EDWARD:
"Then why are you here?" I asked her. "I feel like I'm losing myself." She whispered. "And I will not find you," I told her. "I will not go looking for you, ever. Why are you leaving?" "I'm leaving because you never asked me to stay."
"Wait- that's not what I- don't leave...!"
She was drowning, but nobody saw her struggle...
I did all I could, I gave her everything, but she had to go her way, and that way was not for me.
ELEVEN YEARS LATER
"...If you give up on me, I give up on me too. I spent eleven years telling myself that I was getting better but now I'm realising that I'm not better and I don't think I can handle this myself anymore. The demons are back, and they are stronger than ever. They are looking for a fight. Looking to win. And this time, I might just let them..."
I looked up from HER letter that the girl had given me. "What happened to your mother?"
"I miss my mum. She's gone. I loved her like there was no tomorrow. And then suddenly, there wasn't. Was that not enough?"
I looked at her, she looked at me. If what the letter said was true... Was this really my child? And now I had her daughter standing in front of me...
EDWARD:
The child seemed so lost with out Laura. Oh god. Laura, how I miss you. I miss you more with every passing day. To think that this child, THIS child, could really be the only thing left of you. Perhaps the child was. Perhaps you had answered my prayers at last! As I cast my thoughts further and further back, the young girl- Ashley, the letter had said- still stood stood at the front door, patently waiting for me to continue.
"She's been through hell and came out an angle. You didn't break her, darling. You don't own that kind of power."
The child nodded. "Then why did she go? We were fine for ages, and then... I lost her, or she lost herself. Something happened. Something that she didn't want me to know about. She wanted me to go to Edward... Raw... Rawson. She wanted me to go to Edward Rawson, I think. She said he could help me. Do you know who that is?"
"I should think so. Why don't you come in? What did she say about me?"
Ashley stayed still
"Ashley... you don't have to trust me, but your mother knew me, loved me and, quite frankly, child, I loved her. I love your mother, and I love you."
She gasped at me and took a step forward.
"You- you knew my mother?" She asked me, as if trying hard not to hope. I smiled at her. "Of course I did, child. She was my best friend, at a time... and then... and then she became something much more. She became something special to me. Something close to my heart."
"She was something close to my heart, too. She still is, I guess. But she's been gone for so long..."
I didn't need her to finish her sentence. Her mother had been gone for do long that the child was forgetting. But maybe that was best. She could start a new life here.
"Come inside, child. You must be freezing. And, I believe we have much to discuss. Care to join me for dinner?" I was not going to make that mistake twice. I told Laura that I would never find her. I told her to leave. I told her that in anger. I had been blinded by anger when she told me... I was not going to make the same mistake twice.
She giggled and followed me inside, where it was warm and dry. The weather outside fit my mood perfectly. Rainy and grey. But, i noticed the sun peaking out as i closed the door. I smiled. There was a sun around me as well. The child was the sun. She would dry up everything and make it all better. I believed that.
When we were seated, I asked Ashley a few questions. Of course I had some; the child had just turned up out of no where, baring a letter saying she was Laura's child. The moment I saw her, I had expected the worst.
"Ashley... I know this must be hard for you, but I need to know some things. I need to find your mother."
Ashley shakes her head and curls up, her feet dragged up to her chin. "Mum doesn't want to be found. She told me, if she was ever going to run away, it would be for a reason, and she wouldn't want to be found. She said she would go as far away as possible and then further, if she could."
I sighed. Laura had always been one for dramatics. Maybe it was just one of those times. But for some reason, I didn't think so. Not this time. It all seemed too real, like everything had been blown out of proportion.
"Ashley, how old are you? You seem so... young to be on your own. How long did it take you to get here?"
She shrugged.
"I don't know. Maybe a week or two? But it could have been only a few days. It all goes so fast now. I'm eleven. My birthday was in May. How old are you?"
At this, I had to smile. It seemed that she had Laura's sense of humour too. Just another thing to remember her by. "I'm 35. Ashley. Do you know what the date is?"
Again, she shrugged. "Should I? Mum never needed to know. I only knew what the date was for about a week after my birthday, and then it went back to normal. The days passing in blurs and it feels as if I'm in a dream. I only know that its Monday. And I only know that because it said on t.v."
I sit in silence for a while, trying to clear my head. Here I was, meeting my secret 11 year old daughter for the first time, finding out my wife is missing and trying to find out where she was. In the end, only one question stuck in my mind.
"How do you feel?"
Ashley froze, her bright brown eyes on the door, almost if she was thinking about running. "It hurts, but its ok. I'm used to it. I'll be ok. Is that what you want me to say?"
I was shocked.
I wanted her know she could trust me. Not just... expect me to be happy with her answers. Her mother was missing; I wanted her to feel safe, and happy, and... like she belonged. It hurt to see her telling me the answers that she thought I wanted to hear. So I decided to lie to her. It would hurt her less. Or so I thought.
"That is good then. If you are fine"- the last I saw was the child running out of the door. I heard the front door slam shut and a car honking in the street. It felt like Laura had left, all over again. It felt like I was falling apart, one piece at a time.
When I had made the promise to myself before, when I had let the child in, I had promised myself that I couldn't let her go. I wasn't going to let her go. So I chased after her.
ASHLEY:
ONE YEAR LATER
Somebody asked me if I knew her. A million memories flashed through my mind but I just smiled and said I used to.
It still hurts to know that mum walked out on me and Edward, but he didn't have mum for longer than me. Mum was missing from his life for over ten years, nearly twelve now, actually.
Edward graciously took me into his home almost a year ago. Looking back, I'm surprised he did. I behaved terribly to him but, even after I had run away, he still said he loved me. I loved him in return. We were good together. Me and him. Me and Edward. Me and my dad. We were an unlikely pair, but we fit together.
It had been in the winter holidays when I had waltzed into his life and I had gone to school for the first time a few weeks later. It had been scary, being in a new place, with new people and new places. But it was home now.
Edward, as I called him- I didn't call him dad- was at the university in the next town. He was studying to be a teacher, but I had come along in the middle of it, so he had taken a year off. I could tell he didn't want to, but what else was he supposed to do. He spent three nights a week in the other town, studying. While I stayed alone. He had wanted me to stay with someone. But I didn't trust strangers, even strangers that Edward was friends with. So I stayed alone. It wasn't so bad, I just had to pretend that Edward was always in his room, never coming out. It made it easier.
Whenever he left, Edward would leave me a list of things to do, or a shopping list. He would leave me money and tell me to get something. Sometimes I forgot, but he was never angry.
I had just one rule: don't tell anyone about Laura. She is, I guess was, my mother. Edward didn't want everyone to know that he was raising me alone. It was frowned upon, he had said. So I didn't tell anyone.
It was the 19th week he had left me to study, and I was in the town square, trying to find some more tea bags. I had drunk them all, and Edward always liked tea, too. We had always had some in the house. That is, until now. But we would have some before he got back. There had to be tea bags around here, didn't there?
This was originally going to be a 'stand-alone' about Georgia's Mother, but I got bored with it here, so I added it was a bonus chapter for this book. It was actually called 'Long And Lost' before and I did publish a few chapters of it, but it wasn't getting many reads and I didn't know where to go with it.
Look out for the next bonus chapter!
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