C H A P T E R 0 7
?Sometimes the place you are used to is not the place you belong.?
"Julie, come on," The woman said to me.
Before I could protest, she linked her arm with mine and dragged me inside the hall. As I had described before, the hall was really big and beautiful. Everything in it was color coordinated in white and gold. It looked elegant.
"Mrs. Jenson! I think it will be best if I talk to Julie-t for a bit," Olivia said, stepping towards me. My eyes narrowed at Olivia when she called me Juliet.
The woman, Mrs. Jenson smiled at Olivia and nodded, "Sure."
"Thanks," She said and took a hold of my arm and led me to the same room in which I woke up. I was about to ask her what was going on but she gave me a look that instantly told me to shut up. I decided to obey her.
As I entered the room, Olivia shut the door behind her.
"Sit," She said and I walked over to the queen sized bed and sat on the edge. Olivia handed me a glass of water and sat beside me. I drank the water, realizing just how thirsty I was. I put the glass down and turned to her.
"Can you please tell me what the hell is happening to us?" I asked and she nodded.
"You remember when we were in the room and I freaked out because we were kidnapped. And someone came into the room after that and you passed out, I was so scared. I thought those people were going to kill us. But then, the old woman came inside and she called you Juliet and-"
"Yes! Why is she calling me Juliet? My name is Julie. Does she-" Before I could complete the sentence, she cut me off.
"Exactly. She calls you Juliet. After you passed out, she untied both of us and told me that we were completely safe and she wasn't going to hurt us. And I don't know why, but there was something strange in the way she talked to you. It was almost...motherly."
"What is that supposed to mean?"
"I-I think Juliet is someone the old woman thinks you are. She was also babbling about how she regrets whatever she did that made you run away."
"What? That makes no sense to me."
"I know. But I think this Juliet is the girl she was talking about."
"But why would she think I am Juliet? Do I look like her or something?" That would not be possible at all. Would it?
"I don't know. It could be. If the woman mistook you for Juliet, then you must have some strong similarity with her."
"But what is Juliet to her? I mean what's their relationship?"
"Look, the woman's old. She looks young but I'm sure she's in her late forties or early fifties. So probably Juliet must be her daughter."
"Her daughter? And she being the mother, would fail to recognize her own daughter?! That's not possible!"
Olivia shrugged. "It could be."
"Where's Juliet then?"
"I don't know. If the woman so easily mistook you for her daughter, then her real daughter has not met her for quite sometime. And she did say something like 'you didn't change much even in two years.'"
"What if she's dead?!"
"But then the woman would not have said you were her daughter."
"Gone abroad or something?"
"Unlikely cause again she wouldn't have said what she said."
I ran out of guesses. I didn't realize Olivia was so...smart. But this had happened so quick, what if we were wrong?
A soft knock sounded on the door and we quickly scrambled to our feet.
"Now what?!" I asked exasperatedly as I shook my hands up and down, something I did when I was extremely nervous and could wet my pants any second.
"Don't say anything. I'll do the talking and don't try to run away again because that would be useless and stupid of you," Olivia whispered to me.
"Hey! It was worth a try! You never know. I could have escaped if I wouldn't have accidentally thrown that man into the pool," I whispered back.
"Shh," she shushed me as she grabbed the door handle and yanked it open.
There she was again, the old lady.
"Girls, breakfast's ready. You both must be hungry," She said with a smile, glancing between us.
Olivia smiled sweetly at her. "Absolutely! Thank you so much!"
Then she turned to me. "Come on, Juliet. I know you're hungry too."
Juliet. I hate that name. Juliet sacrificed her precious life for some teenage infatuation. That was the most stupidest thing she ever did. I mean who does that? And what if Romeo never truly loved her? Then her sacrifice would have been in vain. I like Shakespeare's works but-
"Juliet!" Olivia's voice snapped me from my thoughts.
"Er...what?"
