Forbidden

Look at Me Now

How did I get here?

I am in a dark room with red liquid pooling, staining my fingertips. Moonlight trickled through a small window and lightened the cold, concrete floor where I am lying. I could hear voices. They sounded cheerful, yet fake. By that, I mean that the cheeriness was false. I know because I recognize this tone.

Wait, what?

I don't recall anything. So I try. Try to remember.

***

"Stop it!" I shrieked with laughter in the darkness.

Liam picked me up and carried me across the boardwalk. I burried my head in his neck and tried to stop laughing. My hands gripped his shirt tightly. I didn't want to let go.

"Aright, Morgan!" he said.

I dug my head deeper in his neck and tried to muffle a scream I felt rising. My swimsuit pinched my sides as he lifted me up and threw me in the lake water. I made a huge splash. He chuckled, took off his shirt, and jumped in, too.

I turned away from the splash and giggled. Before I knew it, he grabbed me and tickled me until I couldn't breathe. Therefore I was thrashing in the water. Then Liam finally let go and I swam to take hold of the edge of the boardwalk for support.

"Liam?" I said, recovering from laughing so much.

"Yeah?" he responded.

"It's COLD!" I shivered.

Smiling, he pulled me close to him. I wrapped myself around his warm, yet wet body. He kissed me once, then I rested my head on his shoulder, staring at the moon's blurry reflection on the water.

***

A single teardrop falls from my eye, but I force myself to continue the memory. I've avoided my past too often. Not backing out now.

***

Eventually, we got out of the freezing water and got on our clothes on as soon as we dried off with the towels we brought. Liam put his arm around my waist and kissed the top of my head as we walked away from the glowing lake.

"I love you," he murmured.

I smiled and looked up at him. "I love you, too."

Liam drove us back to his house in his parents' car. We said goodnight and from there I walked home, which was just across the street, smiling uncontrollably.

When I walked in, my parents were fighting. Not arguing, fighting. They hadn't noticed I'd come in because they were too busy screaming in the kitchen. I dropped my towel on the couch in the living room and listened to them.

"Morgan deserves better than this," my mom said, her voice suddenly quiet after screaming.

My dad sighed.

I sat down on one of the bar stools we had at the kitchen counter. Then they realized I was there. As soon as they did, they looked at each other worriedly and then back at me.

"How much of that did you hear?" my mom asked.

I shrugged. "Not much. What-What's going on?"

My father shook his head. "Nothing you need to concern yourself with...yet."

"She needs to know!" my mother protested.

I looked at them both expectantly.

"I don't care," my mom continued. "what you think about this. But your mistake will not go on in secret anymore. She has a right to know. And she loves you. She won't judge you."

My eyebrows raised in question and in interest.

"I know. But do you really think she will ever look at you the same ever again? She's lived a lie for sixteen years. Why come out now?" My dad retorted.

They must've forgotten completely that I was here.

My mother then looked at me with sadness. "She can decide that for herself."

We all sat in the living room. My dad came in reluctantly, my mom with hope in her eyes but also with determination and relief. But I, was totally and all completely confused with every drop of blood in my body.

Oh wait. Oh god no. Please no. No, no, no, no, no. It couldn't be! Could it? I thought back to all of those movies where the main character goes through the same thing I am right now. This is always when they find out they were adopted.

Oh, hell no. Please...

"Morgan," my dad started. "Seventeen years ago I made a terrible mistake, and perhaps it is time for you to know about it."

No!!!!!!!

"What?" I asked eagerly.

"You know that boy next door?"

What? Where is this going?! Are they talking about...Liam?

I shook my head.

My mom took over. "There's a boy that lives across the street named Liam."

Dad raised his hand to my mom. "Seventeen years ago I dated his mother, LeAnn."

Uh...what?!

Mom glared at Dad. "While we were married, might I add."

I stared at them with shock...wordless.

"Sweetheart," Dad murmured, then got louder. "You are LeAnn's daughter."

Looking from the person I used to call Mom, then to my dad and back again, I felt tears running down my face as anger boiled in my chest and pain in my head. But I wiped away the few tears and got up, passing my 'parents' and going upstairs without a word. I tried not to hurry, for my own dignity and for the sake of NOT having a dramatic exit as they do in movies.

But just as I closed my bedroom door behind me, I jumped onto my bed and dug into my pillow with my face, clawing at the sheets. Yes, I, Morgan Hester, was crying. Yet silently.

Maybe if I fell asleep, I would wake up and realize it was a dream. But that never happens. Never. Not for me.