Page 82 of Forgotten No More

She knew she couldn’t let her sister walk out of the house without talking about…well, she didn’t know what about, but Ruby had a feeling that if she didn’t connect—truly connect—with Ellie now, another chance may not come. “Please, let me speak.” She wouldn’t give her young sister a chance to dismiss her and disappear.

The girl shrugged. “Suit yourself.” But she continued to stand, as if ready to bolt at any moment.

It was hard to find the right place to start—if there even was a right place. How did one apologize for something they didn’t do and until recently had no knowledge of? But Ellie did deserve an apology. Perhaps not as it pertained to Ruby, but from Ruby for the way their father treated her.

“I am sorry for your childhood.” That was simple enough.

Ellie’s eyes snapped up and stared daggers. Gone was the quiet, humble girl. “Sorry? What exactly are you sorry for?”

“All of it.”

“You think you can just say sorry and everything will be better?” her sister asked. “A simple apology does not wipe away the years of abuse. It does not make up for the fact that you lived a life of privilege while I was made to work and earn every meal.”

Ruby did not know how to respond. This was the most Ellie had ever opened up to her; perhaps she only needed someone to listen, a warm body to vent to.

“An apology does not make up for living in hiding my whole life. Did you know he never claimed me as his own?”

“No, I did not.”

“He had the nerve to tell the servants that I was a gutter rat, left upon his stoop by a lowly harlot dying of consumption.”

The evidence of how horrid her father truly was shouldn’t surprise her, but Ruby still pulled back in horror, afraid to say a word or move at all for fear she wouldn’t hear the rest.

Ellie laughed, the sound of a bitter person years older than the girl who stood before her. “Can you believe it took him a fortnight to realize I was not a boy? He named me Ellington…a bloody male name.”

“If I could make things better—”

“No one can make anything better, don’t you see? I am who I am, you are who you are. And that is where it should end.”

Ruby hoped she’d heard Ellie’s words wrong. “Can we not start anew?”

“One can never start anew when the burdens of the past weigh as heavy as mine,” Ellie sighed. “I do know that my horrible past had naught to do with you or your upbringing, but that does not free me from envying you a loving mother and father…and an education…and a chance.”

“You can still have that—we can have that together.” Ruby did not know how to convince her sister that a better life was possible, a life free of abuse, if they only worked together and depended on each other. “My childhood was not as perfect as you assume.”

“Did you have someone hurling insults at you morning, noon, and night?”

“No.”

“Did you know who your mother was?”

“Yes.”

“Did you have a warm place to sleep?”

“Yes.”

“Then how imperfect could your childhood have been?”

“Our father ruined my mother.” Ruby could not believe she was standing up for the mother who’d ignored her, left a child unloved for years. “After Drake left her, pregnant and hopelessly in love with him, she was not the same. We have more in common than you could possibly know.”

Ellie folded her arms across her chest defensively. “I do not believe you.”

“I do not care if you believe me or not,” Ruby said, angrily. “Since my father’s death—correction, the man who raised me—I have not been hugged, I have not been given a choice in my life, and I most certainly have not felt the love and adoration of a parent. My mother despised me since my very birth, condemning me to be like the father I didn’t even know sired me.”

Her sister remained quiet, unmoving. Ruby knew she listened to every word.

“But now we have each other. We never need feel unloved or unwanted again, because I want you—and I hope you want me.”