Hidden Chapter 5

That one thought plagued her constantly for the past 14 hours and 36 minutes.

And now, the moment she never expected to happen, was happening.

"I can't believe you were already out partying. On your first night here!" Joey yelled at his son as Theresa was baking her favorite dish for no particular reason.

"What could even posses you to do that! Talk about a bad first impression on this place. And to your future teacher!"

"Easily. I don't care Dad. I want to go back home. This place sucks."

"For once I'm not going to ground you. I'm not even going to confine you to your room. Congratulations. You're my new volunteer secretary for the next month." with that final punishment Joey walked out of the room into the kitchen.

"Honey why are you cooking?" Theresa locked eyes with her husband. "And cookies non the less."

"Apparently not. It's a whole confusing thing that I don't even begin to explain right now when I'm late for work, but the bottom line. He's gotta be enrolled by the end of today otherwise he starts on Tuesday." Joey placed a quick peck on his wife's lips, mouthed I love you, and raced out the door.

"Really Mom, why are you baking cookies?" Kyle stood at the door, obvisouly having observed the exchange between his parents.

"I have to." she whispered under her breath, not allowing her son to hear the response.

"Fine, just save me some. I already planned a party here without Dad's knowledge or consent." the last part was spoken in his classic sarcastic expression.

"We'll make sure to leave the house until 2:00 in the morning for you. That should give you all enough time to get drunk and maybe even high."

"Thank you for informing me of that." his eyes stayed plastered to the ground.

"Was that your son?" he asked the most obvious question ever trying to avoid the subject.

Of coarse her son was upstairs listening o music, so her life wasn't that pafetic.

A line from the stupidest movie she had ever seen popped into her head. Dude Where's My Car.

"Pulling herself up from the couch, and making her way through the boxes, she answered the door.

And naturally a group of teenage guys were right outside her home.

"Just a moment," she turned her face towards the staircase, and yelled out her sons name trying to somehow get his attention.

Apparently her efforts were not in vain, considering the fact that he strode down the stairs.

He immediately made a move to leave, but was stopped by his Mom's touch.

"Take the cell phone." she reached into her back pocket and pulled out a nokia, and put it in her son's hands.

Which was fine with her compared the fact she thought one of his friends called her hot at one point before she closed the door.

"So why do you care about me?" he paused, trying to avoid her eyes, "Why should you care about me?"

Theresa just looked at him. The obvisouly broken man that was once Ethan Crane.

"You said that you weren't Ethan anymore, so who are you now?"

"Keith Logan. As you can see," he gestured around the room, "average high school teacher."

An unsettling silence overtook the room, finally Theresa asked another question.

Naturally Kyle was still gone, that was because he was Kyle.

Just as she finished picking up on of her not so fresh cookies, of coarse, the doorbell rang.

She then rounded the corner, cookie in hand, to see who was there.

After opening the door she was somewhat shocked to see a group of women.

"Howdy." the lady in the middle greeted her with a trace of Southern accent.

"We all live around the neighborhood, and we just found out we had a new occupant, so naturally we had to greet you the right way."

"Thank you, I would, uh, invite you in, but the house is a mess, but I can give you some cookies." she perked up at the thought of her cookies.

"Already made them this morning." she received curious stares, "I was really bored."

With that she went towards the kitchen, grabbed her dish, and brought them out.

Each lady politely snatched them off her plate, but a few of them didn't have the best manners.

"We actually just moved from New Orleans, but we tend to move alot." Theresa smiled.

"Yeah. I'm still friends with half the bands that play there."

"Well it's not so much like New Orleans here, but we'd like to invite you to our next Bunco night. Tuesday at the clubhouse, 8:00. We'd love for you to come." the lady invited.

"I understand. Bye. Thank you for stopping by." she attempted to sound polite as the door closed.

"Why did you leave. Why are you here. Why didn't you contact me, and tell me you were OK during those months all I did was cry and mourn and do nothing." she burst out.

"So that's it. After all this time you just want to dismiss my feelings, cause I think I deserve an explanation."

"I thought you were dead for...." she was instantly stopped.

"You're the one who moved on. Found someone else. You have a son now Theresa, and God knows how many more you could now. But I never moved on. Ever." he harshly stated.

Kyle Douglas walked through the front door with a broad smile across his face.

"What are you so happy about?" Theresa questioned after seeing him.

"Nothing." he wiped the smile from his face, and headed towards the kitchen.

"Where are all the cookies you made this morning?" he asked.

"At least our starving won't go in vain." he walked out towards her.

"Oh yea go out to the car, I need you for a garden I'm going to set up. I can't lift the bags." she was a better liar than she thought.

About 5 minutes later the two were going at a steady rate down a country road.

"Yeah. Did I forget to mention that were signing you up for school today?"

While Kyle was on his own tour of the school, she first got the privilege of signing far too many papers than her hands liked, and then she got to walk around aimlessly.

Looking inside, what seemed, the 100th classroom, she saw a man sitting at his desk.

She opened the door, to see if was her previous nights visitor.