Page 107 of Vows In Corruption

“Everything okay?” The question rolls off my tongue so easily since I’ve been asking it everyday for two weeks now. Something is gong on with her and she has yet to open up to me. I’m grasping at straws as to what it could be and it’s driving me insane.

As she opens her moth to give me a response, I expect the same answer that she has given me for the last two weeks to come out, but she takes me by surprise.

“No. There’s something that we need to talk about.”

Fucking finally.

“What’s going on?” I place my hands on the counter, ready for whatever she is about to say.

She looks down at my hands, curling her lips inward, debating what to say.

“Think that we could go to the living room?” She places her mug one the counter and when she looks up at me, I see a hint if fear in her eyes.

Is she afraid of telling me what is going on or afraid of how I will react.

I wave her toward the living and follow behind.

Once in the massive living space, Ella plays with her hands for a solid minute before waving me to sit on the couch while she remains standing.

I follow silent orders and take a seat facing her.

She doesn’t start talking as when I sit down though. She continues to play with her hands for another minute. To build up the courage, I guess.

After some more time passes, she finally opens her mouth and speaks.

“I’m going to tell you something, but you have to promise me that you aren’t going to react until I finish.”

My jaw ticks a bit. “I will try.”

She nods and takes a deep breath. “When I told you about my past, I didn’t tell you everything.”

I knew that, but that’s not what I say. “Okay. What didn’t you tell me?”

Another deep breath leaves her body and her shoulder slump a bit. “About Charlie and how she came to live with me.”

In Dante’s report, there was minimal information on Charlie. All that there was on her was a name, birthday and where she went to school.

Nothing more and I didn’t bother to look for more. I wasn’t interested in learning about Ella, I didn’t need to know why she was her sister sole care giver.

“I’m listening.” I say, nodding at her to continue.

She takes another minute before she opens the flood gates.

“I learned about Charlie when I was sixteen. For seven years of life, I didn’t know I had a little sister. If I had did, I would have tried my hardest to stay with my mom. But I didn’t find out about her until one of the group home leaders asked me if I wanted to go to the store and by a Christmas present for my sister and send it to her. Apparently there was a section in my file that talked about how my mother had another child and they thought that I had known about her, but nobody had mentioned it to me.”

A tear rolls down her face as her pain is ever so present in her voice. I want to go to her and wrap my arms around her, but if I do that, I don’t know if she will continue. So I stay seated.

“I asked the group leader is he could tell me things about her and he did. He didn’t know much, but he knew enough. Her name. Her age and that she lived in a small town in South Carolina but that was it. He didn’t know if she was still under my mom’s custody or if she was living with someone else. I spent so many days and nights thinking about her. If she looked like me. If she knew who I was or if she even knew she had a sister out there somewhere. I had so many questions but nobody to answer them. So I started looking into her.”

Curiosity gets the best of me. “Looked into her how?”

“You can find anything on Google if you have enough information. With the address and the last name, I was able to find who live at the address and look them up on social media.”

You can find anything on Google.

If only that were really true. You are only able to find what people what you to find. Otherwise the search for my brother would have ended years ago.

“And did you find them on social media?” It’s a stupid question because of course she did. If she hadn’t. There is a possible chance that Charlie wouldn’t be living with us.

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