Page 66 of Silent Desires

Me:Tell me what you did this evening.

Mina:I worked on some of my workbooks from Gideon.

Me:On your own?

Mina:Yes.

I pause, trying to devise a delicate way to ask what I want to know. Why she seems to be hiding her intelligence from her mom. At least, I thought she was. I try to come up with a way to word it as a compliment instead of an accusation.

Me:Does your mom know you’re speeding through all this school work like a genius? ;)

Mina:Not exactly.

Not satisfied with that answer, I decide to pry a little deeper.

Me:She doesn’t know you’re doing them, does she?

Mina:It’s complicated.

Me:I’m a good listener.

Mina:Max, I…

Gripping my phone tightly I watch as the three little bubbles repeatedly bounce on the screen then disappear, indicating she keeps trying to write something and stopping. It takes everything in me to hold back from replying as I wait out her response. And when she finally sends another message, I’m glad I waited.

Mina:She can’t know.

Me:Can’t know what, that you’re super smart?

Mina:Any of it. That I’m doing school work, that I’m talking to you guys.

Me:Why not?

Mina:I don’t know how to answer that. Just… it’s for the best.

I want to ask, best for who, but I suspect I’m not going to get any more information from her right now, so I decide to change the topic.

Me:Want to play truth or dare with me right now?

Mina:How do you play that?

Oh my sweet little girl, I grin to myself as I type my reply.

Me:It’s a game. We take turns asking each other truth or dare. If you pick truth, I ask you a question and you have to answer truthfully. If you don’t want to, you have to do a dare instead and the same goes the other way if you choose dare.

Mina:Sounds fun but how do we do dares over text?

Me:We’ll figure it out. Do you want to go first?

Mina:Ok… truth or dare?

Me:Truth.

Mina:Why don’t you live with your parents?

Oh shit, she was going in for a hard question straight away. Taking a deep breath, I start typing.

Me:Our parents died in a car crash when we were ten. After that, Jasper and I went into foster care. We ended up in a decent home, but there were a lot of kids there. Eventually, Dom and the guys found us and took us in.

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