30. Chapter 30

The memories of that night came flooding back, making me slightly nauseous. My hand trembled as I lifted the door knocker and rapped it on the door. I know my mother is home because Ajax and I sat and waited on his bike for her to drive up to the house.

He stayed back as I’d asked him to so I could confront her on my own. I needed to handle her my way.

I took a deep breath to steel myself. She may not talk to me, but I needed to try. Five years was long enough to live an out-of-control life. It was time to reclaim it.

I knocked again and waited.

A woman of about sixty in a black uniform opened the door. “ May I help you?”

“Uhm, I’m here to see… my mother.”

The woman raised a brow, but instead of allowing me inside, she told me to wait a moment and shut the front door.

I paced back and forth, waiting to see if my mother would come out and talk to me, or leave me hanging as she did the previous two times.

A few minutes later, the door whooshed open, and I was shocked to find my mother standing there, looking as prim and manicured as ever. She hadn’t aged a day. I suppose all those fillers and Botox did wonders.

“What the hell do you want, Aiden? Why are you here? The only reason I’m talking to you is to tell you I know it was you and someone else who trashed my garden and the cars.”

“It was my birthday,” I said as if that would explain everything, but I also refused to admit it outright. She had no proof.

She scanned me up and down and scoffed. “Well, you look like trash with all those tattoos and piercings. Jesus.”

I was instantly angry, which hadn’t been my intention. “Get over it. I’m just here to get my birth certificate, ID, and whatever else you have. They belong to me, and I have a right to them.”

“Fuck you.”

She tried to shut the door in my face, but I put my hand out to stop her. “I’m… sorry! Okay? I’m so sorry I ruined your marriage. It’s taken a while, but… I’ve been dealing with shit and trying to be a better person. I’m not here to make amends. We’re beyond that. But while I’m here to grab my paperwork, I’m also fucking sorry.”

I really wasn’t that apologetic, but I did regret it. None of it would’ve happened had she loved me even a little bit.

Her blue eyes scrutinized me, but they weren’t as hard as they were before.

“It was wrong of me,” I added. “But I’m going to tell you something, and I want you to listen. Please.”

She sighed and folded her arms over her chest. “Out with it.”

Okay, my foot was in the proverbial door. “I’m going to be honest here. I don’t know why you had me if you hated having a child. Should I be grateful you didn’t abort me? I don’t know, I guess so, but I also don’t know why you didn’t. I spent sixteen years while living here, mentally screaming at you to notice me and love me. You barely acknowledged my presence. I was so alone and acted out negatively so you’d finally notice me. I got drunk and trashed my car that day, so angry. You didn’t even come to see me in the hospital.”

She looked away but said nothing. Maybe there was a flash of guilt. Maybe it was annoyance. Who could fucking tell with all that Botox?

“Howard took advantage of me a few days later. At the time, I was so desperate to be loved and to have attention. He gave that to me. Looking back, I know he lied and manipulated me. He used my issues against me to get what he wanted.”

Her eyes hardened. “You said you loved him!”

“I was fucking na?ve! Okay? What the fuck did I know about love? My only experience with it was with a man who made promises and gave me all I wanted and needed. What did you expect?” I sighed. “Regardless, I knew it was wrong, but I was desperate.”

Part of me wanted to ask her why she hated me so much. The other part never wanted to know. So, I didn’t ask.

“Whatever. Apology accepted, I guess. But you can’t come back home.”

God, it was like she didn’t even listen. There had to be something wrong with her, like mentally.

“I’m not asking to come back. This is the last place I want to be. I’m happy where I am. But I still need some of my things if I want to get a decent job… or any fucking job. I’ve been making money in other ways.”

Her body unclenched, and she stepped aside to let me in. “Fine. Get what you need and get out. Then, I never want to see your face again.”

“Thank you,” I said, trying to keep the peace.

“You’ll find your things in your old room.”

I walked in and headed up the stairs with her close on my heels, as if I’d steal everything in the house.

When I opened the door and stepped into my room, I was hit with a sudden sense of nostalgia, and at the same time, I hated this place. My fingers traveled across the books I used to read, photos of friends, and decorative items that had made my room all mine. She hadn’t changed a damn thing.

“Why?”

She sighed in annoyance. “Why what? ”

“Why’d you keep everything as it is?”

“Your things are in the desk drawer,” she said, ignoring my question.

I opened the drawer, and inside was a manila folder. I pulled it out and opened it to find my birth certificate, social security card, passport, and driver’s license. The last two were expired.

“You can have whatever else in here that you want.”

