"SO, what did you do at the weekend?" Miko asks me as we walk down the corridor towards the cafeteria. She asks such strange, yet normal, questions sometimes.

"Well, um," I stutter. Should I tell her? Or keep it a secret of what happened? "Nothing much, I read a book."

Whenever I lie, unfortunately, almost everyone can tell. A weird - I can only describe as an - Anime blush. Well, that's what everyone's says anyway.

"And what did you do?" I ask wanting to deter the attention from me.

"Oh, I explored I super cool rocking cave!" Miko says punching a fist into the air, nearly bouncing with excitement at the memory, "and me and Jack-," she is about to continue but Jack comes out of nowhere.

"Heyy, what are you two talking about?" Jack asks shooting Miko a death glare.

"Oh, just what we did at the weekend," I say shrugging, "and you were saying Miko?"

"NOTHING- just that me and Jack had a lot of fun," Miko blurts out quickly.

"Riiighhtt," I say giving Miko a side glance.

(Time skip.)

"Esme, come in here," my dad calls from the lounge.

"Coming," I reply as I enter.

Both my mum and dad are sitting on the red velvet sofa. It's quite unnerving with both of my parents staring at me.

"Um, what's this about?" I ask, biting my lip in nervousness.

"Esme, we are so proud of you because of how you handled moving. I know it was a very big thing, moving to a foreign country, going to a new school," Mum says smiling at me.

I nod in reply.

"And we both decided that you are responsible, and deserve this," Mum finishes as she hands me a slim, square box.

"What is it?" I ask, glancing at my parents suspiciously.

"Open it, and you'll find out," Dad says, giving me that grin of his.

I carefully open the box to see a beautiful pendant. An oval shaped sky blue stone with silver metal winding itself around. I pick of pendent out of its box only to see it's a locket. I carefully open it to see one word engraved in elegant writing; Cascade.

"It's wonderful," I whisper in a fit of joy as I clip the necklace on.

"It was your mothers," Mum says gently.

I was an orphan, as far as I know both my parents died in a car crash when I was a baby- only a few months old.

"What is the gem?" I ask, glancing at the light blue stone embedded into the piece of jewellery.

"We think it's some kind of precious stone, like tanzanite or apatite. We took it to a jeweller, but unfortunately they weren't able to identify it," Mum tells me, looking at me proudly.

Who I call my parents now are really my adoptive parents. I can't remember my real parents though I'm sure I can still recall them if I think really hard. When I found out it was around Christmas, I was about 12 at the time, they tried to break it to me gently, but I didn't take it very well. I had to go to therapy for a while.

I was very conflicted, I loved my foster parents but I had a very hard time taking it in that they weren't my real parents and pretty much my whole life was just a big lie. I didn't tell many of my friends. I was quite a shy, reserved child and didn't like getting into trouble, but of sort of grew further away from my parents for a while.

"Thank you so much, I'll treasure it forever," I thank gratefully.