Forgotten

BOBS POV.

After having to literally peel a distraught Cassie off of me, I had finally set off for Nicola's house. I had the door key Ben had given me so I could let myself in, and I had Robbie with me to show me where everything is.

"So..." said Robbie, kicking his feet up onto the dashboard from where he was sat in the passenger seat of my car next to me.

"Feet down," I said firmly, hoping he would listen to me. I'm not so great about this whole parenting crap... I say, just let them do as they please and if they get hurt or do something stupid, they'll learn their lesson. Just as I am now...

"Fine," he sighed and put his feet down on the floor, then started fidgeting.

"What is it kiddo?" I glanced over at him, he looked tense about something.

"I'm just nervous about tomorrow night. What if I mess up?"

"Run offstage?" I suggested.

"I can't run away!"

"Urm... pretend to break your finger so you can't play?"

"No!" he laughed and smacked me in the arm.

The rest of the relatively short trip was spent making up increasingly ridiculous excuses for Robbie to use if he messed up on stage the following night.

"You know what, here's the best excuse in the book," I said as I parked outside the small house. "Go up there, give it your absolute best and be proud of yourself."

"I guess," he said as we both got out of the car and I locked it using the button on my keys.

"So... how come we're here?" he asked nervously as I tried the door with the key Ben had given me.

"Gotta get the rest of your things, and apparently there's some documents I need for you guys, I guess like passports and that kind of shit."

I pushed the door and it swung open with a loud creak.

"Home sweet home," said Robbie uncertainly, walking in ahead of me. I put a hand on his shoulder to stop him.

"What if Darren's here?" I asked in a low voice, in case he was upstairs or anything.

"I got you to beat the shit out of him haven't I."

"True." He walked over to the stairs before going up, I followed, having not been inside the house before bringing him with me was probably a good idea. There was three doors leading off the top landing, one of them was shut. I shuddered a little, thinking what kind of things had gone on inside this house, what had happened to them, what he had done to them.

"So this was our room," said Robbie fairly casually, strolling into a room through one of the doorways.

The room was small and had three beds, a bunk bed with one below it, and a smaller single bed on the other side of the room with pale pink sheets on it. I guessed it was Cassie's bed.

"Grab what you need and anything Cassie or Josh told you to get for them and then lets get out of here, this place gives me the creeps."

"I know, me too," he opened the closet and rummaged around for a second before producing a large sports bag.

"This is Darren's, but none of us has a bag so he can loan it to me," he explained before grabbing everything from the closet and shoveling it into the bag.

"Go next door, Mom's room, see if you can see anything important looking," he suggested. I nodded and left the room.

The door the Nicola's room was open and I walked in, instantly feeling terrible. There were pictures of her and the kids on the walls. In the earliest photo she lay in a hospital bed, two blue bundles in her arms and smiling proudly. My boys, I should have been there for her, for them.

The next picture along had two blond haired toddlers sat either side of her at a table both giggling and covered in mushy food, she laughed with them. I should have been there.

The twins were sat together before their birthday cake with a big '4' candle on the top in the next picture, indistinguishable from one another in the photographs, they wore matching clothes. They were both smiling happily though one of them had what looked like a half-healed black eye. How long has this been going on? Since they were four? Eleven years of abuse and hatred? I should have been there to stop it.

I felt myself tear up as I looked at the next picture. The boys looked about seven years old, they were sat either side of Nicola on a couch, each had one hand on her clearly heavily pregnant belly and all three of them smiling. Cassie. So if she had told me, I would have met them then, could have been there for her but no, she didn't tell me.

Throughout the photos Nicola had hardly changed one bit. She was still as beautiful as ever, her long dark hair, her amazing green eyes. In the next photograph along she was holding a baby wrapped in a pink blanket. The boys were either side of her again, both trying to get a look at their new-born sister, both now covered in very obvious and nasty looking bruises. A single tear rolled down my cheek and I wiped it away quickly.

There were only two more photographs left. One of them looked like a family portrait, Darren stood at the back, Nicola sat on a chair in front of him, holding a Cassie who looked about two years old in her arms. The boys were sat next to each other on Nicola's right hand side, smiling for the camera. Obviously forcing it. They all looked uneasy, all except for the monster stood at the back. I should have been there.

I felt anger bubble up inside of me as I looked at his face in the photograph. I wrenched my eyes away and looked at the last picture on the wall.

It was just the kids. It looked fairly recent but the black eye one of the twins was sporting was enough to immortalize the abuse in a photograph forever. I took the picture down carefully and looked at it closely, trying to tell the twins apart.

They were all smiling, all looked happy, just your average family picture except for the black eye. Why would Nicola choose to take their picture with one of them looking like that? I gently slipped the photograph out of the frame frame and flipped it over, hoping to find something on the back. To my surprise, there was writing on the back.

Bob, I know you, I know you will find this. I know you will want to know what has happened to the boy in this photograph, your boy. By now I am sure you know what has happened over the years, I'm not even sure myself sometimes but I have a feeling they would have opened up to you. Take care of them Bob, I know you can and I know you will, please watch out for them for me, I know I don't have long, I may already be gone by the time you are reading this. x.

