I blew my nose into a tissue, trying to calm down as Dylan's phone began to ring, the obnoxious chime echoing off of the bedroom walls. "Hello?" He maneuvered my head and placed it gently back down on the pillow as he got up to speak to whoever was on the other side of the line. "Yes, she's safe now. Yeah, come on in. The gang's downstairs. Oh, right you might need the code. Plus they don't know you- eh, I'll just come down there and open the door for you for safe measures. Alright, be there in a sec. Whatever you do, do not ring the doorbell. Yeah, bye."

          As he hung up his smartphone, he stuck his it back in his jeans pocket and pecked me on the cheek with a kiss. "We have company. I'll be back in a second to explain more."

          Dylan walked out of the door and I heard a click behind him -- what I assumed to be the locking of the door from the outside. I hoped to God that he was the only one with the master key to open it.

          Thinking back on the past 24 hours, I realized that I was legitimately not in a movie. Everything that happened to me, everything I said and did -- it was all real. It was all a part of my life story now.

          And then I thought back to the memory of my childhood that I did have; I did recall a woman with long, beautiful white hair in a hospital bed. I remember sticky vanilla cake covering my face, then hugging the woman before being pushed out of the room as the machine stopped beeping regularly. From there, the memory stops. The next thing I remember clearly is hanging out with what I knew then as my biological sisters, and what I know now as my nonbiological sisters

          Deep in thought, I was pulled out of memory lane with the sound of the door to the bedroom opening. I wiped the few tears that ran down my face as I was caught with nostalgia. I fanned my face in order to cool it down the moment before Dylan walked into the room with another guy whom I did not recall seeing as a part of the gang.

          "Hey, Natalie, this is my good friend, Clay Wells. Clay, this is Natalie, the one I've been filling you in about over the past few weeks."

          Introductions were a little odd for both of us since I couldn't exactly speak, but we managed to get through them with the exchange of a few awkward smiles and eye contact.

          Dylan and Clay sat on the edge of the bed -- Dylan to the right of my where my feet lay and Clay to the left -- and Dylan continued with his story from earlier.

          "Okay, so, remember when I told you that your father is basically an undercover agent? Well, Clay and I work for him. We're in training to become undercover agents just like him, and he's our trainer. However, everyone downstairs does not have a part in this at all. They don't know anything that is true about us other than our names. Well, more like mine actually, because they don't even know who Clay is."

          Clay chimed in, "Yeah, I can fill her in on the rest if you need to go deal with the dudes downstairs, man." Dylan nodded his head in agreement, sent me a wink, and walked out the door, locking it from the outside once again.

          "Do you mind if I lay down beside you? My back is killing me. Long drive down here, haha." Clay chuckled awkwardly as I nodded my head yes and moved over a tad bit to make sure there was enough room for us both on the bed.

          "Ah, that's better, thank you." He interlocked his fingers together and placed them underneath his head, seemingly trying to make himself comfortable.

          "Okay, so, I've been studying up on your case file back at your father's office, and you don't know anything, right?" Shaking my head no, I answered that same question for the second time that day. "Okay, that's what I figured. Well, basically, just a few days after your mother died, your father left you with your grandmother just a few blocks away from your house while he was at work. However, that was the same year that he was going undercover and trying to exploit the kidnappers in that child sex trafficking ring.

          One day, while you were playing outside with your baby dolls, I think you were, what, four at the time? Your grandmother went inside for just a second to answer the phone. Your father was calling to check up on you two, but by the time your grandmother was outside, you disappeared. The next time you were seen in the system, you were put up for adoption in New Jersey. However, your name was changed; It may come as a shock, but your real name is not Natalie Linn Mace, it's Anastasia Grace McKinley."

          At this point, I was sobbing profusely. When I was first starting to use the internet, one of the things I'd say to my sisters as an inside joke was, "My whole life is a lie!" But looking back at that moment, I realized that my life was literally a whole lie. No inside jokes and no memes involved, from beginning to end, everything I thought was real was fake; all of it.

          I don't know when, but at one point or another, he quit talking. And suddenly his arms were around me in comfort. And honestly, it didn't feel awkward.

          For once, something finally felt real in my life.

          Someone who knew more about me and my real past than I knew about myself, from my own case file, and whom I had just met, was comforting me. And for once, I felt safe, stable, and secure. I felt that I actually knew what was happening. Finally, the metaphorical crowd wasn't maneuvering around me to get to where they were going; I was moving with the crowd, knowing the path ahead of me for once in my entire existence. I finally had a place.

          In a hoarse voice, I gulped and reluctantly whispered into his ear, "Keep going, I need to know everything." My eyes never left their position of staring intently at the boring white ceiling above our heads. To my surprise, no more tears were coming out of my eyes; I guess I ran out of them one way or another.

          "I-if you insist." He muttered, but then, gently letting go of me and resting back in the same position as before, he inhaled a deep breath. I hadn't realized how close I was with this stranger until I felt the blush on my face becoming visible. He then cleared his throat and continued telling me about my own ambiguous past.