Elisabeth Marie

Chapter Twenty-Nine

“I’m going to go change,” I said to Taylor, going towards the stairs.

“Actually, James- dad- will probably want to see how you are. He was worried when you left without saying anything,” Taylor responded.

I looked at my still-soaking clothes. “Now?”

“I think so.”

I sighed and followed Taylor into the kitchen. No one seemed to notice the extraordinarily wet girl in the room until Rose turned in her chair to face me. “Elisabeth!” she exclaimed. “What happened? Are you alright?”

“I’m fine, I just… slipped.”

Now Nolan looked at me, his arm around Taylor. “In a lake?” he asked, clearly not buying my explanation.

“Um… more like in a river,” I admitted.

“There aren’t any rivers for miles,” James said. “Was it just some runoff from some sprinklers?”

I remembered how excited Josh had been when he showed me the creek. Maybe it was actually a secret. “It must have been,” I said, not willing to make known my little haven by the water tower.

“Where are the eggs?” Rose asked suddenly.

“Um… I didn’t get them,” I said, embarrassed. “I can run and pick some up right now, if you want, but when I… slipped… the money got soaked in my pocket. I didn’t know if wet money still… worked.” And eggs were the last thing on my mind.

“It’s fine,” Rose said, suddenly seeming tired. I wanted to help her, make her be healthy again, but I knew that at this point, it was impossible.

“Rose, dear, do you want me to take you to lie down in the other room?” James asked gently.

Rose nodded, weak. “Elisabeth, go upstairs and get changed, okay? I don’t want you to catch cold,” she said, as if she was my mother.

She is your mother, Elisabeth.

“We want to talk to you when you finish,” James said, leading Rose out of the kitchen.

About what? I nodded and waited for them to move out of the kitchen before going upstairs.

***

Although I'd been with the Reids for about two weeks, I still didn't know what I was supposed to do with my soaking wet clothes once I was changed. I just hung them on the shower rod and figured I'd deal with them later before walking back downstairs.

"Elisabeth, there you are," Rose said from her spot on the couch, where she was sitting next to James.

"Yep, here I am," I said, trying not to act nervous, as I sat down across from Rose and James.

"We need to talk to you about a certain someone," James said. I could hear Nolan chuckle from the other room.

"Um... who?" I asked, giving up on trying to hide my nervousness. They can't possibly know about the stream, it just happened, we were all alone, there's no way they could find out. Right? I tried to calm myself down. They don't know. They won't know. Calm down, Elisabeth, no one knows, it just-

"Elisabeth, did you hear anything your mother just said?" James asked.

"What?" I felt my cheeks burn. "Sorry."

James sighed. "Elisabeth, we need to talk to you about Josh Ford." Oh my goodness. They know. But we didn't even do anything bad, I mean, we may have almost kissed, but we didn't, all we did is go to the stream... maybe the stream is illegal! How can a stream be illegal? Or maybe it was on some secret government property! Or maybe they thought we kissed! It could have looked like it, but-