I looked at her, my eyes watering, hit with an emotion I couldn’t explain. Relief? Hurt? Anger? Confusion? All of them?

“There’s nothing else I want.”

Before I walked off, she stopped me.

“You aren’t mine,” she blurted.

My eyes went wide, processing her words. “W-what?”

“I didn’t give birth to you.”

My legs grew weak, and I grew dizzy, so I sat on the edge of my old bed. “What do you mean?”

“Your father fucked another woman, who died giving birth to you— his son, not mine. You never once wondered why we don’t look alike?” When I said nothing, still processing this shock, she continued. “He took you in as a promise to her, but as you can see, he left you, too. He left you here with me because he never wanted you, and he believed that as a woman, I was better suited to care for you. What a joke. He paid me a lot of money to… take care of you. I never wanted you, his slut’s offspring, and I never wanted kids, period. I resented you for being here, uprooting my entire life. Anyway, I’m telling you this because you’ll find who your biological mother is on your birth certificate.”

She leaned in the doorway, watching me without any empathy on her face. She was as cold as she’d always been. “I kept your room like this in case your father came looking, and I could just tell him you weren’t home.”

If I hadn’t had abandonment issues before, I did then. This was even worse than I could’ve imagined. Nothing had prepared me for this dumpster fire.

“God, you’re so… mean .”

My hands suddenly rushed to my face as a sob escaped me. I felt so out of control again as all those memories from when I was a teen slammed into me, along with that yearning to be set right and put back together again, just like Howard had done. But he was gone, too. He used me and tossed me aside; no better than a piece of garbage.

My body shook as I cried, with her just fucking standing there without an ounce of compassion.

All I had was Ajax, but he couldn’t help me either. He wasn’t well. Doubts started to consume me, taunting me, telling me Ajax would leave me, too. No one wanted me. That memory of Ajax and me right before we first kissed slammed home.

“Everyone turns their backs on you. Everyone,” I say to throw it in his face.

“No, Blaze. Just you. No one likes you.”

His words played on repeat, chipping away at my resolve and my newly found confidence.

I took a deep, shuddered breath and wiped my tears. “So, you took care of me for… money? But you already have tons.”

She said nothing, shrugging.

“You’re such a piece of shit,” I said softly, too emotionally and mentally exhausted to rage at her. “It wasn’t my fault that I was born or that he cheated on you.”

I stood, clenching my fists, staring at a woman who couldn’t give two fucks about me. “You’re vile.”

“Grab your things and follow me downstairs. I’ll give you some money to tide you over, but don’t ever come back again,” she said entirely too calmly, completely lacking in emotion or empathy. She was a fucking psychopath. She had to be.

“Fuck your money!” I hissed.

I grabbed the folder and barreled past her, still standing in the doorway, nearly knocking her over, but her next words stopped me.

“I didn’t have to take care of you, Aiden… money or no money. You weren’t my responsibility, but I gave you all that I could financially. You were born to my cheating husband. I… was angry, and you were a daily reminder of that. Then, you… took away my other husband by sleeping with him. Two men betrayed me, and you were always in the middle of it. At that point, I couldn’t look at you any longer. ”

I refused to feel guilty for being fucking born, but for the first time, I felt true guilt over what I’d done. But it was all too little, too late. She wasn’t my mother.

I couldn’t breathe or see clearly. My mind was a riot of guilt and pain and betrayal and lies and doubts and self-loathing.

I ran. I was going to be sick.

As soon as I reached outside, slamming the door behind me, I couldn’t keep in the contents of my stomach any longer and threw up on her bushes over and over until I was dry-heaving, drool dripping off my lip and chin, which I wiped away with a trembling hand.

Gentleness took hold, turned me around, and held me after I finished being sick. I sobbed into Ajax’s chest.

He was still there. He hadn’t left.

“Shh, it’s over now. I’ve got you.”

“God, the lies… The betrayal. My past is like… out of a fucking soap opera…” I gasped between sobs. “Who the hell lives like that? And the worst part? I helped make it that way. I blamed her for everything, but I was at fault, too.”

After I’d calmed down, Ajax helped me onto his bike, and we took off to head back to his place. As soon as we were home, I told him everything. Every single thing my ‘ mother ’ had said to me and what had happened. I even told him my fears of him leaving me, too—the absolute worthlessness I felt.

Ajax combed fingers through my hair as I rested my head on his lap in his bed. “You have a new family now, one that loves you and cares about you. We will never leave you. We will never turn our backs on you. I love you… forever. Never doubt that again.”

I nodded and clung to him. “I’ll… try. At least, I’m me again. Aiden Reeves. And I have the paperwork to prove it.”