Forgotten [Raakshyan Series Book 1]

Chapter 9

I didn’t sleep well at all that night and when I finally started to fall asleep, my cell phone rang. I checked the time, it was eleven thirty in the morning. I sighed and looked at my phone, it was Tiana. I picked up. “Hey.” I said, sleepily.

“Aathy! How’d it go?” She asked.

I told her the whole story. I didn’t cry, I think it’s because I ran out of tears.

“Oh my gosh!” She squeaked. “Oh my gosh! Don’t worry hun, I’m going to get everyone and come over, ok?” She said.

“You don’t need too.” I said.

“Shut up. We’re coming. We’re your best friends. We’ll be by you forever! We’ll be there in a flash.”

With that, she hung up.

I sighed in relief, I loved my friends, I really wanted them to come over.

After making my bed, I walked into the washroom and took a shower. I dressed in normal skinny jeans and a sweater.

When I walked into the kitchen I saw AathavanSavewatching TV in the living room. Kero was right, I needed to apologize. I walked into the living room.

Aathavan didn’t look up.

I sat next to him. “I’m sorry, Aathavan.” I said.

He didn’t say anything.

I continued to stare at him.

After a long while, he sighed.

Smiling, I repeated my apology. “I’m so sorry!”

He shook his head. “Whether you say sorry or not, I’m still dying to kick those guys’ asses.”

“You don’t need to. As of now, I don’t want to have anything to do with them. Just forget about it. I will too.”

He looked at me for a while and then pulled me into his arms. “Sorry for going crazy yesterday.” He said. He kissed the top of my head.

I sighed. “You had all the reason too, so don’t worry about it.” I hugged my brother. He was definitely the best brother in the world, whether he was overprotective or not.

“I heard you yelling at Kero last night, is everything ok? I didn’t see him this morning.”

I started to freak, remembering that he left that night. “He left.” I said.

I’m sure my brother heard the fear in my voice because he bent down to look at me. “Where did he go?” He asked.

“We got into a fight and then he jumped out the window and left.” I said.

“He jumped out of the window?” My brother didn’t seem too surprised. Kero was capable of doing a lot of stuff.

I nodded.

“Last night?” He asked.

I nodded.

“He must have needed a walk.”

I nodded. “Yeah. Maybe.” And right now, I needed a walk to. I needed to find him. “I’m going to go out and look for him.”

My brother nodded.

“My friends are coming over, so let them go to my room when they get here.” I said.

“Yeah, no prob.”

I got up. “And Aathu.” I said, turning around and looking at him.

He looked up at me. “Yeah?”

“Happy New Year.”

He smiled. “Happy New Year sis.”

I smiled and then put on a coat and my boots and left. I walked around the street looking for Kero. “Kero!” I called.

There was no response.

It was a really cold day today and there weren’t many people out. It wasn’t snowing but the floor was seriously slippery.

I walked carefully down the road and to the park. There were a couple kids playing in the snow but for some reason, the park seemed deserted. I asked some little kids if they saw a small white cat with a blue moon on its head. They said no. I began to worry more.

After searching a little more, I went and sat on one of the benches and looked at the fountain. I started to wonder how cold the water was, probably really cold. I then looked at the lady at the top. She seemed so calm, and happy. I started to think of her as lucky, not having to worry about a thing.

Where was Kero?

He’s never left for so long before. We’ve gotten mad at each other before but he’s never left like that.

I sighed loudly, he’ll come back soon. Why am I worrying?

When I got home, my friends had already arrived. They were sitting in my room and the environment was so tense that it wasn’t even funny. I explained the whole story to them and for a long time, it was silent.

“Well, if James or Chris takes a step close to you, we’ll kick his sorry ass to Jupiter.” Ivana said.

My friends all agreed.

I was really happy that I could depend on them.

After another moment of silence, Tiana seemed to notice something. “Where’s Kero baby?” She asked. She liked to call Kero, Kero baby.

I shrugged. “We got into a fight and he sort of left.” I said. I was definitely more upset about it than I sounded.

“He hasn’t come back?” Nivea asked.

I shook my head.

“Did you try looking for him?” Lila asked as she looked under my bed.

I nodded. “I’m sure he’ll come back… he always does.”

My friends looked at each other and then at me. “Oh… ok.” They said together. After another silence Lila looked at me. “Are you going to tell Jacob?”

I thought about it. “It’s better if I tell him rather than him finding out on his own.” Jacob, another one of my best friends, was on a trip to Cuba with his family.

