Fake it (On hold)

First Quarter:Part four

Ace

For a few heart stopping seconds, I stare open mouthed at the little boy in front of me. It's like staring at a model of my brother or myself as kids. The wave of his hair, the way his chin clefts just a little when he smiles, his simple, even his gestures. They are all so new yet so familiar.

But it's his eyes that seal the deal. His sweet grey eyes stare up at me, his little hand shielding them from the sun as he stares straight at me. It almost broke me. Smiling the most innocent smile. His eyes. Jeb's eyes. Starting straight back at me.

How can he almost be five and we had no clue that he even existed?

Because we are assholes. That's how. I can't even bring myself to immediately blame her. I wouldn't want my parents around a child either. And I am their child.

The second I saw Maggie with the kid I remembered the stories, the whispers around town. The rumours that chased her away for good.

They called her a slut. Another teenage mother. My own mother said Maggie had never even told her own father she was pregnant. No one knew a thing until she turned up home with the kid a year or so after her sister died.

I used to hear whispers about her when I was still coming to town, always talking shit about her and it was always something different. She didn't know who the father was. Or It was a married man. She was a disgrace like her father. And her sister. All of them, a waste.

Then she just disappeared. Or I stopped listening. Or paying attention. A bit of it all  perhaps. But after the accident and then her sisters death, it was very clear that she despised me and my parents.

And I know that I was in no place to be anything other than numb to it all. Especially her. It's like she could see straight through my bullshit lie. She didn't pander to me or my family. She despised us. Openly contesting the theories surrounding the crash and I always wondered whether she knew. So I avoided her at all costs. Even went as far as putting fuel to the fire in the rumour mill.

Anything to get the heat away from me.

I guess I can't be mad that she kept the kid a secret. I would avoid my olds if I could. Hell, I pretty much do.

But she must need stuff. Money. God knows her father is no help. And seeing as though they just got out of the smallest heap of shit car and the kid is wearing shoes taped together with duct tape, I have a feeling they are existing on bare minimum.

She could have come forward when he was born and taken my family for a ride.

But she didn't.

And if I didn't just see the boy with my own two eyes, I have a feeling she never would have.

Venom fills my veins, pushing out all of the warmth I had upon seeing the boy and refilling it with anger.

This is my nephew. My blood. My brothers son. He is my family. And she kept him from me.
Sure, I get why she did but still, that doesn't make it right. I would have given him the world.

I force myself to look above the boy now, and stare straight back at Maggie.

She hasn't changed much since I last saw her. Her slim figure has filled out a little in the right places but she is too thin. Her hair is still the same strawberry blonde it used to be in high school,yet it lacks the bounce and shine it once held.

The dark circles under her eyes seem to hold court over her face and they perfectly fit the daggers that her deep blue eyes are sending in my direction.

She reaches for the boy, bending down to whisper in his ear before he nods and heads off to the grave where his mother rests.

He passes closely by and gives me a small timid smile and I can't help but return it.