please don't send me away

"Ayla!!! Wake up,"

"Hmmm,"

"You can't spend the holiday holed up in your room. Especially not when school resumes three days after new years," Jason says jumping up and down my bed to wake me up.

He has been extra chirpy since Christmas and at this point its annoying the hell out of me.

Getting out bed, i groaned as i made my way to the bathroom. How the hell he looked like a living person this early in the morning i had no idea.

It is new year's eve and we came back to town late last night– well more like the wee hours of today. And we have barely even slept a wink before Jason started planning our day.

We didn't have time to drop the others off at home so we came with them and we shared rooms with them.

"Is he always this annoying?" Olivia grumbles as she joins me in the bathroom looking worse than me.

"Today he is worse," i comment before washing my face and tying my nest of a hair in a bun.

Heading downstairs, i could hear Jason speaking to someone about his plans for the remaining days of our Christmas holiday.

In the living room, everyone was present and none of them looked tired as i was or felt. It annoyed me. Olivia walked past me and sat next to Diana.

Diana! She hadn't spoken to me after the very wonderfull conversation that we had which left me feeling like shit. Not only her but  Mason too. He seemed to be avoiding me even more, if that was even more possible.

Moving my eyes over to where he sat, i tried holding his but he immediately looked away.

Definitely avoiding me.

"Ayla have you been to Sally's arcade?," Jason asked.

"Yes–" i began.

"She won't be joining you, Ayla take this to the library, Anthony wants to talk to you," Monica interrupts handing me a tray filled with my breakfast and maybe Anthony's too.

Shooting the group one more look, i made my way to the library.

Anthony has never wanted to speak with me in private and i feared that Mason had gone to him and asked him to send me away as i was problematic to him. 

I didn't want to go back, i didn't even have a place to go back to if he was to send me away. I liked it here, despite me not getting along with my best friend and the guy i liked.

Standing in front of the library door, i suck in a deep breath prepared to convince him to let me stay, before knocking gingerly on the door.

"Come in," his gruff voices floats to me.

Opening the door, i walk to where he is seated going through some papers, " You asked me to come see you?" I ask.

"Oh Ayla. Come sit with me," he says putting the papers away and standing up to take the breakfast tray.

Pouring us tea, he hands me mine," how is your holiday going?"

"Good," i reply taking a sip of the tea.

"Nonsense. Give me the deads girl," he says using his best version of a teenage girl.

I laugh," It was great. Parkdale is a beautiful town. I loved it there,"

"Thats good, that's good," he says but he seems a little distracted.

"Is something wrong Anthony?" I ask, already fearing his answer.

"Yes but nothing i can't deal with,"

"What is it?" I probe.

" It's just that my cotton buyer pulled out and i have fifty bales of cotton that need to be sold and a crew that hasn't been paid for two months now," he sighs taking off his reading glasses to rub the brigde between his eyes.

I release a breath i didn't realize i was holding and feeling a weight lift from my shoulders as they sag in relief, and i ask," why don't you find another buy?"

"He has been with me for so long. I just have to convince him to buy,"

" He is doing this because he knows you wont go anywhere cause of the relationship between you two. You have to find another person so that he can see that even though you have options you still choose him and if he can't respect that then he is not worth the trouble," i say surprisingly both myself and him.

"I knew you are a smart one," he says laughing putting his glasses aside. " You are right, i should get another buyer,"

He is right that i am right but not about the buyer part but of my situation with Mason. He needs to understand am not a rebound or something to play around with as he waits for Diana to come back to him.

"Now as to why i called you here," he says taking a bit of his waffles, making me go stiff on the couch.

Please dont send me away.

" As you know, the crew and i had gone back to where we found you," he pauses.

He's statement has me on alert. Did he find my parents? Are they okay? Do they want me back or the don't want anything to do with me? How did we get separated? Or they didn't find anything about me?

Millions of questions are racing through my mind at miles per hour with each hurting more than the last.

"It was hard to find anything considering you don't have a last name or any recollation about your past and the people near the forest had no idea who you are.But on our last day there, I met this old woman who lived at a run down house in a slum in Mississippi. She knows you and your family," he announces.

At that tears start streaming down my cheek," i cant believe this, are they here? Can i meet them?" I ask in exicitement.

I have always forced myself to believe that i had no family. That i just got sprouted out by the earth. Crazy! I know  but it stop me from wondering if my family didn't want me like those people around the forest.

"Hold your horses child. Let me tell you what she told me," he laughs but it doesn't reach his eyes. 

Probably sad that might leave, l assume.

" The family of Christopher Warren lived on suburb south of Kenland, Austria. He worked as bank Manager for lidos  central Bank. One fateful day, he was fired  on grounds of embezzling money. He moved his family - his wife and  junior year student daughter, to the Mississippi slum as he couldn't afford their home expenses and school. He got work at a garage where he worked for six months before he's kidneys started failing.

The family decided to use the girl's college money to get Christopher treated. He died two months later, leaving his stay at home wife with nothing to depend on and daughter without college money. Since they were my neighbors i helped Marie Warren get a job at a sisial factory. Her daughter daisy was not only beautiful but smart and talented. She was determined to get a scholarship to go to college and open up her jewelry shop.

For months before graduation, a boy by the name Henry Blossom used to follow Daisy about asking for a chance but all his advances were declined.

"Child, why do you refuse the boy? He seems nice and he is rich," i asked one day as we sawed  her prom dress with her mother.

"He is nice. But i dont want him thinking i want him for his money. Let me at least get my own money so that we can be on the same plane," she replied before diving back into her book.

The boy stopped coming around and soon after graduation, Daisy told her mother she had gotten a scholarship to Wales University. With great institance we managed to convince her to go out and have fun.

She comes back the next day weaping, her dress torn, scratches littering her arms, she refused to talk to us and limped her way to her room and locked it.

Later in the day we heard there had been a fight at the bar that she and her class had gone to. We figured she might have just gotten hurt in the fight.

Months later, Daisy had increased weight, and she kept puking in the morning and constantly tired.