"Aren't you hungry?" Olivia asked, turning away from the woman to glare at me.
"Yeah! I'm hungry too."
"Well then. Come on, we'll eat breakfast together. Follow me," She said.
Olivia nodded at her. "Come on," She said and took my arm, dragging me behind the woman and her.
We walked down the elegant hallway and turned right at the bottom of the spiral staircase. As we neared the dining table, my nostrils caught on the delicious smell of food.
I guessed it was pancakes cooking and I was right.
But that was not the only thing on the dining table.
The huge table was adorned with every possible breakfast dish.
There were pancakes for sure, waffles, bacon, egg and cheese sandwiches, burritos, bagels, chicken fried steak, kolaches, pop-tarts, pudding, doughnuts, muffins and other dishes which were maybe Italian or Japanese.
My mouth watered at the sight in front of me. It was literally a foodie's heaven.
My eyes were still glued to the food as I entered the kitchen which was bigger than my whole apartment combined.
I ran my eyes over the kitchen carefully.
There was a big sub zero refrigerator, two Bosch dishwashers, and a Scotsman ice maker.
There was a six burner Russell range that had a barbeque that vented outside.
Also there were warming drawers and in built cappuccino makers.
The whole kitchen was not the typical all white, instead it was done up a warm chocolate brown with a Carrara marble countertop.
There was a middle aged man bald man in the kitchen who was staring at us intently. I shifted my weight from my left leg to my right as he stared at me intensely.
"Juliet?" I heard the old man ask me. I lifted my eyes from the floor to meet his scrutinizing eyes. Was he talking to me?
"Julie, say 'dad'," I heard Olivia whisper in my ear from behind.
"D-Dad?" I stammered. I just hoped that was what Juliet's relationship was with that bald man.
His eyes softened and he walked over to me before gently pulling me in his embrace.
I was shocked at first, but I soon hugged him back lightly, now sure that he was Juliet's dad.
It was a bit awkward because I just met him for the first time and I just didn't hug anybody.
He pulled away a little, only to place a soft kiss on my temple.
"Juliet, why did you leave us?" His voice broke in the end. "Why did you do that? I spent nearly two years finding you! I never found you. Until now," He said, pulling me in a tighter embrace.
My eyes widened at that. He had not seen his daughter for the last two years! I swallowed hard. He has still not met his daughter yet. I was not his daughter. I felt a pang of guilt hit my chest. What I was doing was wrong.
I felt another pair of arms wrap around me and I looked up to see Mrs. Jenson, my 'mother' hug me from behind. I dug my head down as I felt more guilty.
Olivia coughed awkwardly, having to just stand there and see us wrapped in each other's arms. We broke apart and I saw the happy faces of the Jenson's. Mrs. Jenson clapped her hands together.
"C'mon, let's have breakfast together," She said chirpily and we all settled at the breakfast table. Olivia and I were beside each other. Exactly opposite to us sat Mr. and Mrs. Jenson.
"The food smells really good, Mrs. Jenson," Olivia said. "Did you make it?"
Mrs. Jenson gave us a sheepish smile. "Everyone in the family is terrible at cooking.
Our food is made by our personal chefs," She gave a small smile to Olivia and then looked at me.
"Juliet, come on. Eat it. You have not eaten anything for over twelve hours.
I don't want you to starve. Or are you still on your diet of salad and water? " She chuckled.
Only salad and water? Did Juliet had a death wish? I couldn't just survive on salad and water. "Um... I'm very hungry," I said, grabbing a pancake and biting into it. It's sweet and buttery taste invaded my taste buds and I eagerly took another bite as I realized just how hungry I was.
"What's in there?" Olivia asked in an attempt to start a conversation. Mrs. Jenson looked up from her food and stared in the direction in which Olivia was staring.
"Oh, that is a walk-in refrigerator," She replied. Walk-in refrigerator?? I had never heard of it. How was I supposed to? I was not someone who was familiar with the rich sections of the society.
