Chapter 147: CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED AND FORTY SEVEN: SISTERS

~MIRA’S POV~

My heart broke as I watched the interaction between the two most important women in my life but couldn’t say anything. My mother recognised best friend but couldn’t recognise her daughter. Could I blame her? I wasn’t even her real daughter.

“Long time no see, Lisa. You left us without a word and you don’t visit anymore. How are you doing?” I heard my mother ask Lisa.

I tried to smile when Lisa turned to me in silent enquiry but my eyes stung too much with tears.

“I’m doing okay, ma,” Lisa replied.

My mother said something I didn’t hear but it made Lisa laugh. They held hands. Something my mother never did with me since she was brought to the clinic.

“You still look pretty.”

“Not as pretty as you,” my mother answered with a laugh.

For the first time, she looked at me with more than a hint of a smile. My heart skipped. “Who’s your friend? She’s pretty too.”

My broken heart broke again. Lisa inhaled sharply. She released My mother's hands, eyes ablaze with confusion as she glared at me.

I cracked a smile.“Hi, I’m Mira.” I said. “Nice to meet you, mum… I mean ma…Sorry.”

I might not be biologically related to my mother but we were identical in a few ways. Identical brown eyes, long black hair and the same height. My hand hung mid-air as I contemplated touching my mother.

“Can I hold your hands? If that’s okay.”

Who would have thought I would need permission for something as simple as holding my mother’s hand? It felt like a privilege I took for granted all those years ago. I didn’t realise I was crying till Lisa passed me a tissue.

Panic etched on my mother’s features and she retracted her hand from my reach. “What’s going on?” she asked, eyes on Lisa, who was just as shocked. “Why is your friend crying?”

I wanted to scream. I needed to scratch and claw at something. I jumped to my feet, hands sinking into my hair.

“You really don’t remember?”

How could a mother forget her daughter?

“Remember what?” mymother asked.

“Forget it,” I snapped and stormed out of the room.

Seconds later, footsteps echoed behind me but I didn’t stop walking. I quickened my pace and hurried out of the hospital.The cold air hit my face but it was nothing compared to the chill in my heart or the shivers running down my back. I found my way to the garage and crumpled to the floor. Hiding my face in my palms, my body shook as tears wracked my frame.

Warm arms wrapped around my shoulders and the soothing smell of Lisa’s perfume enveloped me in a cocoon. I let my best friend comfort me. And my cries finally reduced to hiccups and silent sobs.

“I didn’t know,” Lisa whispered.

We were both seated on the pavement. I squeezed the handkerchief in my grip, unable to face Lisa.

“I don’t really understand. What happened? How come?”

“I don’t know,” I answered. My eyes met my best friends and they mirrored the same hurt in mine. “She just came to the house…” my throat clogged and my voice trailed off as another round of tears threatened to burst out.

Lisa squeezed my hands in assurance, I nodded a few times and continued. “She was out cold when I found her. She was bruised. I don’t know.”

Lisa placed a hand on my shoulder. “It’s okay.”

That was what Grey said but it wasn’t. They were both lying to me. “I don’t think it’s okay, Lisa. It’s not.”

“No, it’s not,” Lisa finally agreed with a sigh of resignation. “She doesn’t remember you. Fuck.”

The words made my reality even more painful and my heart clenched. I dabbed the corners of my eyes to keep the tears from falling. I couldn’t go back into that ward, I couldn’t face my mother or that stranger with the same face as my mother. My mother would never forget me. A real mother wouldn’t.

“But she remembers you.” I tried to sound happy as I said, “Lilisaaa.”

Lisa laughed but it was just as fake as my smile. My best friend used to be chubby with fat cheeks but she lost all that weight in her senior year. Our knees touched and I hugged myself.

“It’s crazy, right? That she remembers you and not me.”

“It is,” my friend said.

“Selective amnesia,” I mumbled under my breath.

Lisa’s face scrunched and I laughed. I tucked my hands between my legs. I missed my husband. He would have carried me in his arms or kissed me or taken me to an ice-cream parlour. I was getting so dependent on him and I couldn’t say if it was a great thing.

What if Grey also got into an accident and he couldn’t remember me? The thought made me shudder. I dragged myself to the present, to the face of my loyal best friend. Lisa would never forget me. We were sisters for life.

“That’s what the doctor said,” I explained. “Sometimes, when we are so hurt, we force ourselves to forget some memories. Painful ones.”

Maybe that was what happened. My departure hurt my parents. Maybe it broke them and my mother chose to protect herself by forgetting about me. Would my father also do the same?

“I guess I hurt them. I hurt her.”

“Don’t say that,” Lisa chided.

I didn’t reply but in my heart of hearts, I knew that if had to be the case. I was a selfish adult who walked out on the parents who raised me in ways my biological mother never would have been able to. They deserved an obedient, loving child, not an ungrateful brat who threatened them and ran off in search of her birth parents the moments she could.

A tap on my shoulder made me blink. Lisa snapped her fingers in my face. “Jesus, Mira. What’s going on?”

I said nothing as I stood to my feet. There was one person I would like to visit. The man who knew about my mother’s whereabouts all these weeks and refused to tell me.

“You’re scaring me.”

“Why?” I shrugged Lisa’s hands off my shoulders. We stood toe to toe, my best friend intense gaze made me murmur, “I’m just tired.”

Lisa softened. “I understand. You should go home.”

“Yeah. I need to rest.” Hugging my best friend, I said, “Thank you for coming. You’re the best, Lisa.”

We walked hand in hand to the junction to get a cab. After biding each other farewell, we boarded our separate cab.