“Maybe you can ask him to talk to Chris.” Nivea suggested.

I shook my head. “No, I don’t want anything to do with Chris.”

“Good.” Ivana said. “I hope he goes to hell.”

The hours passed slowly after my friends left, and Kero was still not home. Then night came, then the next day came and then the next.

I was seriously scared now.

There was not a single thing I wanted more than his return. I continued to search but there was no sign of Kero.

That night, I sat on my bed, trying to think of what I could do when I heard a tap on my window.

“Oh my gosh!” I squealed as I ran to the window. When I pulled it open, something red flew in. After scaring the crap out of me, it flew around my room and then perched itself on my bookshelf. I took a good look at the small bird; it was red, mixed with orange. It also had a red mark on his forehead, the symbol for Mars.

“Chirpy?” I said, confused. I held my finger out and he flew off the bookshelf and onto my finger. “What are you doing here? Is Jacob back?” Chirpy was Jacobs’s pet bird, like Kero, he’s an animal with the ability to speak.

The bird tilted his head. ‘No, but I came to tell you about Kero.’ He said.

“What? Where is he?” I asked, voice rising. I felt bad when I mad Chirpy jump.

‘He’s at the fountain, hurry, before he leaves.’ He rose off my finger and flew to the door. ‘Hurry.’

I got up and went to the door. As I left my room, I heard the doorbell ring.

Must be Aathavan. I thought.

As I was running down the stairs after Chirpy the door flung open.

“We’re home!” My mom’s voice sung.

“Mom!” I squeaked, shocked.

Aathavan walked in. “Hey mom! Welcome back!”

Chirpy flew right past my mom, scaring her.

She turned around looking out the door. She looked back at me. “Was that a bird?” She asked, pointing in the direction that Chirpy flew.

I walked quickly towards her. “Yeah mom, sorry, I’ll explain later.”

When I was putting on my boots I heard a yell.

My mom turned around and looked out at my dad.

I peaked over my mom’s shoulder and saw the luggage on the floor. My dad stood there, mouth gaping open.

“Honey, is something wrong?” My mom asked.

My dad stared at the damaged van.

“Mom! I gotta go! I’ll be right back.” I tried to squeeze past her but my dad stepped in front of me.

“What happened to my van?!?” He hollered.

“Daddy! Please, I’ll explain later!”

“No, I want and explanation now!” He was fuming.

I turned around and looked at my brother.

“Hey, dad… you guys just got home, how about you relax and then Aathy will explain.” Aathavan said.

“NOW!” My dad yelled.

“Ok, I’ll explain, Aathy’s got some business to handle, let her go.” Aathavan said, coolly.

I managed to squeeze out then. I heard my dad yell for me to come back but now wasn’t the time to deal with that. I had to find Kero.

Running down the street in the freezing cold didn’t seem like a problem at first. But then, it seemed to get colder and colder. I already had frost bites.

But I tried to ignore it. “Chirpy! Wait up!” I called, gasping for breath.

He did. ‘Sorry.’ He said. ‘This is exciting.’

I frowned. “No, it’s tiring.” I continued to run and I soon made it to the park. I slowed myself to a quick walk. “Is he still there?” I asked, holding my finger out.

Chirpy landed on my finger and nodded.

When I had finally made it to the fountain, I saw him. He was sitting at the edge of the fountain, staring into the water. “Kero!” I yelled. I knew my voice was filled with joy.

Kero turned around and looked at me.

“Oh my gosh! There you are!”

A passing couple turned around and looked at me but I decided not to care.

I ran towards him and when I got to him, I fell to my knees so that my face was near his. “Kero! Do you know how worried I was?” I exclaimed.

He seemed to be smiling.

“Ok, you know what? You were right, about everything, Chris, humans, love, whatever! I just want you to know something. No matter what I say, you will always be important to me! I was mad, that’s why I called you a monster, I would never mean it! Don’t you understand that I love you?” I picked him up and hugged him. “I thought you left for good.” I said, as my eye’s got teary.

‘I want you to know something, Aathy.’ He said.

I held him up in front of me.

‘No matter how much we fight, I would never leave you.’

“Then where were you for the past few days?”

He hesitated. ‘I’m sorry, I got caught up with something but I assure you that I didn’t leave for so long because I was mad at you.’

I was going to ask him to be more specific, when a lady walked up to me.

“Honey… is something wrong?” She asked. She looked down at Kero and then at me.

