~Lee POV~
“It was eleven days past the first of April, and this girl was born into the world. She was born. Remember that, its important.” Dylan starts. “Her parents loved each other for a year before a nasty divorce happened. Six months later, the girl’s mom got married to this guy that already had a son and a year and a half later, they had twin boys.”
“Wait just a minute. T-that means-” Jake stops abruptly before looking at Jim for confirmation.
“Jake, Jack, meet your older sister, Dylan.” Jimmy says in a tortured voice. The twins jaws drop in shock. It would have almost been comical if not for the circumstances, and the fact that I still had silent tears dripping down my face as I listened, biting my lip so hard it drew blood. I sink to the ground, hugging my knees to my chest, the rough bark of the old oak behind me digging into my back.
Long moment of silence, with only confused stammering and stuttering from the twins and dead silence from Dylan and Jimmy. Finally I break it by saying, “Get on with it, then!” my words and tone are harsher than I mean them to be, and Jimmy shoots me a look, ignoring my tone, pleading me to not push any deeper into the tangled web of lies that had remained hidden for so long.
I avert my gaze and fix it on Dylan, my narrow gaze daring her to stop now. She returns my gaze unflinchingly, and unblinkingly, but inclines her head and opens her mouth to continue. “Little sisters shouldn’t speak that way to their elder siblings.” A silence follows, no one daring to speak. “Yes, you are my sister, but on my dad’s side. You see the twins were a year when I left to go live with my dad at age 4 and I stayed with him for ten years before he died shortly after he found out he was to be a father. Our dad was a famous person, but we’ll leave that for a bit later.
“I left Ann and you at age 14,” Dylan says in a sad and strained voice not meeting my eyes. “You were fresh out of the womb and I left. I found Jimmy and talked him into keeping an eye on you until Ann died. I was there that night Lee. I saw you staring at her lifeless body and I wanted to comfort you, I really did.”
“Why didn’t you?” Anger flares up as I shoot this at her. “You let me live 16 years by myself! Why now?”
“You don’t understand. You wouldn’t understand.” Dylan says shaking her head.
“What is there to understand? You left me!” I jump up and yell at her. She stands up slowly, with a fair amount of her own anger in her eyes.
“I did it to protect you! I was still there, all the time. All the damn time I was there.” Dylan starts out by yelling but by the end she is dropped on her knees and sobbing with Jimmy’s arms wrapped tightly around her. He tries his best to calm her cries with kisses on the head and soothing words that eventually ends the cries.
“I don’t understand. What is there to protect myself from?” I whisper, slowly sitting back on my spot on the ground. Jake still looks shell-shocked, and so does Jack, but they both come over and sit next to me, Jack on my left, Jake on my right. I lean to the side, resting my head on Jack’s shoulder, not caring which twin it is. His arm snaked out around my shoulders, silently comforting me as we all wait for Dylan’s next words.
“The world is a dangerous place, Kitten.” She says solemnly, and I hissed slightly. Nobody calls me Kitten except for the boys! “There are things in this world no one could even imagine. Me, I know most of these things. Thats why I left you and Ann, because no matter what I do, the past will always haunt me.”
“What do you mean by dangerous?” Its Jake now that has spoken. “I mean, I know what we are but what is so dangerous it had to keep you from us.”
