It started small, but don't all things? People, ideas, even things. Skyscrapers don't just materialize. They start as an unimpressive concrete foundation and then, over time, grow until they tower over the world.
Just like Lucy's love for her brother.
It began with her attraction to the concept of forbidden love, a love that was secret and taboo, something that people did not understand, the way they did not understand her. She would lie awake in bed at night and imagine a faceless lover, a vague shadow, whom she was not supposed to love but loved regardless. This figure was male (Lucy already knew she liked boys and not girls), but had no name, no history. She didn't know why she wasn't supposed to love him, and every reason she conjured didn't satisfy her, so the fantasy existed as an outline, lacking detail. It sustained her, though. For a while. Before long, she needed a face, a human countenance to gaze lovingly upon, eyes to stare into, a mouth to trace with her eyes. For a time it was her bust of Edwin the vampire. She spoke longingly of his cold lips, but in her dreams, those lips were warm and full, not the lips of a course but the lips of a living boy with soft, pliable flesh and a beating heart. Her dream lover would hold her in his arms, and she could feel his life, his vitality. It soothed her and made her smile.
At some point, she began to look longer at her brother, her eyes lingering on the curve of his face, the boyish glint in his eyes. She would make excuses to spend time with him, writing poems in seconds and then coming to him as though they were great works of art that required his opinion. She would follow him around like a puppy, asking him his input on this thing and that thing. When he spent time with their other sisters, she became jealous. She wanted him to pay attention to her.
During the beginning, she didn't know that she was growing to see Lincoln as her forbidden lover. She told herself that she simply wanted to spend time with her only brother. When she was half-way honest with herself, she said that his approval was important since he was a boy. It was a psychology thing she'd read. The first male a girl knows is her father, and his approval helps foster a healthy social and sexual development. That's why she found herself yearning for her brother's attention. At least that's what she told herself.
Over the summer, however, she came face-to-face with Lincoln in a dream. They were standing in a dark void, just the two of them, removed entirely from everything else but each other. When he smiled at her and took her hand, her heart fluttered and her cheeks burned. She looked coyly down, and he used his free hand to brush her bangs back from her eyes. They stared at each other for a long time, and when she woke, she felt a hollow ache in her chest. It was the ache of growing schoolgirl infatuation, an empty, lonely pining that made one feel as though they were suffocating.
My own brother, she thought as she drew her knees to her chest and hugged them, her skin warming in the spill of bright morning sunshine falling through the window. Her heart jumped at this thought, and a small grin spread across her face. He was certainly a real, live, warm boy, and cute too. And he was definitely forbidden to love. They were flesh and blood, a sister and brother, too close to love, too close to touch. She relished in the way it made her feel to imagine kissing her brother while their parents and siblings weren't around, knowing it was wrong, fighting against it, but unable to resist the taste of his lips and the sensation of his heart pounding against hers, both in time, in tune.
She wondered if he ever looked at her in that way. She doubted it, as sibling attraction wasn't something that most people indulged in, but it made her giddy to think that he might steal furtive glances at her, his eyes softly caressing her face and slender throat the way hers did his. When they chanced to be in the living room together, Lucy made sure to sit next to him, getting as close as she possibly could. He usually asked her to back up and give him space, but she hoped, prayed, that one day he would put his arm around her shoulder and draw him close to him. Then, grinning like a satisfied cat, she would rest her head against his chest and listen to the steady rhythm of his heart. She would look up at him, and he would look down at her, and everything would be right in the world.
She wanted this so badly that she ached. Each day passed in a slow, breathless misery. She roamed the house, her hands drawn to her chest and her mind racing. Today...today's the day you tell him. Her stomach would quiver with terror at the prospect. What if he said no? What if a look of disgust crossed his face and he turned her away as a freak? She couldn't handle that. Not now. So she would hold off one more day. Then another. Then another. She couldn't tell which was worse: The fear that he would reject her, or the pain when she passed him in the hall without grabbing his hand and gazing deeply into his eyes. How long could she do this? How long could she go on as though she wasn't head over heels for him?
Summer passed and school started. They walked together most days. Each morning, as they navigated the side streets and cut through the park, she would take a deep breath and started to reach out for his hand, but she would always chicken out at the last moment.
When she woke on the rainy morning of October 12th, she decided once and for all that today was the day.