I felt my face heat up. “Uh, no, nothing.” I said.

“Would you like me to take you home.” She asked.

Kero snorted.

I felt like I was going to cry, great, another person thinking that I’m crazy. “No! I’m not crazy.” I squeaked. “I… I, um, have a strong bond with my cat.”

The lady nodded. “Ok, but honey, I can drop you home, I have no problem with that.”

I shook my head. “No thank you, I’m good.” I said.

She nodded hesitantly and then walked away.

Kero laughed.

***

“Give me one good reason to why I shouldn’t be mad young lady.” My dad yelled.

I sat on the sofa, eyes on the floor. I knew I had to face this sooner or later. “Well, at least you don’t need to worry about court and stuff ‘cause the guy who did it left…” I tried.

My dads’ face seemed to turn redder, which means he is seriously mad because it’s normally hard to see red on a brown persons face. “Why were you driving the van in the first place?” He yelled. “You aren’t even allowed to drive without the supervision of someone with a proper driver’s license!” He paused. “Not to mention the fact that I wouldn’t have allowed you to drive around on your own!”

My brother was about to leave when my dad turned around and looked at him. “Young man, do not think that this is only your sisters fault!?” He yelled. “The only reason I let her stay here was because I thought you were responsible enough to take care of her!”

Aathavan sighed.

“Are you listening to me Aathavan?”

My brother looked at him. “Yeah dad, I am.” He said. “Sorry, I know, I should have been more responsible.”

“Aathavan, this isn’t something small that needs to be forgiven.” He said, a little nicely. “You need to be more careful.”

“Daddy, it’s not his fault.” I said. “Besides, you can get the van fixed.”

He looked at me. “Aathiray, this is not all about the van. Child, this is about you. We are lucky that you were not in the van when the person hit it. What would have happened if you were? You think it’s not a big deal but it could have been.”

I was more than a little happy that my father was upset, not because the van was damaged, but because I could have been hurt. My brother started smiling too.

When our father saw our smiling faces, he seemed to turn back into the tough dad from earlier. “I will tell you two now that this is the first and last time we are leaving you at home when we leave the country. Understood?” He asked.

My brother and I smiled knowing that, with the right words, we could change that. “Understood.” We said at the same time.

With that, Kero and I returned to my room.

‘Your father is a wonderful person.’ Kero said as I shut my door.

“Yeah he’s awesome, but sometimes, he isn’t.”

‘He has my full respect.’

I turned and looked at him. “I think he would love it if you told him that. Oops, I forgot, you can’t.” I grinned.

He smiled. ‘You should know that you are very lucky.’

Smiling, I nodded. “Yeah, I am.” I sat down next to him on my bed. “Tell me about your dad.”

Kero lied down on my bed. ‘There’s nothing to tell.’ He said, dully.

“Common! There has to be something you can say about him! Was he like you? Could he speak to humans?”

Kero shrugged. ‘I really don’t remember much about him.’

The way he said it made me feel that it would be wise to drop the topic. So I did. “Well, what do you want to do?” I asked, falling back onto my bed.

Kero looked at me. ‘School’s starting soon.’

I let out a groan. “Whoopee. School!”

That weekend my whole family, including my aunts, uncles and cousins, had a New Year’s dinner. My parents even brought everyone gifts! But that pretty much marked the end of our December holidays. It was time for school.

School starts at quarter to nine but I’m the type of person that loves to be early. I’m normally at school around eight or earlier, it just makes me feel comfortable. I hate coming late, sometimes teachers make late students sing.

I was never surprised to see that I was the first student in the school however today I wasn’t first.

As my dad drove to the front of the school I started to panic. James was there, standing at the door. I quickly turned to my dad. “Dad, can you turn into the parking lot?” I asked.

He slowed down. “Something wrong?”

I shook my head. “It’s just closer to my locker.” I lied. The last thing I wanted was for my dad to see me talking to a ‘failing drug addict who’s gone to jail before and f***s girls as a hobby’. Actually, I didn’t want to talk to him at all, whether he was ‘failing drug addict who’s gone to jail before and f****d more than a hundred girls’ or not.

My dad dropped me off and I rushed into the school. I felt safe there. I had no reason to worry. Teachers walked by, welcoming me back. I smiled at all of them. My school was a great school, even if the classes weren’t always super fun.

When I got to my locker, I saw someone sitting there. I squinted and then smiled. “Jacob!” I sang.

