Prologue
Barry suffers from Rheumatoid Arthritis - a degenerating disease that he has lived with since the age on 9.
Barry was sexually abused as a boy and hardly knew his father.
Jessica is both his cousin and sister.
No, really - see, their mothers are sisters to each other, making them cousins, but they share the same father, making them siblings.
From a young age, Jessica was sexually abused by Barry, who was 14 years her senior.
This went on for several years.
After that, when Jessica turned 16 and moved in with her grandmother due to the latter needing company and care, he followed.
He never stopped following.
Jessica and her grandmother moved - he followed.
Their grandmother passed away, so Jessica moved into her own flat - Barry followed.
Eventually, the stresses of having her own place grew to high, and Jessica gave in and moved in to Barry's flat.
Due to his Arthritis getting worse, she slowly became his carer and did everything for him. Cooking, cleaning, shopping and helping get dressed - he could get dressed for the most part, it was mostly putting his underwear and pants on while he was covered with a towel, then drying under his arms and putting his top on and deoderant.
Also due to living together, they decided to put their money together...this had the negative effect of Barry turning slightly controlling with money, and he had a gambling addiction.
Betting was first - then debt.
It caused Jessica extreme levels of stress, and that along with flashbacks of the abuse led to her having a serious anger problem.
Big things she could handle...it was little, niggly things that made her blood boil, and when she lost it, it was to a point of smashing things up.
However, she never ever hit anyone - not even Barry despite all the pain he had put her through.
See, Jessica had long ago decided that she didn't want to deal with the pain of court...going through every shameful detail...at the risk of the case being thrown.
And even if he was found guilty, what then?
Did she want him killed or beaten severely in prison?
No...it would never heal her pain or change what had happened to her.
She was forgiving...she saw that holding on to her hate only made her suffer. She knew Barry being hurt wouldn't help her.
Besides, who was she not to forgive? She had done things wrong.
Though the stress had developed her anger issue, she had previously had a 6 month spell where all the memories of the abuse came to her, and she was constantly confused, scared and enraged.
She even lost her temper with her grandmother...she had needed care when she was alive because she had alzhiemers and dementia.
Every day, Jessica was wracked with guilt.
She had neglected her - sometimes failing to give her medication, or not offering food at the right times.
The shame burned deep inside, and she could never forgive herself.
In her eyes, she had done worse to her grandmother through impatience and neglect than what Barry had done to her.
Fast forward to present.
She and Barry still lived together.
Family had moved forward in life, blissfully unaware of Jessica's daily pain.
Of course, as the years passed, new generations had been born, and their cousin had 3 children. Jessica's sister also had 3 children, and a lot of her life included babysitting.
She was careful - she never, ever left Barry alone with them...when they were very young, she would even make them stay in the bathroom with her while she had a bath if they were sleeping over, and they would sleep in her bed with her, where she knew for a fact they were safe.
One of those children, her cousin's only daughter, was called Kim and was 5 years old.
When she had been a young baby up til about the age of 2, Kim had spent a huge amount of time with Jessica - her mother had got a job at a care home and worked 12 hour shifts, so for 4 days a week, Jessica would have Kim from 7.30am - 8.30pm.
Oh she didn't mind - it meant she had bonded fantastically with her.
Kim had in fact taken her first steps towards Jessica - a fact that Jessica would never, ever tell her cousin, who believed the first steps had been a couple of days later when she was off work.
Jessica would never hurt her like that, but it was a secret that she liked and always made her happy.
She loved Kim beyond words, and had been honoured to become her Godmother when she was 4.
Nothing had ever given her more joy.
Anyway, that takes us to Chapter One.
Thaks for reading and please R&R!