Fighter

Ch. 1

    I was seventeen years old when both my parents died. I will never forget the feeling of complete numbness. I'm sure the numbness was due to the absolute fear of being alone. I wasn't close to my parents, I'm not sure they could remember my birthday if one of their many assistants didn't remind them. They ran an advertisement agency in New York City. After they passed from a car accident by being blindsided by a drunk driver running a red light, I was shipped off to my mother's half-sister, whom I'd never met or heard of before.

    My mother never spoke of my grandparents; she rarely spoke to me period. If I did try to bring the subject of other family members up, she would say, "Hadley, as far as I'm concerned, we have no other family." I would even try to get up the courage to talk to my father but he spoke to me even less than my mother and would always look at me as if he was surprised I was still there. I cant tell you how much that would hurt.

    So here I am, Hadley Jane Davis, sitting at LAX airport waiting for my Aunt Mary to pick me up. I have no clue what she looks like or if she knows what I look like. I haven't even spoken to her on the phone; my parent's lawyers took care of everything. I had been waiting for a half hour, when I see a pretty brunette in her early forties with kind green eyes a lot like mine making her way toward me. She reminds me of my mother, the only difference is my mother never looked at me with a big smile like she was happy to see me.

"You must be Hadley. I'm your aunt, Mary. Sorry I'm a little late! Traffic was horrendous." She says, apologetically. She kinda sounds like my mom.

"Hi, it's nice to meet you. It's not a problem, thank you for picking me up." I reply. I grab my carry-on bag, I follow my aunt. The rest of my stuff got shipped in boxes from New York. Hopefully, they made it to my aunt's or I'm going to have a lot of shopping to do.

Not knowing what to say I start with, "Do you live far?"

"We are about a two hour drive from here because of traffic. Are you hungry? I can stop on the way if you are," she offers. It's weird having someone ask about my needs. I know it's going to take some getting used to, but it would be a pleasant change.

"No, I'll be fine. I ate on the plane. Thanks, though." The truth was that I was way too nervous to eat any of the in-flight meal, my stomach is still in knots.

    When we arrived at Aunt Mary's white Cadillac Escalade, she opens the back seat so I could put my luggage in. Getting in on the passenger's side, I'm trying to think of other things to talk about when Mary speaks, "Your grandma and cousins can't wait to meet you. They're all at the house and mom has been cooking all day." Noticing my shocked expression and confusing it with worry, she asks, "Didn't you want to wait to meet everyone, honey? I am so sorry, I wasn't thinking. We just got so excited to finally meet you. We got carried away, it's probably a lot after what happened with your parents." She says, sympathetically.

    Finally finding what little voice I had, I mumbled, "I didn't even know I had a grandmother or cousins." I have been angry at my parent's lack of attention my entire life. At this point, I'm beyond angry, resentful and hurt. I have been lied to for seventeen years. What else didn't I know about my family? Why did they keep it from me? I know my mom didn't like to have any long and meaningful conversations with me, but to purposely say we had no family so she didn't have to talk to me is just painful. Was I that repulsive to them?

I have been sorry for being born my whole life. Tears were threatening to fall and I noticed my aunt hadn't said anything. She looks at me with pity. I don't want her to pity me, I was already pathetic enough and she was making it worse.

"I am so sorry, Hadley. I know Becca left without looking back, but I never thought she wouldn't have mentioned us." Mary's sad voice echoes through my head, almost as if she couldn't believe my mother would go so far as to pretend they never existed.

I didn't even want to ask but I had to know, "Did you know about me?" I was proud my voice isn't as weak as it was before.

"No. We didn't know. No one had spoken to your mother since she left." She answers, honestly.

    The tears I tried to hold back fall silently. I leaned back in my seat noticing that when I asked the question I was tense and sitting straight up. Resting my head on the headrest, I don't respond to Aunt Mary's concerned looks. I hate that my parents can still hurt me. I hated that I'm not used to the pain yet. It was still just as painful as the first time I heard my parents talking about what they could have done if they hadn't accidentally gotten pregnant with me. The fact that they had the conversation in front of me, pretending as if I wasn't even there, felt like a knife to my heart.

"Why did she leave?" I was just as shocked I had asked that question as my aunt was. Usually, I would think of the pros and cons of asking a question, something my mother taught me to do. If I ever asked a question she thought was stupid , she would tell me to think before I opened my mouth, or my favorite, don't talk unless you have something intelligent to say.

I noticed my aunt hadn't said anything so I stopped looking out the window and looked at her. She was staring out the windshield, looking tense.

A few minutes later, she spoke. "It was my fault."

I didn't say anything but I didn't need to. Eventually, she glanced at me and started talking.

"I'm a year younger than your mother and in high school, we had a lot of the same friends even if Becca didn't like it. Well, we both liked the same guy, our neighbor, Mark Stowe. Long story short, he chose me and Becca didn't like that. Your mother hated me for that and eventually, I broke up with Mark so your mom would start talking to me again.

"About four years later, the same thing happened. I was a junior and your mother was about to graduate. I started dating a running back on the football team at UCLA. I had no idea that John and Becca had even known each other but apparently they went out on a couple of dates. John and I met later and he liked me, so he didn't call Becca again.

"John and I started dating and in July, after a month of seeing each other, everyone was telling me to bring him around, so I invited him to dinner with the family. When I walked in the house with John, Becca flipped out on me yelling and screaming. I had no clue what was going on and she ended up storming out of the house. Later, John explained how they had gone out a few times. Your mother left two days after I brought John home and she never came back." Taking a deep breath, Aunt Mary made eye contact with me and I knew she was sorry. The guilt was probably eating away at her. I didn't want her to feel like she was a bad person and it wasn't her fault, only my mother was to blame. It was shocking mother would leave her family for a man. The woman I knew was far more secure in herself than that.

"Your mother graduated college in June and she had an internship lined up at Davis Advertising Inc. in New York. Your grandfather on you dads side owned the company until he passed. You were one at the time. From what I gathered, your father started to run the company and that's how he met your mother."

I don't know what to say really, so I settle for thanking her for telling me. We don't talk for the rest of the ride and I'm thankful, I'm tired and emotionally drained.