Chanelle Hayes - Baring My Heart Read Online Free PDF

increased my curiosity further and something in her tone convinced me there was something awful I should know about.
    I didn’t want to make too much of a big deal of it because I didn’t want to upset Mum and Dad by poking around into my past but, when I put them on the spot and asked how my real mum had died, they both became very cagey. Of course, if yourefuse to answer a teenager’s questions, they will automatically want to know at least a hundred times more urgently. So, though it had never been an issue before, it was now something I thought about a lot and was determined to get to the bottom of.
    Over the coming months, I started asking my parents about her constantly but they felt I wasn’t ready to handle the truth. I’ve always been a stubborn little thing though and the brick wall they put up just made me more hell bent on finding out the truth. While my mates were more concerned with chatting up boys or scraping together funds for the latest shoes in Topshop, I was busy playing Miss Marple to piece together the clues I had about my mum’s life.
    Because I was so preoccupied by whatever had happened, I started having recurring nightmares. I’d dream I was being kidnapped and then wake up, sitting bolt upright with my hair all sweaty and stuck to my face. It was always the same scenario – I’d be shopping in town and there would be this weird-looking guy in black clothes. His hands would come out of nowhere and snatch me away from a woman, who I guess was my real mum.
    ‘Let go of me!’ I’d yell but the man would just grin at me and then, as the woman disappeared from my sight, I’d wake up. I got so scared that I even refused to go into town with Mum for a while.
    What was rapidly becoming an obsession started to make me difficult to live with. It felt like there was a big conspiracy to keep these missing strands of my history from me.
    ‘Mum, will you please just talk to me and respect my wishes?’ I’d ask her. ‘I really can cope with whatever the big secret is, you know.’
    ‘Oh, Chanelle,’ she would say. ‘I know you think you’re old enough but, when we adopted you, we made the decision not to tell you until you were older and we have to stick to that. It really is for your own good.’
    When I got tired of that kind of conversation, I’d try a more direct approach and corner her as she was making breakfast or putting on a load of washing.
    ‘Tell me now,’ I’d demand, without even wishing her a good morning. ‘I have a right to know how she died. You owe it to me.’
    ‘Chanelle, we’ve talked about this so many times and, when the time is right, your dad and I will tell you everything. But not yet.’
    These words were so infuriating. ‘So when will the time be right?’ I’d snap. ‘What’s the difference between now and in two or three years? You’re so mean to keep this from me. I’m not a kid anymore!’
    But it was hopeless; Mum wasn’t going to budge. And whenever I brought up the subject with Dad, I’d get a firmer response still.
    ‘When you’re eighteen, you’ll be an adult and you can find out everything you want to know. But not now. That’s the end of the matter.’
     
    Why couldn’t they see that I needed to uncover my past, just to know who I really was? The more they blocked me, the angrier I got. Fights became an almost daily occurrence and I remember once storming up to my room and slamming the door so hard the walls shook.
    ‘I hate you both!’ I screamed, throwing myself onto the bed and burying my face in the pillows. ‘Nobody understands what I’m going through. It’s so unfair!’
    I must have sounded like a stuck record – and God knows how my poor brother put up with all the commotion. But then David was always a calm, placid boy. He would sit quietly in his room on his PlayStation while, all around him, World War Three was breaking out and then casually emerge half an hour later, saying, ‘What’s for tea, Mum?’ It must stem