0.01 Hidden Things (Dustin)

It's something you think about a lot, when you're still a kid. Probably because... everyone hides things from you.
What's real and what's a lie, when you know you've been lied to before? Is the creaking at night a really just the house settling? Are the stars really wishes or can we reach out and call them down to us as if they were our friends? Did mother really leave.. because of you?
Where would you go... if you were free to go anywhere?

He thought about her a lot: The crazy girl who used to show up at the beach and play in the water in winter clothes. She didn't go to his school but he thought about her when he was going to his. Probably because the shortcut was through her family's land, if they really still owned it. He never did know if he went this way to see if she still lived there or because all the bullies preyed on other kids who waited at the bus top, and Dustin was not at all athletic. Whatever it was he was not curious enough to ever knock on the door.

Summer was over now anyways. He only saw her in summer, when her mom would take her to the park or the beach. Twinsburg was small and it's not like his parents minded where he went, so it was funny how her mother never let her out of her sight. She used to say the weirdest things, about how ghosts were real and most people were too stupid to understand.

He usually just told her he didn't disagree (not that he thought she was right, but it was fun to watch her go off on stories she had clearly made up by herself). It must be lonely not having a brother or sister to play with. Besides, wouldn't it be cool if those things really existed? Magic and witches and pirate fortunes?

He saw her again, right before she disappeared. She was at the park, playing. When he asked why she was alone for once she answered simply 'because I wanted to be'. He didn't question it.

That was a year ago at least. Rumors were that her mother took her and left, leaving her dad behind in that rundown house. Something about, he was an inventor and her mother wanted 'stability'. But secretly Dustin thought she was off on an exciting adventure. She wanted to travel, to find fairies and ghosts and the things she told him about. Maybe she had gone some place where she could.

Meghan, that was her name. She really wanted him to believe her, almost like.. no one ever did?

Why was he worried about it now? Because he saw her old man's place every day, and it still looked abandoned, but somehow lived in? No curtains on any of the windows and an old bed on an ironwork frame shoved against the corner in what should be a living room. An abandoned car out front that needed a lot of work. But the paper was still being delivered, and sometimes it sounded like faint voices coming from somewhere, but it was windy so that could have been anything.

Dustin was too practical to believe in ghosts. He didn't know why after a long time he still wondered about it. Probably just because for some reason he had a feeling that in one of her stories, there had been a lie.

One day he decided to settle it for himself and knock. It was silly; a house abandoned with nobody living there, and here he was standing at the door trying to deliver an old paper and knocking. He wasn't the paperboy, but it bothered him. There was always a fresh one in the morning, and one or two old ones lying around. Somebody paid the paperboy right? He wanted to know if at least his old friend was happy, like he remembered from so long ago.
But nobody answered and after an angry call from his parents, he had to get home in time for dinner. It was the last time he wondered about it.

Fall to Winter to Spring, and still nothing changes about this place. Although it did have that feeling of haunting about it, but that was probably just because everything was so neglected and overgrown. Middle school was almost over, now. There were finals to think about.

He had come a long way from fantasy stories and sandcastles. They were good memories, but that's all they'd ever be. He stopped looking after that. Eventually friends leave and you have to let them go. That's what growing up is about, right?

He was sure somewhere in what he imagined was her paradise that Meghan would agree with him.


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If you're reading this you found my first ever blog! It's a 10 generation Random Legacy Challenge played on the Sims 3, and this is where I will be telling the story of the Sparrow family.

Info;
Thread at Modthesims: http://modthesims.info/t/480205
Challenge Rules: http://randomlegacychallenge.blogspot.com/
Sim Randomizer used for some character details but not required: http://www.scenariogenerator.net/generators/the_sims_3

I'll reveal the trait and job roles for Gen 1 after a bit more of the story is online.
I love this game and the way stories can be crafted with this challenge really intrigued me, so here goes nothing!
~ Frogsnack