SHRIMPS

"Why did you lock your door?" Cecelia asks whispering as she sneaks In her half sister's room.

"What sort of question is that? It's my room, and I can chose we-"

"Shut up." she hits a novel on her face. "That is the book you wanted. It wasn't easy to get that book out."

Linda holds the novel with smiles but suddenly frowns and asks. "Why was it difficult to being the book out?"

"I am not too sure, but I think your mom really likes the book, she placed it on the small table very close to her bed."

Linda smiles again and nods. "I understand, thank you."

"You can call me Cecelia." she says and walks out not waiting to listen to whatever Linda might have to say."

"Why has she been always nice to me?" she asks muttering and locks her door again before settling to read the novel. "The writer must be super talented." she says as she flips over her first page.

But something surprising happened, the first word in the book is 'Cecelia', it could be a coincidence, that was what Linda thought and continue reading.

The first paragraph discussed how a young lady named Cecelia asked for her father from her mom, and she lied again to her, saying she doesn't even know who he is, because all they had was a one night stand. "The five minutes enjoyment can sure lead to a disaster just as they say." Linda giggles, lies on her chest, and places the novel right before her eyes.

The rest of the first page turn out to be a smooth and captivating one, apart from the 'Cecelia at the beginning'. But the second page?

Linda jumps out of her bed and reads the second page again, because Cecelia's father was Peter. "It has got to be a coincidence for sure." she whispers to herself and continues her reading, until she gets to the part that mentioned the fact that Cecelia does take after her father to some extents.

In the book, the writer said: Imelda couldn't find it easy to get her eyes of the pretty lady in front of her who was sleeping peacefully. Sometimes, she wonders if she had really birthed the lady. She smiles and run a her fingers through her head and grips the protruding bone close to her left ear. "Just like her father, she has the protruding bone. Imelda proceeds to the dining table and clears the shrimp that her daughter Cecelia had carefully picked out while eating. Just like her father would do. "What will this young girl do if she finds out I killed get father?" she asks no one in particular.

Linda holds her chest and takes deep breath to calm herself. "This won't be what I am thinking of." she whispers and buries her head in the book again.

The rest of the book talked about how the love life of Imelda and Peter started and how it resulted to death.

No doubt, There are a lot of differences but the fact that Cecelia and Peter was mentioned can't help but be a serious cause of doubt.

***********

"What is this?" Cecelia asks as she arrives at the dinning table the next morning and found shrimps served too. "Who gave you the order to prepare shrimps?" she asks and for the first-time ever, she raises her voice at the domestic workers.

"Miss Linda instructed us to do so." Rita replies with a bit of fear.

"When did she ask you to do that?" she asks again furiously.

"I asked them to add shrimps to our meal this morning because I really crave for it." Linda cuts in and walks straight to her favorite sitting spot, sniffles and exhales with smiles before sitting. "It smells so wonderful."

"You should have at least asked if everyone will like to eat shrimp this morning." Cecelia nags.

"What's wrong? Don't you like it?" she asks feigning ignorance.

"What is going on?" Jessie cuts in and raises her brows immediately she sights the shrimps. "Who asked you to prepare this?" she asks looking at the shrimps.

"I asked them to." Linda starts eating. "So the Cecelia following my mom around doesn't eat shrimps too and my mom seem to be aware of it." she whispers in her mind.

"How did you learn to eat shrimps? cause I know I never fed you with them."

"Come on mom!" she grunts. "I eat out too, and I appear to be in love with the taste of this little creatures.

"Genevieve, make something else for Cecelia to eat." She sits. "Without shrimps."

"Yes ma'am." Genevieve says and walks away to execute the order, her colleagues follow her too.

"You seem to know she doesn't like shrimps, you didn't even ask me yet when I could clearly see the discomfort on your face."

"Can you sit here or will you go back to your room?" Jessie asks Cecelia ignoring Linda's words.

"I will go back to my room, I can't withstand the smell of this thing." She turns her back to leave.

"You seem to really hate shrimps, what happened? Did you just suddenly hate it or it started somewhere or you inherited the hatred?" Linda asks, stopping Cecelia from matching to her room.

"I am not too sure, but as far as I can remember, I haven't found myself being on good terms with shrimps."

"Well, that's bad, because you are missing a lot!" She says and continues to chew on to her food.

"Good for you." Cecelia sighs. "Continue eating while I wait for mine."

"You had better not be my sister." Linda whispers in her mind. "I don't wish to have any sisters, not even you!"

"I will be in my room." She says and walks out.

"I can see you are getting along well with her now." Jessie says immediately her first daughter is out of sight.

"She is actually a very cool person though." She looks at her mom carefully and says. "You are eating the shrimps better than I do."

"Yes, they taste very good." She murmurs stuffing her mouth with more shrimps.

"They don't just taste good, you love them!"

"Yes." Jessie nods.

"But why haven't you ate it in the past twenty three years?" Linda asks.

"Nothing." Jessie shakes her head and carefully chews all the shrimps in her mouth and swallow it before saying anything. "I just stopped eating them."

"You stopped eating it because of Peter. That is very obvious." Linda says in her mind.

"But what really made you request for this today?" Jessie asks paying lesser attention to her daughter.

"How many times will you ask me? I already told you I just misses eating it....."