"Cass...Cassandra! What are you doing here?!" She exclaims at the sight of me.

"I was supposed to visit here, remember?" I remind her.

Realization seems to hit her. "Oh! Right! I came to check on you."

"Check on me?" I ask, confused.

"Yeah. Check on you." She confirms.

"Helen, you called me ten seconds ago to tell me that you're visiting relatives." I say.

"I know I am...I mean, I was supposed to  but they're not going to be able to get free soon so I can just work for the rest of the day." She tells me.

I frown. "You're hiding something."

She scoffs. "No I'm not. But makes you say that?"

"The fact that you're making no sense at all is what made me say that." I reply.

"Look, can we just...Oh my God!" The pieces start to fit in my brain and I see the bigger picture.

"What?" She asks.

My nightmare is confirmed when a little voice squeaks from behind me. "Aunty!"

Sarah runs up to us and throws her arms around Helen's knees. I stare at the two of them as if it's a dream. Helen bends down and kisses the girl on the head before hugging her, tightly.

My breathing starts to hitch and I know that I need to calm down, right now. I walk away from them and back to the lobby where I sit down on the same couch and try to get my breathing under control. At the same moment my phone starts to ring.

I decline the call and type in a message.

I'll call you later, William. Love you.

The sound of someone stopping next to me makes me look up. Helen looks down at me, her face flushed.

"Please hear me out before you get to any conclusions." She says. I nod and motion to the couch in front of me.

"Why didn't you tell anyone?" I ask her as she sits down across from me.

She rubs her hands together but doesn't reply which makes anger rage inside me and tears brim my eyes.

"You had a niece all this time and you never told anyone. But that's not what I'm mad about. How come you never felt pity for the poor child? I mean the children here are hopeless, they don't have any family, no one to look after them. And here she is amongst them when she has an aunt who has enough money to provide her with everything she needs but you're just too...What? Arrogant? Selfish?"

"Will you stop accusing me?!" She exclaims tears in her own eyes.

I scoff. "No I won't! Not till you admit that you've ruined this poor girl's life. I mean, it's not her fault that her parents are dead!"

"AND IT'S NOT MY FAULT THAT HER FATHER DIED!!!!!"

"What?" I whisper.

"You heard me." She says in a small voice.

"Her father? Who was the mother?" I ask, softly.

She looks up at me with tears streaming down her face and I know what this means. "Oh, Helen!"

"We got married when we were nineteen. Our parents disapproved of the marriage but we loved each other too much to be apart. Getting pregnant with her was easy. But he died a day after she was born."

I get up and go sit next to her. "What happened?"

"A heart attack. I was too grieve stricken and in the moment I just brought her straight from the hospital to the first orphanage that crossed my mind. After a couple of days I realized what a foolish thing I'd done."

"Why didn't you get her back?" I ask, shocked.

She sniffs. "I was too ashamed of having let her go and I didn't know what to do."

"Helen, she was just a baby then. You let her go just because you were ashamed?"

"What can I do about it, now? She's almost four now and she thinks that I'm her Aunt. She doesn't even know that I'm her mother." Helen sighs.

I put a hand on her shoulder. "Tell me something. Do you really, truly want her back into your life?"

She nods. "Of course, I do. No mother wants to stay away from her child but..." She trails off, making me ask. "But what?"

"But I can't bring myself to do it because what will she think? It'll affect her for the rest of her life. She will never look at me as a mother. She'll always hate me." She explains.

I come to her defense. "No. She won't once you've explained to her everything. Besides, she's just a child now. She'll be over the moon just knowing that she has a mother. She would never hate you."

"I can't bring myself to do anything. I've often started several times but I never do it."

I pull away my hand and look at her. "How about I help you?"

I updated a day early because I reached 200 followers! :')

Before anything else, so many of you commented on the previous chapter. Thank you so much for that! :) And I know that all those who commented expected Helen to be Sarah's aunt but no she's her mother.

Also, thank you for the 20.4K reads! :)

Any suggestions for the playlist? Maybe a song about betrayal or family?

Read, Vote & Comment!

~

P.S. If you have any questions please do feel free to comment or message me because I'll be more than glad to answer any questions you have about this story or any other story of mine that you've read :)