Katherine didn’t move. She was gazing at something on her desk. The note was still there; she could see it. It was still on top of her schoolbooks, where it had fluttered when she had dropped it. Neither of them realized a letter existed. But Katherine remembered. Her secret was safe. Justin was her secret. Only she knew about him. Her face cracked into a small smile.
Mark noticed the smile. He opened his mouth to say something. Then he shut it and turned to Matthew. “Did you want to say something, Dad?” He asked. Katherine’s smile vanished at the word, “Dad.” She didn’t look at either of them. She moved her eyes down to her bedspread and the purple and blue pattern.
Matthew was looking attentively at Katherine. “No, nothing. I just wanted to know how Kathy,” he paused. Matthew spoke as if she was absent. But He began again. “I mean, how are you feeling, Kathy?” He inquired, attempting to dismiss the feeling; Katherine was miles away.
There was a long silence in which both guys stared at her. Then her voice came gradually, as if from a distant location. “I’m fine.”
Mark, as she spoke, fought the overpowering emotion he suffered to go to her and shake her. If that didn’t fix it, he would shout at her that he knew about the secret she was protecting and that she might as well confess it.
But Matthew only smiled and acted as if he had not heard the unusual tone or glimpsed her strange behavior. “Wonderful,” he announced. “I was just wondering if you were coming down with a cold or something. I thought I’d ask.” He hesitated. Then he added, “You were so quiet at dinner, and you didn’t eat much.”
Katherine finally shifted her eyes from her bedspread and gazed towards Matthew. “I am fine. I feel fine. I do not know why everyone is suddenly so worried about me all the time. I was full because I overate when I got home from school. I told you guys -.” She was not gazing directly at Matthew. Her eyes were staring to the side of him or beyond him.
Matthew kept on smiling like nothing was wrong. “Oh Kathy, we ask because we are family. And that means we are supposed to worry about each other.” He turned his attention to Mark and said, “Let’s go. There’s an awesome show coming on TV that I want you to see.”
Available May 5th
Spookychild’s writings 
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