Stare (Until Then)

A girl gets adopted into a new family and finds herself in love with their daughter. As years go by, she battles with her inner feelings, will it be in vain?

She was with her nose in yet another book during class, utterly beautiful.

Utterly untouchable.

Her name was Catherine but ever since we were little kids, I called her Kit-Kat. She earned the name mostly because of her addiction to those chocolaty sticks but I had my hidden reasons as well: I wanted to break off a piece of that Kit-Kat bar so bad.

But I just couldn't because, well, I was her sister. Of course, we weren't related biologically. Her parents adopted me when I was about five years old from my fucked up alcoholic mother. I remember the trip to my new home better than the history test I had studied for last night like nobody's business (till 2am to be exact).

It was one of those nights that you really didn't want to be caught dead in; winter snow was falling in fluffy dust balls and landing in gunky morose pools of water at my feet. I wasn't that happy if you can imagine but it had been a relief to finally escape that cockroach bomb shelter I had been forced to call home since birth. My tainted green eyes took in my surroundings with dull curiosity. Everything was alien to me, the snow around me and the social worker that'd taken me from home and grinned at me with her gigantic horse teeth that reeked horribly of coffee.

"Call me Auntie," she'd said with that obnoxious smile when she put me into her rusty old Toyota corolla. While buckling me into some ridiculous child car seat, she'd handed me a picture of three disgustingly happy people; a tall fairly handsome young man with chestnut hair and adorning a blue polo, a fair woman with blonde hair and a grinning open face, and a little girl who stared innocently at the camera.

This little girl struck me somewhere I never even felt existed.

When I was a baby, I had a ventricular septal defect, which is just a fancy word for a hole in the heart. My mother had told me during one of her fairly heavy drinking sessions that she spent valuable vodka money on fixing it; I didn't believe her. I believed that she never had it fixed, fled the hospital with me, and let the hole grow, tearing my heart apart and shredding it; that of course was just a huge exaggeration I had made as a child.

All I believed in shattered at the sight of this wide blue-eyed angelic little girl with curly blonde hair. I felt my heart beat for the first time in my life at that moment. Of course, I didn't understand what on earth was going on inside me since I was, after all, five years old but I did know that something very catastrophic had taken place in that godforsaken car seat.

I had fallen in love with that girl in the photo and I wanted to head straight back into that rat nest called home. My little body couldn't handle the fact that my heart could, after all that neglect, so easily let this picture consume it. I hadn't even met the girl and here I was, my eyes catching every little detail of her face and how her every hair-strand caught the sun and cast a ghostly halo around her being.

Of course, it had been too late to head back. "Auntie" was speeding down the highway by the time I was coherent enough to even think, "Go back". I remember flinging the photograph out the open window and watching it fall into one of the many puddles of melted germ flakes. I had tried to force the image of the girl's clueless yet intelligent eyes boring into the camera, no smile on her face; Just sweet oblivion.

It was that same angelic face that greeted me as I was plucked out of my car seat by "Auntie" and plopped in front of this outrageously simple house. From the picture, I expected a castle of some sorts because of all the pretty faces (and of course that my bedroom would be the dungeon) but it was an ordinary two-story house with a generic yard and porch. I only observed the house for a moment before a glimmer of gold sent my memory whirling back to the photo. My eyes automatically went to the face that accompanied the gold hair and my breath caught as I took in the little girl's face in the flesh. I wanted to walk over, reach out, and touch her pale skin but I was afraid of what she'd do if I did. She also looked too fragile to touch. I thought that if I were to lay a finger on her, she'd shatter and turn into yet another pile of ice in that wintery hell.

She stared back at me with her wide curious yet distant blue eyes and we stood there, a few feet from each other, and stared at each other. Her parents thought it was all very normal for me to stare at another kid my age since it was my first encounter with another child. Why her? That's the question I've asked myself over the years. I always wondered if I'd seen a wide-eyed boy in that picture, would I have fallen for him? Was it because she was the first other human, let alone child, I'd seen? The answer of course was no, because only she had the angelic aura I wanted and apparently needed. She had been my savior and also my damnation that day eleven years ago.

