Forbidden Kisses ✔ (Not Yet COMPLETE)

A New Routine

It wasn't going to be easy, forgetting Nathan, but I am going to try my best. The first thing I need to do is change my routine. No biggy. No more hiding out at Sarah 's house. No more pretend boyfriends that only seem to annoy me. And no-more abusive parents, I thought as I packed the last important piece of my life into my bag.

"Natasha," my mom said softly from the door, I could hear she's been crying, but I squared my shoulders defiantly. This is the only way. I need to start living my life. Hiding from one conflict and starting another, is not the life I wanted.

"Mom," I pleaded, "please don't ask me to stay."

"I'm not going to," she whispered, "I need to ask you something."

"What do you need, Mom?"

"Please take your sister with you," her voice shook. Confusion  shot through me. I turned around to look at her.

"What sister?"

Four hours later, I breathed a deep sigh of relief as the blue and red lights flashed down the street. I held a 2-year-old in my arms and marveled at her beauty. Yes, she's thin, too thin. Yes, she's dirtier than any child should be, but she's beautiful.

I spent hours talking to counsellors, the police, social workers and neighbours. I couldn't believe what was happening. I feel like I'm in a movie. I can't believe my sister was locked up in a room for 2 years, and I didn't even know that she existed. What type of person doesn't even know that her own sister exists or was living under the very same room as her? A room that she was locked up in, malnourished and not loved.

How did she miss the fact that her mother was even pregnant? Where have I been? By someone else's house, my conscious whispered at me.

It took me all of the four hours to convince everyone that the child is not leaving my arms, they eventually listened, with threats of coming back to check on her. The little beauty stared at me with wonder in her eyes. My eyes filled with tears as I walked back into the house that suddenly belongs to me and she started to scream. Fear radiating out of her tiny body, I held her close and whispered reasuring things to her. Maybe she understood me, or maybe she responded to my tone, but her screaming stopped.

"Hi, I'm Natasha," I whispered for what feels like the thousandth time, "Do you have a name?"

No reaction, just a blank expression on her face.

This is going to take some time.

"One thing at a time, Natasha," I whispered to myself as I ran water into the bath, and googled "How to bath a 2-year-old".

After the bath, I dressed her in an outfit one of the neighbours brought over and fed her food that another neighbour brought. She ate greedily, like it was her last meal and I almost wished I fed her before I bathed her, because she was a mess. She giggled as I tried to wipe the food from her nose and I froze.

For the first time, since we met, she made a sound that wasn't motivated by fear. Her face lit up into an impossibly more beautiful smile and I fell in love.

My phone rang, disrupting the magic that seemed to have woven around us.

"Hi," I answered dreamily.

"Hi, what's going on? You sound drugged," Sarah responded.

"I don't know where to begin," I responded, my eyes filled with tears, as my mouth started retelling the days events. From my mom's revelation, to finding my sister tied to her bed, to calling the police, to my parents being arrested, to this moment and everything in between. Everything poured out, until it didn't anymore.

Sarah was quiet. I almost expected her to start telling me about Brian or Bruce or Barnes or who ever might be next. But she didn't. Instead she shocked me by hanging up the phone.

I stared at my cellphone, before I looked up and saw my sister was gone. I jumped up in a panic and searched the house for her. My heart was beating out of my chest as I looked in one room and then the next.

"There you are," I whispered, my voice hoarse. The little girl had bundled herself up on the bed in the room she was locked up in. She was fast asleep. I immediately picked her up and put her in my own room, determined to keep her close to me.

I was still wondering about why she went to that room to sleep when I heard a knock on the door.