Heaven Help Us

Peace Of Mind

She looked fairly upset, and having developed parental instincts because of Jeph, I couldn’t just ignore her. She held a small stuffed bear in her arms and hugged it to herself. It reminded me of Jeph and his Batman.

“Hi,” I said. “Are you alright?”

She looked at me. “I don’t like this.”

“I know what you mean.”

“You do?” She asked.

“Yeah. My son and my girlfriend are incredibly nervous right now.”

“The little blonde boy, right? Jepharee Moore?”

I nodded. “Yeah, that’s him.”

“My mommy doesn’t like him. She says that you guys could have been happy together if his mommy hadn’t come along.”

“I don’t think that’s true.” I said. “Your mommy and I wouldn’t have worked out. We weren’t really happy.”

“She says she was happy.”

“Look around, kiddo. If she was really happy with me, do you think that all of these guys would be here right now?”

She shook her head. “No.”

I was silent for a minute.

“Are you afraid to be my dad?” She asked.

“Yeah, I am.” I was afraid. Afraid that maybe I’d turned away another child and made another huge mistake in doing so.

“Do you think you’re my dad?”

“Honestly, no. But there’s a possibility.” I answered, looking at the floor.

“Oh. Okay.” And then she was silent.

The process for DNA testing was much quicker now, so they called us in one after the other to get samples of our DNA.

“Andy Biersack!” The nurse called. “Christian Mora!”

We walked into the room together and let them swab our mouths.

“Alright, after we get the last two’s DNA samples, we’ll, hopefully, have a match for Alyssa in an hour.”

We nodded and went back to the waiting room.

For the next hour and a half, we all sat there in silence. Nobody said anything or even moved. It was kind of creepy.

“Okay, we have the results.” The doctor finally came out.

Alyssa, who was still sat next to me, looked up. Juliet came out behind the doctor, looking angry.

“Danny Worsnop, you can go home.”

Danny looked at me. “Good luck, man. Call me sometime and we can hang out with our kids or something, okay?”

I nodded.

The doctor continuously called off names that had showed up negative until there was only CC, me, and Jimmy left.

“Christian Mora, you can go home.”

My stomach knotted up. It was going to be me. I rubbed my eyes and sighed with frustration.

“Andrew Biersack, you can go home.”

I felt the stress leave my body.

But I felt bad for Jimmy, until, “James Strimpel, you weren’t a match, either.”

He looked confused, and Alyssa looked like she was going to cry.

“So I don’t have a father?” She asked in a wobbly voice.

The doctor looked like he didn’t know exactly what to say, and Juliet looked stunned into silence.

So I knelt down in front of her. “Hey, look. So you don’t have a dad in your life. That’s not so bad. From what I can tell, your mom’s been doing a pretty good job with you, and that’s all you need.”

“Thank you, Mr. Andy.” She said, looking okay again.

“No problem, kid. Be good for your mom, okay? She’s not so bad.”

“I will!”

I smiled at her and then walked down to my car.

“Andy! Andy, wait!” I heard Juliet’s voice behind me.

Turning around with my jacket and keys in my hands, I waited for her to catch up to me.

“Thank you,” She said. “For what you said in there to Alyssa. It made me realize…I was wrong. I was wrong to try to say she was your kid, and to try to ruin what you have with your girlfriend. I just never really got over you, but I think I can now. I can see that you’re happy with Rain and…your son. I was more focused on what I wanted, than what was best for my daughter. I thought if I could convince you on my word alone that she was your’s, that things would go back to the way they were before you met Rain. But I see that they won’t, and I should have just left you alone. I hope everything works out for you.” She smiled at me.

I turned around and put my jacket and keys on my car and then turned back to her and did the last thing that she expected.

I hugged her.

“Thank you for finally understanding.” I let her go. “Now go back up there and comfort your kid. She needs you, just like I need to go home and be with my son and my girlfriend.”

She nodded, and then I left with a much lighter heart and a sense of great peace with myself and the world around me.

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I hope you all liked it. :) I'll be updating again tomorrow.