FORBIDDEN

Chapter 14: Valerie

I couldn't sleep that night. It was dark with faint moonlight streaming in through the tattered curtains on the window, illuminating Luisa's sleeping form, her gentle snores were the only audible sounds in the quiet of the night. I slept squashed up beside her breathing in the usual moldy smell of the room mixed with the strong smell of lemon that always seemed to cling to Luisa's body.

I couldn't stop thinking about today, there was a strange heaviness in my chest that made it harder for me to breathe, was this what heart break felt like. I slowly slipped out of bed, my feet touched the cold wooden floor and I sat like that for a moment, pulling the thin fabric of my white nightgown down from where it had ridden up my thighs.

I grabbed the white box from where I had chucked it in as soon as I had arrived in my room that afternoon.
I opened it and took out the pictures at the very bottom of the box, before closing and putting it back in my drawer.

I finally stood up and walked towards the window trying to look at the pictures through the moonlight coming in through the window and failing miserably. I finally decided to grab my old worn out coat and walked out of the small, room sized place Luisa and I called "home".

The night was just as quiet outside as inside, the light from the moon was brighter outdoors though. I made my way towards the big apple tree I had climbed the day I met Tom, my bare feet crunching on the fallen dead leaves on the ground, leaving behind deep muddy footprints on the wet earth from the light shower last night. The smell of wet earth was still in the air.

I finally reached the tree and stood beneath, I peered into the pictures making sure to shift them into the light.

On one of them I could make out my mother when she was way younger, holding onto Aaron as a baby. She was smiling so widely, her beautiful face wasn't marred or etched by a single wrinkle, this woman was completely different from the mother I knew. The woman in the picture looked happy, her hair was tied into a bun in the back of her head.

I switched to the next picture and couldn't help but gulp as I stared at a white man with dark hair and eye's, of about his late twenties, holding on to a little brown baby with soft curly hair and a scrunched up face, what was even more surprising was the joyful look on the man's face, I turned the picture and saw writing on the back in what looked a bit like my mother's handwriting "my George and our little girl Val". I stared at the picture before looking at the other one's, there were four more. One was with the whole family, mom, Aaron, me and the white man George who was my father. There were two with just him and my mother and the last one was a picture of huge farm house with mom wearing pants and white button down cotton shirt and short cropped hair sitting on the steps.
This must have been our house.

I was so busy looking at the picture I didn't notice the rustle of tree's until I felt something hard hit my head. "Ouch" i hissed, hands quickly covering my head as I looked to see what had hit me, not seeing it in the dark and quickly looking up at the tree. I jumped at the face that was peering down at me with a grin and almost screamed if the face had shifted and caught the moonlight, blonde hair seeming to glow in the light. My mouth froze mid scream and a small squeak was all that managed to escape.

"Are you trying to give me a heart attack" I snapped at Tom, who was sitting on one of the branches a wide grin on his face.

"Sorry I was trying to call you but you didn't hear me. What are you doing here so late?"he asked not having seen the pictures from where he sat.

"I could ask you the same question, and its not that late"

"It's one hour till midnight, I think it's still pretty late", even from down here I could see the white teethed grin he shot my way.