I peeked inside the hospital door and saw my dad eating Chinese with my mom on her bed. They were talking and laughing and she seemed happy.

Danny was about to open the door but I grabbed his arm before he could.

"Mara, what's wrong?" He looked at me confused. I had to go home to look at the photos. "Can you drive me home?" Great move Mara of course he's going to say no, I thought. "It depends, what for?"

I relaxed my grasp on his arm and eventually let him go. I couldn't look him straight in the eye which was weird because it wasn't like he was a mind reader. Or was he?

"I forgot the gift that I wanted to give my mom." that was probably the greatest lie I ever told. I hated lying but I had to know.
~
I barged inside my house and ran up the flight of stairs, two at a time. I rushed into my room and quickly pulled out the secret storage cube from my dresser. I am the only one who knows.

I told Danny to wait in the car, reason being because I didn't want him to see me doing this.

There was a small rectangular cardboard box that I stashed in there a while back and I would look at it. All it had were some private pictures that I found in an old violin case in our attic.

They're private because these pictures were not taken by me or my family. One picture was of me on my scooter with a bike helmet on and my school uniform when I was nine. I remember this moment, I was riding over to my friend Phoebe's house that day. Why would someone want to take a picture of me on my scooter?

I opened the box and started digging through it violently. I had to find that picture.

I couldn't find it which was weird because I knew I stashed it in here somewhere. I sat on my legs and started biting my thumb nail. Where else would that picture be?

The only other person who saw it was...

That's when it hit me. My mom must have missed placed it somewhere. Unless she did it on purpose. No, mom wouldn't do that. Would she?