Page 99 of Blaze & Ajax
When I opened the door and stepped into my room, I was hit with a sudden sense of nostalgia, and at the same time, I hated this place. My fingers traveled across the books I used to read, photos of friends, and decorative items that had made my room all mine. She hadn’t changed a damn thing.
“Why?”
She sighed in annoyance. “Why what?”
“Why’d you keep everything as it is?”
“Your things are in the desk drawer,” she said, ignoring my question.
I opened the drawer, and inside was a manila folder. I pulled it out and opened it to find my birth certificate, social security card, passport, and driver’s license. The last two were expired.
“You can have whatever else in here that you want.”
I looked at her, my eyes watering, hit with an emotion I couldn’t explain. Relief? Hurt? Anger? Confusion? All of them?
“There’s nothing else I want.”
Before I walked off, she stopped me.
“You aren’t mine,” she blurted.
My eyes went wide, processing her words. “W-what?”
“I didn’t give birth to you.”
My legs grew weak, and I grew dizzy, so I sat on the edge of my old bed. “What do you mean?”
“Your father fucked another woman, who died giving birth to you—hisson,notmine. You never once wondered why we don’t look alike?” When I said nothing, still processing this shock, she continued. “He took you in as a promise to her, but as you can see, he left you, too. He left you here with me because he never wanted you, and he believed that as a woman, I was better suited to care for you. What a joke. He paid me a lot of money to… take care of you. I never wanted you, his slut’s offspring, and I never wanted kids, period. I resented you for being here, uprooting my entire life. Anyway, I’m telling you this because you’ll find who your biological mother is on your birth certificate.”
She leaned in the doorway, watching me without any empathy on her face. She was as cold as she’d always been. “I kept your room like this in case your father came looking, and I could just tell him you weren’t home.”
If I hadn’t had abandonment issues before, I did then. This was even worse than I could’ve imagined.Nothinghad prepared me for this dumpster fire.
“God, you’re so…mean.”
My hands suddenly rushed to my face as a sob escaped me. I felt so out of control again as all those memories from when I was a teen slammed into me, along with that yearning to be set right and put back together again, just likeHoward had done. But he was gone, too. He used me and tossed me aside; no better than a piece of garbage.
My body shook as I cried, with her just fucking standing there without an ounce of compassion.
All I had was Ajax, but he couldn’t help me either. He wasn’t well. Doubts started to consume me, taunting me, telling me Ajax would leave me, too. No one wanted me. That memory of Ajax and me right before we first kissed slammed home.
“Everyone turns their backs on you. Everyone,” I say to throw it in his face.
“No, Blaze. Just you. No one likes you.”
His words played on repeat, chipping away at my resolve and my newly found confidence.
I took a deep, shuddered breath and wiped my tears. “So, you took care of me for… money? But you already have tons.”
She said nothing, shrugging.
“You’re such a piece of shit,” I said softly, too emotionally and mentally exhausted to rage at her. “It wasn’t my fault that I was born or that he cheated on you.”
I stood, clenching my fists, staring at a woman who couldn’t give two fucks about me. “You’re vile.”
“Grab your things and follow me downstairs. I’ll give you some money to tide you over, but don’t ever come back again,” she said entirely too calmly, completely lacking in emotion or empathy. She was a fucking psychopath. She had to be.
“Fuck your money!” I hissed.