17: Not Mine

JASON

I didn’t have too much to drink tonight, but I could have sworn I was starting right at Jenna.

She wasn’t my eighteen year old adopted sister. Not the girl I taught how to climb out of her window to sneak out at night.

Not the one who kissed me in the—

No. We’re not going there.

I haven’t let myself think of that in seven years. I’m not about to start now.

But God, I wasn’t looking at my Jenna. Not my Jenny. She was a woman.

The woman that has haunted my dreams, since she disappeared on the night of her eighteenth birthday. The night I rejected her, even after she begged me not to.

My heart burns every time I think of that night. It was the worst night of my life. I thought I was doing the right thing, the best thing for us.

I didn’t understand the gravity of what I’d done until I returned home that night. I found my panicked mother looking for her. She held a piece of paper in her hands as she cried for the daughter the Goddess had blessed her with.

I was waiting for the tongue