The years had crawled by as I'd fought internally over my feelings, trying in vain to change them, but I never won. Even after that first day when I committed myself to never touching or speaking to my angel, I caved in. The second I was allowed alone with her, I spoke.

"Hi," I'd blurted out, my voice raising an octave with nervousness. Her blue eyes looked up from the Dr. Seuss book she was reading and bore into mine.

"Hi," she responded and continued to stare at me. Soon I felt dizzy under her gaze and self-conscious of my raggedy appearance.

"My name's Ashley," I courageously said, venturing further into unknown territory. I had no idea how to interact with other kids; I just acted as if I did. She saw through my exterior though and her eyes grew gentle. The sudden display of emotion in those otherwise distant eyes caused my heart to stutter.

"Pretty name," she commented with a bright smile that made me dizzy from its brilliance, "mine's Catherine."

After a few slow deliberate breaths to calm myself down, I smiled back.

That small conversation was the beginning of my chaos.

As the years passed, I grew accustomed to the house and my new parents who, soon after my arrival, adopted me. I even grew to endure the havoc Catherine, my Kit-Kat, had ensued within me. She was oblivious to the double meaning in my gazes, interpreting them as sisterly love, as I watched over her. In my mind, Kit-Kat was a glass sculpture of perfection and if someone even seemed to threaten her stability on my pedestal, I lashed out. I was her bodyguard and, in my unstable lovesick mind, her knight in shining armor.

As Kit-Kat grew into her teens, males accumulated even more than in elementary school. While most boys screamed, "cooties!!" at the sight of girls in elementary, they screamed, "Love me!!" at Kit-Kat; she was, after all, perfection. Her golden silky cascading hair, sea blue eyes, and dainty figure captivated everyone who fated a glance in her direction. The fact that her words and emotions were all pure and innocent only worked to increase her fan basis. Yet, as high school neared us, she had yet to take a boyfriend or even show a faint interest in any of the boys as far as I could observe.

I, of course, was invigorated by this and relieved. I sure as heck didn't want her to fall in love with anyone... Unless it was me but of course that wasn't about to happen. I mean, really? I was her adopted sister from some alcoholic hobo, with a possible hole still in my heart (I was still convinced this was so), and a girl.

Well, while she didn't try to make any male companions, I did. I tried very hard to erase this wonderfully damning feeling in my soul with guys, and lots of them. Now, now, I'm still a virgin; I'm not a w***e. Everything I did was innocent when compared to my alcoholic mother who had "many a men in bed". Obviously, I dumped every single one of them like hot potatoes after a while; they got very boring. Kit-Kat looked down on what she called my "manaholic" stage in life. I always found her nickname for my man-whoring very hilarious because it was so innocent compared to what the other girls of school called me. I didn't care what they said anyway, only Kit-Kat's words mattered. At first, I shrugged off her disapproval because who was this angel, who tortured me so, to tell me what to do? I was only doing what was necessary to get her off my mind but after a while of kissing, I always imagined whomever I was with as her.

Always.

The vision of her and I kissing was always too much for me to bear and soon, I had enough of the torture. I dropped the last man of my manaholic stage and tried to redeem myself in her eyes by shying away from guys.

My rehab from men didn't really last long though because soon enough, just as I dreaded, Kit-Kat found herself a guy; a guy that conveniently sat right behind Kit-Kat in my only class with her.

"Ashley?...Ashley!" Kit-Kat whispered from her seat to me, pulling me from my reverie. I blinked, bringing back my focus to her face.

"What?" I asked dumbly.

"That's exactly what I should be asking. Why are you staring at me?" Kit-Kat asked, an amused look on her face. I bit my lip, scorning myself internally.

"You have a make-up smudge on your face," I said bluntly, trying to act cool and collected. Kit-Kat's eyes bulged and she wiped at her cheeks frantically. Suddenly, she stopped wiping.