Jacobs head turned around. “Hey!”

After running up to him and giving him a hug, I started to laugh.

He pouted. “What?”

I looked at him. He had brown hair that he always gelled up really nicely and he had nice brown eyes. He wore glasses until my friends and I told him to get clear contacts because his eyes were so nice. Today though, he was wearing his glasses. He was a tall guy and wasn’t one you would mess with but his friends all new that he was always a nerd. He normally had light skin but now it looked like he got a tan, which is why I was laughing. “You got a tan!?” I said, giggling. I was giggling because right before he left, he said that the last thing he wanted was a tan.

He sighed. “Yeah, I know.” He seemed really upset about it. “I feel all burned up.”

I smiled as I opened my locker. “Nah! It looks good! It looks like you got it done professionally.” I said.

His face lit up. “Really?” He asked.

I nodded. I wasn’t lying. After getting all my stuff arranged, I sat down next to him. “How was Cuba?” I asked.

He sighed. “I still can’t believe I went.”

“Why?” I was shocked, normally everyone loved going to Cuba.

“It was so boring. There was no one to talk to. Other than Chirpy… but you can’t really talk to a bird in front of people.”

I smiled. “He came with you?”

“Yeah. Crazy guy. I told him to stay but he didn’t listen.”

I started grinning. There were a lot of reasons why this guy was one of my best friends. And one of those reasons was that he was so similar to me. Why? Well, we were both able to hear Kero and Chirpy.

“Tell me about your trip.” I said.

He then did, he told me about the good things and the bad things. Mostly the bad things. He also told me about how Chirpy flew all the way down to Cuba by himself. That surprised me but then I remembered that Chirpy wasn’t a normal bird.

“He told me about Kero. What happened?” Jacob asked, after he was done his summary of his trip.

“What did he tell you?”

Jacob thought, “Something about him leaving for a while…”

I thought for a second. It was only right to tell Jacob the whole story, so that’s what I did. I started from the moment the December holidays started to the moment we just met up again. Including the part where I saw James standing at the front of the school. When I was done, Jacob was frowning, looking past me.

I turned around and looked in the direction he was looking, and I saw Chris. He was standing at his locker, not too far from mine. I turned back around and looked at Jacob.

“And… knowing you, you do not what me to go and give this guy a good talking too?”

I smiled at him. “Thanks Jake!”

He sighed. “Don’t worry about it… but if he does anything to you, just call me.”

I nodded. “Thanks!”

He smiled and then his face changed, as if he realized something. “Oh yeah! I almost forgot!” He pulled his school bag in front of him. He opened it and pulled out a small box wrapped in shiny purple wrapping paper. “For you! Merry belated Christmas! I’ll tell you now it is, unfortunately, nothing big. Just a souvenir from Cuba.”

I smiled and took the gift from him. “Thanks so much Jake! You shouldn’t have!” And then I remembered I had a Christmas present for him too. I pulled it out of my bag. “I almost forgot too! Merry belated Christmas!” I said, handing him his gift.

“Thanks! Awesome. You always give the best gifts ever.” He said.

“I guess I shouldn’t be worried about whether you’ll like it or not, right?” I laughed. So I now know he was going to like the “Super Smash Bro’s Brawl” video game I bought him.

He nodded.

After that, we continued to talk about things, just like we always do.

I ignored the presence of Chris who, according to Jacob, was looking at me. My other friends came soon and when they saw him, they gave him a clear glare.

“Jacob!” Tiana yelled.

Jacob looked up at her. “Hey!”

“Oh my god. Why are you wearing your glasses?” Chanu asked.

Jacob rolled his eyes. “Why does it matter?”

“Because! You’re covering your beautiful eyes!” Lila exclaimed.

I saw him blush. “Shuddup.” He said.

I started to laugh.

“And I forgot to take my contacts off when I was swimming and they fell off.” He said. “I need to get new ones.”

“Sure. You’re just a nerd.” Ivana said.

Jacob glared at her. “And what are you then?”

She laughed. “Not a nerd.”

“Aww, common guys. We just came back from the break; let’s not get into a fight! Besides, Jacob probably had a seriously hard time at Cuba.” Nivea said.

Jacob adjusted his glasses. “Thank you, Nivea. And yes, I did have a terrible time.”

“That’s ‘cause we weren’t there.” Ivana said.

“You can say that again.” Lila laughed.

I laughed too. It was great that the break started off the way I wanted it to start. It made me feel like everything was going to be more than ok.