A Thief is Caught

According to what she said the schedule indicated that I had to be meeting her thrice a week, precisely on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays at exactly 4 o'clock. I guess she changed it to the evening time because the school would be starting soon and I probably will be in class by then. It didn't change the fact that I was not looking forward to it.

Mrs Nicole was a very nice lady and she was a great therapist and that was my biggest problem with her. She was just too good at her job and I feared that she may actually get my secrets out of me and I, for one, was not ready to spill the beans to anyone.

And that's why I dreaded going to her for my therapy. But sometimes, I just feel like I might actually love it if I talked to her about it. I believe it won't be the worst thing to happen. It will be nice to air my true feelings out to someone. I really wanted someone that I could talk to about this. Because I did not know what I was doing.

This calamity that I came here to fix, should it not have started by now? And when am done fixing it, will I go back to my home, will I stay here or will I go to my mom's? How was I supposed to know what to do? Whom am I to trust? I had so many questions and absolutely no one to talk to. I was dying inside and I knew that if Mrs Nicole kept being as sweet and inquisitive as she was, it was only a matter of time before I will air out my true feelings to her.

I wondered what she would do if she found out. Will she keep my secret and help me find a solution to this problem or will she turn me over to the psychiatric hospital? The risk was just too much to take and as much as I would have loved to tell her about it, I couldn't risk being stuck in a hospital and not being able to fulfil the purpose for which I have been sent here.

Amanda came close to me and noticed my sour mood. She asked what the problem was and I told her what Ms Nicole said. She looked surprised and said she didn't understand. Then she gasped and said "OMG, do you hate therapy? Are you thinking of getting out of it just like your brother did?!"

I was taken aback by her second question. "Of course, I am not thinking of skipping therapy. I just don't like someone breathing down my neck like this and you can recall that I didn't even want to go for this stupid therapy in the first place. So now I feel like am being forced to do what I don't want to and I really hate that."

"I understand that. But Becks, you know this is good for you. It might not show now but..." I cut her short because I already knew exactly what she was going to say.

"Yes, I know that the effects of my ordeal may not show now and all that. You don't have to join the queue and say it too." I poked her and added, "You are supposed to be the cool one."

She laughed. "Oh yes, I am the coolest of all the people you know. Hey, how about we go back to my house and we can watch scary stories till evening."

Finally, one thing Rebecca and me both love. "Okay!"

"Okay, let's go tell the girls that we are leaving". I dragged her back and added.

"Are we going to bring Julie with us?'

"Oh, want me all to yourself now do you?" I think she was trying to sound sexy but it just came out sounding creepy.

"Was that you trying to be sexy?"

"Maybe. Look girl, Julie is one of our best friends and it will be rude if I didn't invite her over. And I know that you love her already. You can't spend that amount of time with her and not fall in love with her."

"Okay, fine you can invite her over. But she better not be a popcorn stealer."

"Okay, Becks I love you and that's why I gotta break it to you. There is nothing like that." And she left.

I screamed to her. "Yes, there is. You just don't know it cause you don't want to open your mind to the possibility." I knew I sounded stupid immediately after those words left my mouth.

Amanda, Julie and I left for Amanda's place. We had to walk because according to Amanda, it wasn't that far. I should have known that she was lying. When we had trekked for a couple of blocks, she then told us that we had gotten to the shortcut. Julie was enraged. She shouted at Amanda saying.

"Gotten to the shortcut?!! You told us you knew a shortcut, you didn't include that we had to trek to it!"

I pushed Julie and said "what are you screaming about? I lost my memory but you still knew the way to her house!. Why did you allow her to mislead us like that?"

"I did not know how to manoeuvre from the bowling joint to her place. I haven't done that before."

Amanda had to cut in. "Okay, okay, okay. Listen, all this time you guys are wasting standing here quarrelling about this would have been enough for us to get home and have some cold drinks."

We realized that Amanda was right and so we started walking again and in the next five minutes we arrived at her house.

Amanda's house was like something out of a Barbie doll house. For starters, it was painted pink and it had flowers almost everywhere. There was a lot of plastic furniture, which was also in the colour pink. I just had to ask.

"Now, Amanda what does your mom do again? Work for a Barbie doll-making company?"

She turned and gave me a "are you kidding me" look. "Ha ha, very funny. But I don't care what you think about this house. I've had a lot of fun memories here, some with you too. Yeah, you once urinated on this front porch because my mom did not allow you to go into the house after you had broken her favourite glass jar. Yeah, all the neighbours were staring at you. It was so much fun."

