Purple Tulips | N.R

With a Tulip on Top

When you first arrived in the city you decided would be the one you would live in for the foreseeable future, New York City, you stayed at several hotels, not for a long period of time, just under a month, whilst you found a suitable apartment to either buy or rent. You found one to rent relatively fast, it was expensive, situated in Manhattan, just a short walk away from central park, but most importantly of all, all it's tenants passed the background checks you had done on them. You'd started your search on other less expensive parts of New York, but the cheaper the place the more people living near it that didn't pass your background checks, you wanted the little girl you'd fought for to be as safe as you could possibly make her. You could clearly tell that the realtor who showed you the place was judging you harshly, but she quickly changed her tune when she learned you were an emancipated orphan who'd just gotten her inheritance, her very large inheritance. She still gave a few side glances to you ever growing stomach though, which went ignored by you. The apartment didn't come furnished, you fixed that pretty quickly with quite a few online purchases, the nursery being the room you started with. It looked almost exactly like the one in the magazine you had copied it from, the only difference being the lack of the baby's initials above the crib, you didn't know what you would name it so you had none to paint there. The rest of the house also followed magazines, even your room, it all ended up coordinating well, you didn't have your own taste, but you knew what other people tend to like.

You only accessed the files you'd gotten in Miss Winters office after all the apartment was finished. You didn't not like what you found, especially the fact there there seemed to be another man involved in, what you learned to be called, "Project Gloria". His name was never mentioned, only being written down as "he" or "him", he never signed anything either, but there are records of his visits to the academy and to the new facility, although the latter did not see much of his presence. It is also recorded that he was sent updates on you every month, with copies of what was sent and transcripts of phone conversations, you notice that there is no updates on the time you spent with Linda, and the few days you spent on the facility before getting out. You were grateful for that, it meant that he most likely did not know about your state. You considered trying to find him, going after him before he could go after you. But you were held back, going after him could make it easier for him to find you and you knew nothing about him, only that he was a he, so you didn't know the sort of resources he had, what he was capable of, so for the safety of your unborn child, you decided not to, however you would make sure to pay even more attention to potential threats, not that you weren't already doing so but doing more would not hurt. You were going to destroy all the files you knew what had happened but nobody else needed to, you hid the USB stick instead, and for years it didn't even cross your mind.

It took almost a month for you to properly meet your next door neighbor, Darlene, you had seen her in the halls a few times and already knew everything about her before you even moved in, but obviously pretended not to. She knocked on your door one late morning, a covered dish in her hands. You had opened the door, showing none of the hesitation you were feeling, you did not appreciate that caring for Linda seemed to have opened a hole for more emotions to show up, even actively trying to keep them down did not seem to work that well, what started out as weak barely there feelings seemed to grow in strength. You could hide them perfectly, but the fact that they were there was very annoying, and that was also annoying. Darlene Adams was a fifty-six year old woman who had never had children, according to what you found she was once happily married to James Adam, they had not had children and James had died of natural causes almost twenty years prior, Darlene hadn't found someone else nor did she seem to look for someone. She uncovered what the dish as she asked if you allergic to anything and telling she had made you her, according to her, world renown lasagna. You had smiled and introduced yourself, thanking her and inviting her in, she stayed for a while, you'd served each of you a plate, subtlety waiting for her to take a forkful of the food you had served her, masking your unwillingness to eat by talking animatedly mostly about how much you loved your new place, the background checks you'd done on her had been to your liking but you could have been wrong.