"Wait a second... I didn't put on make-up," she said, eyeing me. I cracked a smile, trying to hide the fact that I totally pulled that excuse out of my a*s.

"Got you," I joked with a wide grin. Kit-Kat rolled her eyes and I caught her boyfriend sending me a glare. He probably knew why I was staring but ever since my little "pep talk", which was me basically telling him that I'd beat him into a bloody pulp if he ever made Kit-Kat cry or pissed off, he hasn't said anything about me to Kit-Kat. I was sure that if anyone ever told Kit-Kat I had different motives and reasons for the things I do and say around her, she'd run from me; positive this would happen, actually.

The bell rang and I realized I had totally spaced at the wrong time, leaving a few of the questions on the essay part of the test unanswered. I cursed and internally beat myself up for zoning as I handed in my incomplete test.

"So much for studying," I mumbled as I walked with Kit-Kat to our car. She glanced at me with her calm blue eyes, causing my breath to skip.

"That's what you get for zoning in class. You always do that in History... thinkin' about prom, I bet," Kit-Kat said and rolled her eyes as she rounded the car to the passenger's side. I wonder why, I thought sarcastically.

"I was not," I said, my turn to give a roll of the eyes. Kit-Kat grinned at me and raised an eyebrow.

"Suure," she said and got into the car.

***

Ah, sweet prom night and I have no arm candy but Kit-Kat does.

What a rip off but whatever, I'll pick up a guy at the party. I mean, why should I keep myself single when little miss pretty over there has herself a boy toy? I want one too.

So I drove to the hotel that the prom was being hosted in, alone since Kit-Kat and Mr. Balls (as I like to call him) went in a limo, and scanned the dance floor for my next victim. I spotted a pretty nice looking junior by the punch, which was secretly being spiked by one of his friends, and introduced myself. If I must say so myself, my dress was fabulous with a black corset adorned with purple lacing and a purple mid-thigh length skirt. I had picked a nice pair of fishnet stockings and black high heel boots to go along with my dress, so I was "irrisistible" so to say to the opposite sex... not so much Kit-Kat.

I led my new guy to the dance floor, his eyes glued to my chest like any other bimbo guy, and began to dance/make-out. Around this time, the girl of the evening and her beloved walked in, Kit-Kat and Mr. Balls.

The minute Kit-Kat saw me with my little boy toy, she frowned and headed towards me, shockingly detaching herself from her boy toy.

"Ashley, what are you doing?" She blirted out, her eyes irritated. Interesting, I thought as I detached my lips from my dazzled date.

"What does it look like I'm doing? I'm having fun," I said with a cocky grin. Kit-Kat frowned.

"We need to talk," she said in a serious tone. I rolled my eyes.

"No, you need to walk," I said, a little harsh, but hey who was she to boss me around? I'd had enough of this futile love triangle that existed only in my mind.

Kit-Kat seized my hand and yanked me away from my confused kissing partner. I stared at her, wide-eyed.

"What the hell?" I yelled as she pulled me to the girl's bathroom. I decided to let it go and instead observed her wear for the day. Of course, she was a goddess in a white silk dress that exposed her back and arms, and shimmered in the lights. Her hair was pulled back into a bun with strands dangling from it and from the back of her neck.

It just wasn't fair.

When we entered the bathroom, she whirled around to face me, her cheeks flushed.

"I thought you were done with toying with guys," Kit-Kat accused. I glanced away from her harsh eyes and folded my arms across my chest, feeling uncomfortable and exposed.

"Why are you so concerned with my romantic affairs?" I said, glaring at the wall behind her.

"Because I hate hearing all the bullshit people say about you at school! You're not a w***e, why are you acting like one?" She yelled. My eyes widened and I was caught off guard by her sudden lash out. I chanced a glance at her and regretted it, seeing her eyes full of anger hurt my chest. I'd made her mad and tainted her innocence, what was wrong with me?

"I'm not acting like one. Maybe I am one, just like my mother. Heck, I might even have a taste for alcohol," I growled, covering my hurt with anger. SHUT UP, I screamed at myself. Kit-Kat glared at me.