Julie said in between laughter "yeah, I remember that happening. Wasn't it during Thanksgiving? Yeah, the entire neighbourhood admired you from a distance cause they all thought you were crazy. One of them even called Mrs Brown and reported you. And that's why you were allowed to go into the house again."

"Oh what a fun story," I said sarcastically. "Can we go inside now?"

"Oh, what is it? You scared you may be showing too much skin in your shorts?" She moved towards the door to open it and she added "don't worry too much about it. They have seen you naked before and this may just be like an appetizer to them."

By this time, the door was open and I was more than grateful to go inside. "Wow" I exclaimed as soon as I got in "hats off to the interior decorator. They really did a good job."

"Yes, yes they did. Okay, Julie, you get the popcorn and soda. Becks, you pick a movie that we will be seeing. Make it like five or seven. And am gonna go upstairs and change into my pyjamas."

"But hey, it's not even nighttime yet. Talk less of sleeping time." Julie came in from the kitchen with a can of lemon line in her hand.

"Yeah, but for Amanda, it's a tradition. She never sees a horror movie without her pyjamas."

"Okay, Julie I said get the popcorn and soda. I didn't say eat or drink it till I get back."

Julie raised her hands in surrender. "Okay, mom" and she headed back into the kitchen.

I went over to select the movies we would see and it turns out that Amanda had a whole lot of horror movies. I selected Ring, Physco, The exorcist, Rosemary's baby and in the month of darkness.

I haven't seen any of those movies and I hope that they would be really good.

By the time I was done, the popcorn was ready and Amanda was downstairs in her cute bunny pyjamas. Julie commented on it.

"Do you think by wearing a bunny pyjamas, you won't actually be scared?"

"Oh yes, I think the bunnies will keep the ghosts from tormenting her at night."

I added.

"Okay, make fun of it all you want. But nobody should creep up to my side when it gets really scary."

We all smiled and sat down to watch the movie. We started with the Ring, then we headed to Psycho. It was really nice to be hanging out with friends like this. We shouted anytime we got scared and twenty minutes into the movie, we had already screamed and jumped till all the popcorn left the bowl. We all moved close to each other and stayed like that in other to not be so scared.

The blinds were closed and all the lights were turned off. We did it purposefully so that we could really feel terrified. Somehow watching horror movies with the lights on removes the scary effect.

After we were done with Physco. I decided to use the bathroom. Amanda showed me to the place and left me to my business. When I was done I decided to check out her room. So I started walking till I found it, I opened the door and stepped on it. It was a lovely room. I think it's the only room in this house that wasn't painted pink.

She had flowers though and a nice rocking chair was kept close to her window. I went towards her bed and by her bedside table, there were pictures of her and her parents. And seeing this picture made me realize that I don't really know what happened to her father, I made a mental note to myself to ask her that when we are alone.

She had lots of pictures in frames sitting on that bedside table and they were really cute. I mistakenly knocked down one of the pictures and I reached down to pick it up. I bent down and underneath her bed was a bag. I knew I had no business meddling in her affairs like that but I just had to know what was in the bag. So I brought the bag up and inside it were documents and letters. What struck my attention was the box that was inside the bag.

I took out the box, opened it and I saw some jewellery in there. I saw one particular piece of jewellery that I have been searching for for the past week and I froze, I picked it up and there it was. My mother's necklace! I couldn't believe it. Amanda stole this from me.

I haven't been wearing it for a while now because I promised her that I wouldn't and so I kept it stacked away in my cabinet. But for a week now, I haven't seen it there. At first, I thought it was Jeffrey that stole it because he is always behaving like a jerk. So I checked his room but it was not there. And I just didn't ask him about it. But I never thought in my wildest dreams that Amanda would be the one to steal it.

And I know it's not her mother's own because her mom was wearing the necklace when she was in our place and I have been with Amanda all day so I will not be so naive as to think that maybe her mom gave it to her. But why did she steal it?

I must have been gone for a long because Amanda came upstairs looking for me. She met me in her room, my back was against her when she spoke. "There you are, I have been looking all over for you. What took you so long?"

I didn't reply and so she headed towards me and turned me by my shoulders. "Becks, I am talking to you..." she stopped mid-sentence when she noticed that I was holding the necklace. She turned to look at me and the expression on my face made her say "Rebecca, it's not what you think."

Before she could explain herself, I had stormed out of there with my mother's necklace.