Page 93 of Forbidden

“I couldn’t find my keys for mine. So I was just going to take his.” I was standing in front of her now. She had a jumper and textbook on her lap.

“Your keys are where they always are.” She wouldn’t look up at me. “In your bike.” She stopped nervously playing with the textbook when I sat down beside her. Her eyes landed on me. “I don’t know how many times I’ve told you, your bike will get stolen.”

I smirked just a little. “Yeah I know, Nice. You’ve warned me. But seriously, who would be stupid enough to take my bike out front of the mother charter’s president house.”

“I am.”

My eyes snapped off my bike and on to her. “What do you mean?”

Hannah sighed, deflated. “Mum’s car has a tracker. Eve’s car too. Your bike doesn’t have one cause you took it off.” She glanced to the side looking at me. “Let’s just say the thought of just disappearing did go through my mind.” She wiped more tears away. “I was going to come in but I can’t seem to stop crying.”

She actually sounded angry with herself. She wiped more tears away.

“We’ve basically been going into meltdown thinking you left.” I was honest with her. “Mum was divorcing Dad, Brad was handing in his patch to go look for you and that twin of yours was following in your footsteps.”

She looked at me with disbelief. “I’ve only been out here for, like, ten minutes.”

“We thought you left, Hannah.” The panic I felt when I heard that car disappear and I thought she was in it surfaced. “I was leaving to drag you back.”

She smiled just faintly and then as soon as she did her hand went to her cheek.

I reached over, taking the hand that wasn’t cupping her face. “You really need to put ice on it. Trust me, it helps.” I had been punched a few times in the face; the jaw was always the worst. Your whole cheek would swell, even inside your mouth would swell, making it impossible to eat.

She nodded her head but her eyes were locked on the ground. She might be sitting next to me but her mind was somewhere else. It wasn’t the first time she had done this to me.

“Hannah, what’s wrong?” I asked. It was clear on her face something was wrong. Something had her not sleeping and not eating. I really didn’t believe that my sister, the one who was always positive, was actually starving herself to the point she would die.

“I’m sick,” she said, her words hollow, and she slowly dragged her eyes off the ground and looked at me. “And I can’t eat.” She wasn’t lying. “Before you even jump to the conclusion that I have an eating disorder, it’s not that. It’s just, like…” She frowned, struggling to explain to me why she couldn’t eat. “You know when you get so worried about something you feel physically sick?”

I slowly nodded my head, understanding what she was talking about. Working yourself up over something that ends up not being important or getting worked up over something that does impact your life.

“Well, it’s like that. I’m so worried that I just can’t eat. I try and I end up just being sick.” She leaned back in the chair. “It isn’t really a problem.” She glanced at me. “Till people start noticing.”

“Can the doctors give you something for it? Have you seen a doctor about it?”

She scoffed. “All I do is see doctors. It gets to the point where you think, what is the fucking point?”

“The point is you want to live. You might not realize it, Hannah, but everyone,” I pointed to the house, “went into fucking meltdown thinking they’d lost you. Right now, everyone is waiting in that lounge room to see if you are coming back in their life. Fuck. In a matter of minutes, the life I had was shattered all because you weren’t in it.”

She had no idea how important she was to us—to all of us.

“Dad really thought I would leave?” She turned her head to the side to look at me. “He really thought that?”

“We all did, Hannah. You made it real clear on what would happen if Dad hit you.”

She sighed. “I couldn’t leave. Not when I deserved it.”

“Dad should never have hit you.” I never wanted Hannah thinking she deserved to be hit. I reached across, taking my hand off her and forcing her to look at me. “You didn’t deserve it. And no matter what you do, it should never result in something hurting you.”

“You’re meant to say that, you’re my brother.” She smiled and then a painful expression captured her face and her hand went back to her cheek.

Fuck, Dad had really done some damage. “Dad might have fractured your jaw.” I frowned, and I went to feel the side of her face she was nursing, but she brushed my hand away.

He had hit her hard enough for her body to literally drop. If the impact of his hand hadn’t fractured her jaw, the force of hitting the ground might have.

“Please don’t touch it, it’s painful enough.” She pushed my hand away again. “Come on, let’s go inside so you can be the number one son and stop the family from falling apart.”

“Let me check your jaw.” I wasn’t letting her get out of me inspecting her.

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