"Don't you dare go saying that kind of stuff about yourself, you know it's not true," she retorted, finally setting me off; all my pent up frustration and anger was released.

"How would you know? You know nothing about me!" I screamed. Kit-Kat's bottom lip quivered and her eyebrows came together.

"How, how could you say that? We're sis-" She said, cutting off as I pushed her against the wall and planted my lips on hers. Kit-Kat put her hands on my shoulders and pushed but to no avail. I pulled away, breathing hard, and bore my eyes into her confused wide blue eyes.

"You don't know anything about me," I whispered and walked out of the bathroom, catching a glimpse of Kit-Kat in the mirror that covered the entire bathroom wall; her hands were to her lips, her eyes so confused and collecting tears. I grit my teeth against the image and headed straight for the hotel exit, her boyfriend and my date's eyes following me the whole way.

For the next few days, there was utter silence between Kit-Kat and I. Every day, she went to and from school with her boyfriend and ignored my existance in History class.

I'm not going to deny that I deserved it because I did, big time. The entire 72 hours after my retarded kiss attack I was mentally kicking and punching myself. I could not believe I had done such a stupid thing. I, her guardian, fricken attacked her and made her cry. I am horrible.

Or so I'd thought until the 73rd hour when we were at home after school. Mom and dad had yet to come home from work and I was in the kitchen whipping up a monster guilt sandwich when I heard the click-clack of Kit-Kat's new platforms. I continued to make my sandwich, ignoring her approach so there wouldn't be an awkward atmosphere.

"Ashley?" I heard Kit-Kat say in a quiet voice. I froze, my heart stopping all together at the sound I'd been missing for the past 72 hours and 59 seconds. I stared at the mustard bottle I had hovering over my sandwich.

"Yeah?" I said, the atmosphere quickly becoming awkard, so much for avoiding it. I heard the click-clacking coming closer and glanced quickly at the floor to my right, her dainty feet appearing right below my arm. I hesitantly raised my eyes and stared at her, her face inches from mine.

Kit-Kat's eyes were strangely calm, something I didn't expect when she was around me.

Another thing I didn't expect was the kiss she tentively gave my cheek.

The mustard bottle fell from my hand and squashed my sandwich, but that was the least of my concerns. I blinked frantically, thinking maybe if I blinked enough the image of Kit-Kat would disappear.

"If you're going to kiss me, do it like that," she said bluntly. I gawked at her.

"W-what?" I stuttered. She smiled gently.

"I said, if you're going to kiss me, do it like that. Don't squash my lips," Kit-Kat said. I blinked again, baffled.

"Like this," she said, leaning in. I jerked away.

"What are you doing? Mom and dad are going to be home soon," I said in a shrill voice.

"So?" She said with a frown and went for my lips again. I put my hands up, her lips landing on my palms.

"Kit-Kat, I'm sorry if I made you confused at prom but if this is some sympathy kiss session, I'm bailing," I said with a confused frown. She pursed her lips.

"I don't do sympathy kiss sessions," Kit-Kat said. I frowned.

"I'm sorry. I got you all confused," I said, shaking my head as I mentally scorned myself yet again for what I did.

"I'm not confused," Kit-Kat said with a frustrated expression. She grabbed my hands and pulled them up to her face, forcing me to cup her cheeks.

"I've been thinking the past few days and I finally unscrambled my brain," she said, her eyes calm and determined.

"I wasn't giving you an ultimatum, Kit, I was being stupid. I didn't mean what I did, really. You don't have to unscramble anything."

"Well I mean what I do," Kit-Kat said and suddenly, letting go of my frozen hands, pulled my face to hers and kissed me. My eyes went wide for a moment. After a second or two, I finally was mentally stable enough to try and pull away but Kit-Kat's usually very feeble hands became steel claws around my face.

She pulled away slightly to catch her breath and I glanced at her, confused.

"Mom and dad..." I said, barely coherent.

