CHAPTER - 16

FACING THE TERRIBLE PAST

I stared at the five huge, blue colored photo albums that Mom very keenly took out from deep inside her closet. The moment she heard about showing my childhood pictures to Kim, she started acting like she was high on sugar. The excitement and happiness in her eyes were dripping down. Her smile stretched from her ear to ear and anybody could count all the thirty two teeth, even from a good distance.

"There are five albums?" Kim asked in awe. She looked at the albums and then at the crazy lady whom I'm obliged to call my 'Mother'.

"Yes," Mom answered her excitedly. She pointed towards the album that was kept on the top and said, "This one is of when Keith was newly born." She pointed towards the other one and continued, "This one when he started walking; the third is of his first birthday." Mom looked at me with that huge smile of her's and I narrowed my eyes at her, but in no vain. She looked back at the albums that were kept one above another on the floor of the T.V. Room. "The other two has pictures of his growing up years. I had three more, but Keith took them from me and hid it somewhere." She ended her rant with sadness in her voice, but it was way too short-lived as she looked at Kim with a huge grin on her face and said, "Let's start from the first one."

Kim smiled, still looking at the five huge albums in front of her with awe and breathed, "Okay."

"No!" I shouted, gaining the attention of the three female species present in the room with me.

"Why?" Hailey smirked, looking at me with those happy, mischievous eyes.

"Because they are my pictures and I don't want anyone to see these," I told them firmly but Hailey just rolled her eyes and turned back towards Kim and Mom.

"But I want to see them. What's there to be embarrassed about?" Kim asked, looking genuinely curious. I raised my eyebrows in disbelief at her stupid question. 'Doesn't she know that childhood pictures are everything to be embarrassed about?'

She ignored my expression of disbelief and concentrated towards my dear mother whose main aim at the moment was to embarrass me.

And that's what she did.

Hailey and Mom started showing my pictures to Kim and at every 'aww' that escaped her lips, I just wanted to dig a hole and bury those albums in it.

"And this is naked Keith," Mom cooed looking at the picture of completely naked one-year old me.

"Mom!" I hissed.

She ignored me and started talking, "You know something, Kim? Keith loved to wander around naked ever since he was born. There were times when my friends used to bring their daughters here and he would always insist on not wearing anything. This went on for until he turned three, and finally, I was successful in making him understand that he has precious jewels which needed to be hidden."

Kim and Hailey started laughing like maniacs the moment Mom finished her rant and I was sure that my face was red as a tomato.

"Oh God!" I groaned in utter embarrassment.

"Oh, look here!" Mom said, showing a picture to Kim with pride in her eyes. Curiosity got the best of me and I bent a bit towards Kim to look at the picture that was the object of Kim's interest at the moment. My jaw dropped when my eyes landed on the humiliating picture.

"Is this you, Hailey?" Kim asked, looking at the three year old kid all dolled up in the picture in her hand.

I just turned redder and Hailey started laughing uncontrollably. "Kill me now!" I muttered with clenched red jaw.

"What's there to laugh about? You look so cute in this one, Hailey." Kim frowned at the situation in front of her.

Noticing her confusion, Mom preferred to answer her, "Oh, Kim! This is not Hailey. It's Keith."

Kim's eyes turned larger than golf balls when she heard this and looked at me with those wide eyes. I looked at her with a dead serious face, silently warning her to not laugh at me, but my attempt of warning her was a terrible failure as that's exactly what she did. The sound of her laughter echoed in the entire room along with Hailey's laughter. All I could do was close my eyes and rub my hand over my face in frustration.

"Don't worry, Keith. You won that competition," Mom tried to console me.

"What?" Kim asked between her undying laughter. "What competition did you win wearing that pick frock, crown and red lipstick?"

"You forget the cute pigtails, Kim," Hailey interrupted, clicking her tongue with fake disappointment in her voice.

"Oops, my bad!" Kim said and the girls again started laughing, giving high fives to each other.

Angrily, I stood up and looked towards Hailey. "Are you happy now?" I yelled.

Maybe there was something in my voice which made both Kim and Hailey stop their laughter and look at me stunned. My breathing came out heavily at the humiliation I was facing and giving one last glance to the three of them, I turned towards the door to move out of the room.

"But Keith..." Kim started.

"What?" I spat, turning to face her again. All three of them were looking at me with eyes full of surprise and a little sense of accomplishment was formed in my head.

"You won the 'Most Beautiful Baby Girl' competition," Kim said with innocence on her face and again, the three of them started laughing at me. That little sense of accomplishment depleted faster than it was formed.

I let out a huge breath and asked Mom, "Why? Why did you do that to me?"

She rolled her eyes at me and answered, "Don't be a baby, Keith. It's not my fault that Hailey fell ill on the day of the competition and I wanted that trophy at our home that year. I had to make you take part in the competition. It was just a blessing that you looked so girly, that nobody even doubted." The girls could do just one thing - laugh. "And you looked so pretty in Hailey's old pink frock. Nobody can ever deny that. Not even you, Baby K." Mom pointed towards me with a smug look on her face.

"Mom!" I groaned in embarrassment, again.

"Ba... baby K?" Kim managed to ask between her laughter fit.

There was nothing left to warn my family about anything, anymore. Everything was being done by me in complete vain. And that is why; I didn't even care about looking at Mom with warning in my eyes.

"Well, I had to call him something at the competition and obviously, I couldn't call him 'Keith'. That would have been a huge giveaway," Mom answered and laughed, probably recalling the day.

"Damn! This is so hilarious," Kim said, wiping the tears from her cheeks due to laughing so hard.

"I hate you all," I grumbled and they just laughed, again. Kicking the nearby recliner, I went outside the room.

I sat in the living room and waited for them to get over with the long session of making fun of me. Their laughter echoed in the entire home and all I wanted to do was snatch those albums and keep them deep inside my closet where the other three albums have been safely stored since years. After facing, or rather, hearing the undying laughter of my humiliation, I decided to go back to my room and on the way to there, I passed by the room where the three cruel women were so fondly making fun of me.

"This one is so cute." I heard Kim's voice and I couldn't stop myself looking in her direction when I passed the door that was slightly open. There was something in her voice that I had never heard before.

I stood there for some time watching them looking at the pictures of my terrible past and making fun of me. She was so fondly looking at the picture in her hand that even I wanted to see the picture that was the object of her admiration at the moment. She had a little smile on her lips and there was something in her eyes as she looked at it, something like sadness or longing, but I couldn't perfectly figure it out. I had never been someone who reads too deeply into things. If you show me a color that is even slightly blue, I'll call it blue, when you might want to call it by numerous different names like, sapphire, royal blue, turquoise and many others. It's just 'blue' for me. Simple!

I tried to not let the matter go to my head as I went straight to my bedroom, but still I couldn't leave the little nagging feeling in my head that something was wrong with what I saw in Kim's eyes. She was smiling, but there was something missing.

And, I knew that I couldn't be at peace without knowing the truth.

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A/N

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17th January 2016 - Edited! :)