Love, A Fan • A Tom Hardy fanfic

3:3

"What did your father want? To meet your boyfriend?" Patrick laughed, taking a sip of his hot coffee with just a dash of milk.

"That's assuming he knows I have a boyfriend," she joked. Patrick smiled but Stella didn't have the heart to tell him she was serious. She didn't want the questions, plus as much as she liked him she didn't really see them having much of a future. "He wanted to tell my mom was in town."

"Really?"

"Yeah, apparently she wants to see me today. My dad told her I was off, the bastard."

"That sounds like fun," Patrick tried to help.

"I don't even know her," she snickered. "She left when I was a baby."

"But she's here now," he pointed out. "Maybe she's ready to apologize."

"Maybe, I'm just not sure I care anymore."

. . . .

When Stella opened the glass door to the coffee house, she saw a woman who looked exactly like the photo her dad would always show her. A happy, smiley, blond woman greeted Stella as she stared dumbfounded in her direction. Stella expected a woman who looked like her mom once did, but harder, taken down by life. She expected her mother to look homeless and jaded with struggle, but instead was a well put together woman.

Standing up, the blond waved Stella over to the small two seater. On the table in front of her was a paper coffee cup and a necklace that looked like the clasp broke. Her mother had been twirling the rainbow chain as she sat idly anticipating Stella's arrival.

"I can't believe you're so beautiful," she said with a large smile. "I didn't believe it when your dad showed me your picture."

"Okay..." Stella awkwardly shrugged and sat down.

"I figured since I was in town for a few days, I had to make time to see you," Lillian spoke.

"Why are you in town?" Stella asked flat out.

"Oh, my daughter, Katie, is on her senior trip to New York. I left her at the hotel with her friends in Times Square. Probably getting into trouble no doubt," she laughed.

Stella looked around, feeling like she must have been pranked. So far this woman pretended she hadn't completely abandoned Stella and cut ties with everyone related to her. Stella's grandmother hadn't heard from Lillian in years, yet this woman was not the mother who fit that mold.

"You have a daughter?" Was all Stella could manage.

"Two," she corrected. Stella nodded understanding, at the obvious correction. "Katie is 17 and Jaclyn is 12."

"Oh."

"Well three actually, including you," she held out her hand to touch Stella's closed fist.

"So why are you here?"

"Katie's class..."

"No, why are you here, sitting with me after all these years."

Because I figured it was about time. We live across in California. My husband works for a production company. He's no one special but it pays the bills.

Stella stared at the stranger before her. Was she bragging? Stella grew up with her grandparents while her dad struggled to live without her while he tried to just make ends meet. And here this woman was living a privileged life giving her 2 daughters everything she couldn't give Stella. She was actually disappointed her mom wasn't a junkie.

As she went on about her husband Frank and the pool boy Jorge, Stella sat there wondering if she was even needed anymore. Would this woman realize if she left? Didnt seem like she cared about how Stella had managed all these years. Asking only briefly what Stella did for a living to say how that profession wouldn't be something she would wish for her children.

Her IPhone buzzed on the table, with a picture of a bleach blonde girl on the screen. She held up the phone for Stella to see the photo of Katie. Stella forced a smile.

"I gotta run. But it was great seeing you again Stella," she grabbed her Coach purse and stood up. "Your father has my number. I'd be happy to see you in California if you ever want to leave New York. All on me. I think you'd love California."

Stella's lip lifted up in a small, quiet, snarl. Lillian thought she would be doing Stella a favor, as if Stella had only been in New York and hasn't seen any of the world. An assumption based on what - that she knew her dad couldn't afford much for her?

Stella sat there watching the glass door shut behind the woman she had stayed up many nights dreaming about as a child. Now she couldn't believe she had shed tears over such a careless woman. On the table was the plastic necklace that her mother toyed with the whole time.

. . . . .

"I still think you should keep in touch, it's tough but she's your mom," Patrick said, knowing it wasn't what Stella wanted to hear. "It's just, if my mom was alive I would do anything for her."

"Wow Patrick, I didn't know," Stella touched his arm softly. "I'm so sorry."

"It's fine, I was young," he brushed off her sentiment. He was used to getting the so sorry for your loss spiel since he was 15. At this point he was past grieving and understood someone else feeling bad for him, wasn't going to get him anything other than pity. "But I still think your mom has some, albeit maybe hidden, love for you. She reached out for seemingly selfish reasons but I'm sure she was happy to meet you after all these years."

"I guess..." Stella quietly spoke. Her heart was broken that her mother, who gave birth to her, was more interested in what she had to offer her new children rather than what she could offer the daughter she abandoned.

"I'm just saying, I'm sure she is happy she got to meet you. There's no way she couldn't be happy about that."