"Doesn't matter," she mumbled as she eagerly put her lips back to mine. I squeezed my eyes shut and willed myself not to take advantage of her sympathy. She was just being herself, innocent and kind and sympathetic for her confused lovesick adopted sister.

I finally got enough common sense to detach my hands from her cheeks and wrap them around her hands. I pulled them off and stepped back from her.

"Stop," I said, "you don't understand what you're doing." To me, to be specific, I thought to myself but I don't think that would have helped the situation.

"I know exactly what I'm doing. I know exactly what I'm feeling, do you? Why'd you kiss me? Was it just a joke to you or something? Why are you pushing me away?" Kit-Kat asked, her eyes anguished.

I closed my eyes and sighed, trying to compose myself.

"I wasn't joking around but that doesn't mean you have to do this for me."

"Who said I was doing this just for you?" Kit-Kat said, frustrated. I frowned, confused.

"But... I'm a girl... and so are you," I said, still confused. Kit-Kat shrugged.

"That didn't stop you," she threw back. I bit my lip.

"That's... that's because I'm different."

"I am too." I shook my head.

"Not that way," I said, putting my hands on her shoulders as she came towards me.

"Who are you to say that? I am who I am and so are you. You love me, right?" Kit-Kat asked upfront. I froze for a moment.

"Yes," I said, frowning.

"And I love you, so what's wrong with that?"

My heart stuttered frantically, could she hear it?

"Everything." Kit-Kat glared at me.

"Nothing is wrong with that," she said persistently and cupped my face with her free hands. "Love is love, and we love each other, right?" Kit-Kat continued confidently. I nodded hesitantly and she smiled.

"Then this isn't wrong," she said as she pulled me towards her and this time, I didn't resist.

***

When our parents came home, Kit-Kat and I were sitting on the couch, hunched over homework and absolutely not suspicious.

"Well, well. I see you guys are over your fight," dad said as he plopped down on the opposite couch. Mom smiled at us as she made her way over to the kitchen, getting ready to make dinner.

"Sisters always get over their qeurals, Dan," Mom said from the kitchen. Dad nodded.

"True, true. Just like us, sweetheart," Dad said with a goofy grin and opened up a newspaper as mom laughed-

I glanced over at Kit-Kat and our eyes connected.

"What are we going to do about mom and dad? I mean... they are also my mom and dad now," I said to Kit-Kat as she made herself comfortable in my lap on the couch. She lay her head on my shoulder.

"When we graduate, that's when we'll tell them," Kit-Kat said as I rested my head on top of her gold locks.

"And the people at school? They'll give you a hard time," I nagged. Kit-Kat sighed.

"Yeah, I know. How about this? We stay the way we were before until graduation. Then, afterwards, we're free to do as we please," Kit-Kat said, a grin apparent in her voice. I frowned.

"Hmm, I've already done that how many years?" I said, grumpy. Kit-Kat giggled.

"You can do it. I'll be resisting too, for two more years. It's not that bad," she reassured me. I sighed.

"Okay," I said reluctantly. Kit-Kat moved her head and I raised mine just as she gave me a peck on the cheek.

"Until then, you can stare all you want," she joked. I grimaced.

"How'd you know I stared?" Kit-Kat smiled.

"Easy, I'm just as aware of you as you are of me silly. I always felt your eyes on me, oh so protectively," she said with a wide grin and poked my cheek. I couldn't help but smile at her, the radiance of her smile absorbing my negativity.

I kissed her forehead and hugged her to me, "Until then," I murmured into her hair.

Kit-Kat grinned up at me, her eyes sparkling. I grinned back, her happiness contagious.

The fact that there was a "then" gleefully danced around in my mind with the image of her and I together. We would stay this way, happily playing our oblivious parts...

Until then.

Author's Note

I'm not sure if I should keep or scrap the ending after the astrecks.

Reviews

[Fadra93]

You should keep it, but write MORE about them.
Puhleeaase?

[OutToLunch]

wow. i can see why you won, L!

[Jean]

Definitely keep the ending. This was really good! Very creative and very well written. Thanks for joining my contest! :D