Growing up in London Adam had a fairly privileged childhood. He had everything one could ask for. A good family, a nice big home, a great education and more than enough presents every Christmas. What lacked was any love or affection from his parents.
Both of his parents were lawyers who lived more for the law firm than for either Adam or his sister Rachel.
Rachel was 3 years younger than Adam. Like most siblings they went through the usual phases of being playmates bordering on friends during childhood to being total strangers in teenage years to eventually settling on a middle ground of love and respect for one other. Even though they fought like all siblings did, Adam was highly protective of his younger sister.
So much so that by the time Rachel was finishing off college, most boys Rachel's age stayed clear of her. Not because she wasn't pretty. But the fact that she was Adam's baby sister. Adam who by this time was becoming into a handsome man stood at 6'3. His muscular, broad-shouldered build garnered over years on the rugby pitch made him quite an intimidating sight for any of Rachel's admirers.
So although Rachel's admirers which were quite a few, none dared approach her whilst Adam was a presence.
By the time she was 18 Rachel was a ravishing beauty. At 5'10, her slender shape and toned legs coupled with her long, flowing chestnut brown hair made her more suited to modeling than the eventual clerical career she chose.
In her heart of hearts, Rachel never held it against Adam that his presence was keeping the potential of love away. In fact, it made her proud and exceptionally happy to see him smile as he came back home with his hair a mess, his shorts and shirt both dirty with mud from rugby practice. She would have traded all the boys in the world to see Adam smile that smile for her every day.
It was no surprise then that a part of her heart broke when Adam upon graduating decided to move to New York to start working in banking. To her it felt like a betrayal - that he would leave her here on her own after making her so used to being looked after and protected.
Adam didn't see it that way or at least he didn't show her as much. Although he was sad to leave his baby sis to the mercy of the parents who by now were both partners in the law firm and hence had even lesser time on their hands, he didn't think much of it.
Promises were made of visiting often, Christmas, then Easter. And of course promises were made of phone calls and text messages. But as it always happens, the visits never materialized to the frequency pledged and with the time difference, the phone calls became a chore rather than a preference.
It wasn't that Adam didn't want to keep in touch. New York just enveloped him completely so that he had no time left for anything else. Literally from Day 1, Adam was an immediate hit in the big apple. Girls found him to be charming, his British accent and his handsome looks an immediate draw the moment he stepped into any bar. Rachel who tried to make more of an effort with the phone calls soon began to give up as she felt was constantly intruding on Adam's life. Each time she called, a new girl answered Adam's phone. She wanted to question her brother about what he was doing and who these women were, but she knew better and never asked.
Whilst Adam thrived in New York, Rachel suffered in London. By the time she was 25 she had had 3 boyfriends, none of whom were her intellectual equal but whom she had tolerated because she felt that was what was expected of her. Eventually she settled on a lawyer - much to her mother's delight - and decided to stick with him even though she could tell her was a prude.
The first couple of years with Nate - the lawyer - were bearable. He was definitely clever but arrogantly so.
And it was this arrogance that began to sow the seeds of discord. The more Nate worked hard at his law firm, the more he became obnoxious at home. Fights became the norm. For the silliest of things and at times for things neither one of them could remember, Rachel and Nate fought bitterly. Rachel calmly, Nate far more brashly.
Then came the alcohol. Nate forever with a glass in his hand so that what came next was pretty predictable. One night he returned home late from work already drunk. In his drunken state he tried to force himself onto Rachel - after having ignored her for months as he was screwing around with at least two girls that Rachel knew about. Rachel refused his drunken advances and in turn, Nate let loose.
By the time Rachel managed to escape the house and look at herself in the hotel room mirror, the entire left side of her face was swollen red and her right eye was turning a purple-ish blue. She couldn't believe what she saw in the mirror for the face that looked at her resembled somebody she knew but couldn't figure out from where. She tried to cry but the effort of making herself cry hurt her swollen eye even more.
She wanted to shout. She wanted to scream. She wanted to tell somebody what had happened to her. But who would actually care, she thought. Who in this world would actually care?
She took out her phone and took a picture of herself in the mirror. And then with all the anger swelling up inside her, she wrote a message.
'Where were you? Didn't you promise to always keep me safe?'
She wasn't herself and without knowing what she was doing she attached the picture to the message and sent it to Adam.
