The Boy In Suite 121 (Watty Awards 2013)

Chapter Six: Identity Crisis

Tonight wasn't the night for sleep.  

But then again, this was becoming a regular thing for me. Sleep was now nothing more than my imagination.  

I wiggled my way out of Jason's loose grasp and make my way to my gym bag lying on the floor. It didn't have much in it, but it felt that much heavier with the envelope on top of it.  

I flipped it over in my hands repeatedly, hoping that maybe what was in there was a lie. Although that was hard to believe. No one I knew, not even Krissy would have the patience or resources to create a lie of this magnitude. And accepting this as the truth was just far too much to handle.

I stare at my name on the front for a long time, thinking that maybe it didn’t belong to me although it did, unfortunately.  

The envelope contained more information than I was willing to take in at one time. I've looked at the pages over and over again everyday this week and for the life of me, I couldn’t understand what they meant. A number of things raced through my mind, but I couldn’t prove any theories true.  

"What are you looking at?" I'd forgotten about Jason for the moment. I debated on whether or not to tell him all week but I knew I had to. Okay, I didn’t have to but I wanted to. He was a part of my life now and that meant through the good, bad, ugly and (in this case) the unknown. I already knew I could trust him and I needed someone to talk about this with. Whatever this was.  

"Some documents. Come take a look at them.” I requested. He managed to pull himself out of bed and make it behind me but not before slightly falling into me.

"What are we looking at?" He wondered, resting his head on my good shoulder and securing his arms around my waist as I shuffled past my birth certificate. I had to start from the beginning for any of this to make sense. Well no, actually, I didn’t. I’m pretty sure that starting from any place would get the same result. Confusion and more possibilities. But, I had to start somewhere.

"This was left on my bed a week ago." I put my birth certificate down and then held up two other things.  

"Babe, it's two in the morning. You're going to have to specific." He murmured before he kissed my neck. I was not going to get my point across if he did that again. The boy was my kryptonite.

"Look at my birth certificate," I held it up for him. "Now look at these." 

"This can't be right." He grabbed the piece of paper from my hand and analyzed it careful, although nothing really changed. If I was right, he was thinking what I was thinking.

"That's what I thought. The names and birthdays on my birth certificate and on this copy of my parents' drivers’ licenses don't match." I explained. I was glad I wasn't the only one having this reaction. I didn't know what to make of it and I was hoping Jason could help. "According to my birth certificate, my mother's name is Elizabeth Lynn Hastings and she's thirty-four. My fathers name is Jake Payton Hastings and he’s thirty-eight. Now, when you look at my parents' drivers’ license, it says my mom is forty-four and her name is Elizabeth Anne Hastings and my dad is forty-six and his name is James Henry Hastings."  

"So, one of these has got to be a fake. Unless there are two people pretending to be your parents. I would like to say it doesn’t happen, but it does. Although I don’t think they’d gain much from pretending unless they couldn’t have kids of their own. You could also be adopted." He suggested. I shook my head. I wanted to believe that badly, but I couldn't. There was too much evidence proving me wrong. If I were adopted (legally), those papers would have been in there too. Everything else involving my births had been in here; immunization records, licenses, and my parents birth certificates (both sets).