Forbidden Sister Read Online Free Page A

avoided mentioning Roxy and therefore using her as the example of what not to be, he relied heavily on the story of Mama’s sister, Manon, who got pregnant at sixteen and married a much older man, a friend of her young uncle. Mama would counter with the fact that they were still married and had a nice family.
    “Only you French can pretend not to see what’s on your right and left flanks,” Papa told her. “Yves or Leaves or whatever he calls himself is surely out there pollinating other jeunes filles . It takes only one foolish time,” Papa warned me. “You go a little bit farther and farther out on this weak branch until it snaps and drops you in one pool of muck. That’s what teenagers frolicking in sex do, swim in muck.”
    Although he didn’t add them, I could hear the words, Just ask your sister.
    “Norton, s’il vous plaît, ” Mama pleaded.
    He gave me one more look of warning and returned to his breakfast.
    I had yet to bring a boy home to meet my parents,because I was terrified of how Papa would make him feel. It would surely be like a CIA interrogation. I once told Chastity that my father would probably water-board any boy I had been out with more than once, let alone twice.
    And all because of Roxy!
    Under these circumstances, who wouldn’t expect me to be more and more interested in whom and what she had turned out to be? I had every reason to hate her. Look how she was affecting my life. She was like someone who had died but wouldn’t stay buried. She could be thousands of miles away, not only blocks away, but it wouldn’t matter. Papa would always look past whatever I had done to see if Roxy had a hand in it, if her influence was in my blood. There were many nights when I raged to myself about it. I wouldn’t dare rage at Papa, but I could mutter and think my protest aloud when I was alone.
    “If you’re going to forget her, Papa, forget her. Don’t keep looking in me to find her! And don’t deny that you do!”
    I even imagined his guilty, remorseful face, but none of this fantasizing helped to make it easier.
    I would look out my bedroom window at the street below whenever I had these thoughts. I could see the corner from where I stood. I knew Roxy was just a little north of us.
    “Why didn’t you go farther away?” I whispered. “Did you stay here just to spite Papa? Or did you stay close because you were sorry and really do miss us?
    “I’m going to know the answers to all of my questions about you, Roxy. I swear. I’m going to force you to look at me. And I’m going to make you do what I have done too often because of you.
    “I’m going to make you cry.”

2

    “We’re going to do it today,” I told Chastity as soon as I met her in the school hallway.
    As usual, she was walking with her head down, not expecting anyone else to say hi. When she heard me, she looked up quickly and twisted her thin lips so hard I thought either the upper or the lower would snap like a rubber band. Her facial features were too small for her round, chubby face. She had nice mocha-brown eyes, but her lazy lids were habitually narrowed, giving the impression that she was falling asleep, even while walking. She had naturally curly light brown hair, which in her case was a disadvantage, because it almost always looked like a nest made by a drunken rat.
    “Yeah, right,” she said. I couldn’t blame her for her skepticism. Three times this week alone, I had said so but backed out before the school day ended.
    “I’m really serious this time. I told my father I was going to your house to study after school. I even told him Kelli and her brother were joining us.”
    “Really?”she said, permitting more credibility to slip in. She knew how I felt about lying to my father.
    “Yes, so if he ever asks you about it, you know what to say, okay?”
    “Absolutely,” she said, her eyelids fluttering like the wings of a bird waking up. Her whole face lit up with excitement. It was as if someone had