I Found You, Something Told Me To Stay - (Jason Berry/Zacky Vengeance)

Chapter Two.

I couldn’t believe that she was actually lying to me. She wasn’t even putting any effort into making it believable.

“Yeah?” I raised eyebrows, taking a step towards her. “So you’re telling me you’ve never seen this before, then?”

Her gaze fell as I held the photo out in front of her, my hand literally shaking with anticipation. She seemed to take ages looking at it, but I could see hundreds of things unravelling in her mind. Everyone watched as she just stood, staring at the photograph. The food on the barbecue was starting to burn behind her, but she appeared to be in a trance of some sort.

“Where did you get that?” She eventually asked, her stare flickering up to meet mine.

“Cupboard under the stairs.” I shakily replied. “Who is he, mum?”

“Maybe we should go.” Julie suddenly announced, standing up. “You clearly have things to talk about.”

Still in shock, my mum continued to look me in the eyes for a moment, until then looked at Julie. Her expression immediately changed, and I could tell she was trying to act like I’d not even confronted her with the photo.

“Oh, don’t go!” She said. “We have nothing to talk about! It’s just a photograph.”

Julie shifted awkwardly, looking between my mum and I before she frowned slightly.

“I don’t know, Carly.” She said uncomfortably.  “You two look like you need some time to talk. We honestly don’t mind. We have the whole of summer to have a barbecue together!”

By now, my mum wasn’t even listening to her. I could still see, by the look in her eyes, that her brain was thinking tons of things at once. She was trying to jump into action to sort things out, muttering to herself while doing so.

“Oh, look, I’ve burnt the food.” She sighed, looking at the barbecue and running things through her hair. “Honestly, I’m such a dozy cow sometimes.”

“Mum—‘’

“Not to worry.” She interrupted me, still talking to herself more than anyone else. She turned to us all then, plastering a smile on her face. “Hey, why don’t we get takeout? Or how about we go out to dinner! That would be fun, wouldn’t it?”

“You’re not up to going out to dinner, Carly.” My dad eventually spoke. He turned to Julie with an apologetic yet embarrassed expression. “Sorry about this. If you want to go, we don’t mind.”

Julie just smiled at him and nodded quickly, standing up and beckoning her family to follow her. Within moments, they were gone, and were stood in the garden in silence.

“This is just a waste now.” She frantically said, turning back to the food on the barbecue. “Still, I might be able to fix it. Rob, do we have some more burgers in the freezer?”

“Just stop fussing over the food, Carly.” Dad snapped surprisingly harshly. “We can’t let this situation lie forever, you know. It’s been long enough.”

I realised, just then, that I’d totally neglected my thoughts and just stood back, watching my mother go into one of her hypomanic frenzies. She was still trying to ignore everything and pick up the barbecue food by hand, wincing when it burnt her fingers.

“Answer me, mum.” I spoke again, returning to the before subject. “Who’s Jason?”

Of course, she didn’t answer. She continued to moved around frantically, now beginning to fold up the lawn chairs and sort the plates back into a pile; anything to escape the topic.

“Dad?” I said, turning to look at him when mum hadn’t answered.

Although he didn’t look at me, I could tell he was listening. He watched my mother with his arms crossed over his chest, almost like he’d expected all of this to happen.

“Tell her, Carly.” He said

Ignoring my dad, she picked up the lawn chairs and tried to drag them across the garden and towards the shed, dropping them at her feet when she realised she couldn’t take the weight.

“Carly!” Dad yelled.

There was a pause for a moment as mum shuffled, staring down at the lawn chairs. She played with her hands, wrapped in her thoughts as we stared at her. Suddenly, she snapped her head up to look at us.

“Jason?” She finally said, earning a stern nod from me. “Oh, he was just a family friend. Haven’t seen him in years, don’t know where he got to; I think he’s probably still back in California.”

As soon as she finished the sentence, she frantically pushed between dad and I and made her way inside, not saying anything else to me. Dad scowled and shook his head in disbelief, also stepping inside and beckoning me to follow.

“Tell her the truth, Carly.” He shouted, walking into the kitchen where she was pouring herself a glass of wine. “She deserves to know! We knew this situation would arise some time and we’re not going to avoid it; not anymore!”

She stared down at her wine, her eyes a great indication that she was trying so hard not to listen, but failing at that. Dad soon realised that she was set on not saying anything, and scowled, grabbing his jacket from the back of a dining room chair.

“I’m not prepared to stand here and watch you lie.” He spat at her, pulling his jacket onto his body. “I’m going out.”

With that, he turned and stalked out the kitchen. Mum jumped slightly when the front door opened and slammed shut, but she looked up and plastered a smile onto her face.

“Right, Midgey,” She said, placing her glass of wine down and turning towards the oven, “What do you want to eat?”

Of course, I just stared at her incredulously, not really believing my ears.

“I don’t give a fuck about food!” I yelled. “Tell me the truth, mum! Because here, in my hand, is a picture of me as a baby, being held by some guy called Jason, and dad’s nowhere to be seen in any of these photos!”

 “As I said,” She shifted, “Family friend. I lost contact with him when I left Huntington with you.”

“Bullshit!” I angrily reached out, knocking the first thing over that I could. It happened to be the glass of wine that was placed on the kitchen counter, and it fell to the floor, splashing all over the vinyl flooring as the glass broke into tiny pieces.

She stared down at it in shock, not really knowing what to do or say. I think it was then that she realised just how angry I was, and I could tell she was trying to keep calm herself.

“I’m going to ask you one more time.” I quietly said, my teeth clenched. “And you’re going to tell me the truth. Who is Jason?”

Still staring at me with widened eyes, she opened her mouth to speak, but the only thing that came out was a shaky breath. Before I knew it, she let out a small whimper and sunk to her knees, just about managing to dodge the mess on the floor as she buried her head in her hands.

“I don’t want you to hate me, Midge.” She sobbed.

“Just tell me!” I demanded. “On the back of this photo, at the very bottom, it has two words. You know what they are, don’t you?”

She hesitated for a moment, before slowly nodding.

“And you know what they mean?” I then questioned.

Again, she slowly nodded. I proceeded to also drop to the floor so that I was level with her, as I practically shoved the photograph into her face.

“So come on, Mum. Who is he?” I whispered.

Again, there was a moment of hesitation before she finally looked up, teary-eyed and shaking. As she met my gaze, I knew she’d given up. She couldn’t lie anymore.

“He’s your dad, Midge.” She said back just as quietly.

“Jason’s your real dad.”