A Lost Past


I struggled to maintain friendships as a child since we were constantly moving from city to city and town to town. Some years, it would be only a couple of times, but in others, it would be even four to five times. I was still in middle school when I started to suspect that something was wrong with my parents; I wondered if they were on the run from the law, and even asked them about it. Mom and Dad said they were shocked that I even suspected such a thing, but I could see in their faces that they were hiding something from me.


As the years passed, I became numb to the routine, but once I met someone who became a close friend more than anyone else ever had, and I had to leave her behind as well, I decided it was time for me to investigate my parents. Whenever they were occupied, I went through their phones and laptops, but I found nothing outside work documents and other general topics. Neither of them had social media, and they had strict rules about my having social media as well. I could never post my own photos outside a small circle of family and friends that was no more than ten in total. They always said it was to keep me safe from predators, but it always felt excessive.


By the time I entered university, we had stopped moving. Mom and Dad allowed me to move in with a friend, but they were still a fifteen-minute drive away. They even gave me a special phone Dad had made by himself to call them in case of an emergency, which made me uneasy, but I still accepted it out of respect. My friend and I began to investigate my parents together in our spare time, and we soon headed to the police to request a background check on my parents and me. Several weeks passed before we received word from them, and the results froze me where I stood when I saw the photos and documents from my true past.


There were photos of me as an infant with a different couple; they were my true parents. I had been abducted by my babysitter and her husband when I was just two years old, and they had been on the run ever since. I felt torn, learning the truth. It was far worse than what I had expected. I still had so many fond memories of them, even though they were my abductors. They were controlling, but they never treated me wrong, or even hurt me in any way. I was torn about what was to happen. The police were preparing to leave for my parents’ house to arrest them.


Meanwhile, my biological parents were on their way to the station. I knew what they did was wrong, but I didn’t want the people who raised me to go to jail. So, I made a difficult decision. I asked directions to the bathroom and, once inside one of the stalls, I called my parents on the phone Dad had made and told them the police were on their way. Dad told me to get rid of the phone right away so I won’t get in trouble. We kept our goodbyes short, and I haven’t heard from them since…

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