"So tell me, Mrs. Jenson," Olivia began through a mouthful of bagels.
"Why did Juliet ran away? She never told me," She turned her eyes to me to fake glare at me.
"Whenever I asked, she would say 'I don't want to talk about it'," Olivia turned back to grin at Mrs. Jenson.
"And seeing that I'm kidnapped, I do think I have a right to know why exactly Juliet decided to ran away from you. "
Smooth. Smooth move to fish out the truth we didn't know.
Mrs. Jenson turned to stare at me sadly. "You want to tell her?"
"No!" I said a little too quickly. "I mean, I don't want to. Why don't you tell her?" I asked. I don't know why Juliet ran away in the first place so what was I going to tell Olivia?
"Okay," she said, turning to my friend. "Juliet ran away when she was eighteen.
She was a really short-tempered girl who was very stubborn and wanted to have everything that she wished for, I'm not sure if she is like that anymore," She turned to me with an apologetic smile.
"We as her parents, of course obliged to her each and every demand as money was not a problem, not seeing that this was spoiling her.
She caught her boyfriend at that time cheating on her with one of her friends and we were sad for her but she took it too far in order to show him her superiority and you," Mrs. Jenson pointed her fork at me, "ordered us to buy that boy, what was his name, Vince. "
I choked on my pancake and stared at her with wide eyes. "W-what she ord- I mean, I ordered you to buy me a boy?"
She nodded with amused eyes. "Did you forget something this unforgettable?"
"Oh, um...I was pretty stupid that time."
"That you were. You spent almost two hours to convince us to buy him and I snapped and I hit you. I'm sorry."
"Sh-I deserved it," I bit my bottom lip.
"What happened next?" Olivia asked, like she was a little kid hearing her grandmother tell her a story.
"Of course, we didn't listen to her this time and she threw a fit, locked herself in a bathroom for an hour.
We thought she'd come around." She looked at Mr. Jenson, while we just stared at her in shock.
"Except, she never did. She had disappeared into thin air, the guards were unaware of her escape and we weren't able to find her until now. "
"Wow," Olivia exclaimed, slapping my back, "you were one brat of a daughter."
"Shut up," I said, finishing the last of my amazing breakfast along with the others. This was seriously the best breakfast I ever had in my life.
"Juliet. Do you want to visit our relatives?
They're so excited to see you again. Your grandmother and cousins, basically the whole family is very excited to see you.
Should we go today? They missed you so much all these years and they wanted to come here but I told them not to because I don't want you to feel uncomfortable under the attention everyone will give you, not to forget the media who are going crazy to see if it's true that you are really found. "
"Whoa, whoa," This was new to me. What media? What relatives? I swear I was going to kill Olivia for getting me into this. "I don't want to go anywhere."
Olivia was watching us from a distance with a frown on her face. I wasn't able to look at her to see what her reaction to this was.
"I knew you wouldn't want this," Mrs. Jenson said, keeping a hand on my shoulder. "Don't worry, I won't let you do something you are uncomfortable with. So what do you want to do now?"
I looked at Olivia. I was not sure what exactly I was doing here. The only thing that made sense to me was that Juliet was a rich brat who ran away from her parents for stupid reasons. And I was mistaken for that rich brat. What a messed up situation to be in.
"I-I want to talk to Olivia," I said.
"Sure, go ahead." Mrs. Jenson gestured to her with a smile.
"I mean I want to talk to her. Alone."
Mrs. Jenson frowned at me before nodding. "Okay. I'll be here if you want to tell me something."
"Thanks," I smiled at her and grabbed Liv's hand and started dragging her away.
"Juliet," I heard Mrs. Jenson call and I turned around to look at her. "Stay in that room for today. I'm having your room done up according to your tastes. You can make changes afterwards."
"Oh, okay," I said unsurely before dragging myself and Olivia in the room. We had a hell lot of things to discuss.