I froze. She knew? She knew she was going to be murdered? Instead of putting the small picture back into its frame and back onto the wall, I put it carefully in my jeans pocket. Maybe she had left me other notes too?

I looked around the room, as if hoping to see something but nothing jumped out at me. I quickly wiped my eyes and walked back into the room where Robbie was hurriedly gathering up everything he could find.

"Find anything?" he asked, looking up at me.

"Nope."

"Did you look in the closet?"

"No, why?"

"I dunno, she always said something about keeping something very important in her closet."

"OK," I said uncertainly, walking back into the adjacent room and over to the closet. I opened it slowly, half expecting something to leap out and grab me but nothing did, just a closet full of clothes. Something did catch my eye. A black, hooded sweater with something very distinctive written on the sleeve.

'The Black Parade.'

Hurriedly, I pulled the sweater out and looked at it carefully. No messages. Pockets?

I felt so wrong, so disrespectful doing this but maybe it was a clue? I put my hand in the right pocket, nothing. I tried the left, and found a small, crumpled piece of paper.

I quickly unfolded, my eyes flicking over to the doorway at regular intervals to check Robbie wasn't going to find me here, up to my elbows in his Moms stuff. I unfolded the note and read the three words as fast as I could.

False sided closet.

Before I could even think I had started tapping the sides of the closet with my knuckles. One side was indeed hollow.

"What the hell?" came Robbie's voice from behind me.

"Shh. Look," I hit the side of the closet, hard and it cracked. I pulled the parts of splintered wood apart easily and put my hand into the hollow part of the wall behind the closet.

"Holy shit," I gasped, pulling out everything contained within the hidden area. There were photo albums, all the kids documents, a black velvet covered diary and a small, wooden box. All of this along with four envelopes, one for each of the kids, and one for me.

"This is for you," I said, handing Robbie the letter with his name on the front. I opened my own letter and began to read Nicola's words in her beautiful, flowing handwriting.

Bob,
If you have this letter I know it is too late for me. The children will be in your care and I hope you can do a better job providing for them then I ever could. Ever since that first day I saw you on TV with your band I began to wonder, what if you came back? What if you figured it out? What would you say when you found out this secret I have kept from you for Fifteen long years?

When we met again it was so hard for me not to tell you. I could hardly afford food for the boys and I know you could have helped me out, but him, he stopped me from telling you. If he ever finds out that I have written this he will find you and the kids and he will have no mercy. Why, you ask? Well let me explain...

Not too long after I moved away fifteen years ago, I met a nice young man named Darren Sharpe. My parents liked him a lot and encouraged our relationship. When I discovered I was pregnant, they instantly assumed it was by him but I knew otherwise. I knew the baby was yours. He began to wonder too and before long, he had hit me for the first time. Our relationship finished, for then.

When I was seventeen my parents threw me and our two and a half year old twin boys out of the house. I had to find a place to live and a job to earn money for them, to buy them food and clothes. I did something terrible, something I have regretted since that day. I went back to Darren. I needed a place to live and at first he cared for the boys as if they were his own. A year and a half later, on the boys fourth birthday I saw the first bruise. He had been hitting the boys whilst I was out 'working'.

I sold myself to pay to keep them alive and happy. Every night I would be out there, looking for clients, it was the worst time of my life, knowing what was happening to the boys whilst I slept with god knows who just for some measly cash. Then there was you, a few years later, in that club. Straight away I knew it was you, you had changed a lot but as soon as I referred to you by your old nickname, you knew it was me, even though you were drunk.

Had you been sober, I might have told you all of it, about the boys, about the abuse, but I couldn't bring myself to tell you. You probably wouldn't remember the next day anyway.

The boys went in and out of care homes. When I had no money, they were taken into care and when I could support myself, I had them back with me at this house. I started to suspect Darren was abusing the boys in more ways then just the visible cuts and bruises, I confronted him and got beaten. I almost miscarried our baby, Cassie, but the doctors managed to save her and me. She's special Bob, take good care of her.

You still remember don't you? Those days we spent when we were so young and reckless? How we would both talk about our dreams of getting out of this town to pursue one dream or another? Well the boys are like you, they want to get out of here too, leave the past behind them and look to the future. Please give them the best you can, I see so much of them in you, especially in Robert, or Robbie as he know wishes to be known.

I knew a Robbie once. Fifteen years ago we used to talk about our dreams of getting away, but we were young, we didn't know any better. By the time you are reading this I will be gone, I am going to confront Darren about what he does to our boys and I have the feeling it will not end well.

Take care of them Bob, you're all they have. x.

I hastily wiped away the tears now flowing freely from my eyes and looked over at Robbie, he was looking at me, eyes full of tears.

"I'm so sorry. I should have been there, Robbie, I should have been there and stopped all of this happening," I cried, half sad, half angry at myself.

"It's OK. It's not your fault, I forgive you." Pushing all the initial hostility between us aside, I pulled him into a fatherly hug and he sobbed into my chest. I did nothing to try and prevent the tears falling from my own eyes.

Both of us were still crying when we heard the hallway floorboard creak...