Abandoned

chapter thirty-four.

Justin

By the time the next morning rolled around, I'd hardly gotten forty minutes of sleep. When I could start to see the sunlight coming in through the blinds, I officially called it quits on trying to get any rest and took my time taking a shower and getting dressed.

When I sat at my desk to log in to my laptop, my eyes stopped at the letter from my dad laying in the corner. I picked it up and skimmed through the words like I had numerous times since I'd gotten it.

Just like every time I read it, the curiosity of what actually happened came flooding back. I remembered back when I'd first gotten it and how I'd told Ray I'd ask my mom about it, though I never had.

I sighed and stood up, deciding to focus on one problem in my life in order to avoid thinking about the other one. The problem that had kept me up all night and continued to claw at my thoughts.

Even worse than being rejected, I'd decided over the last few hours, is being unsure as to whether you were even rejected or not. Ray never gave me any sort of response that would be helpful in figuring out how she feels, she'd just bolted.

I pushed the thought out of my head as I walked downstairs and peered into the living room, knowing that my mom would already be awake. I easily found her sitting on the couch, a cup of coffee in hand.

"Hey." She smiled when she saw me. "How was last night?"

"Oh, fine." I said simply. Her brows creased a bit, clearly having been hoping for a more enthusiastic response. It really had been great, up until the last sixty seconds. "But I wanted to ask you something."

She nodded for me to go on as I reached into my pocket, pulling out the letter.

"This letter you gave me, from dad..." I started, and her face grew instantly sympathetic. I'd never given it to her to let her read it. No one else had ever seen it besides Ray. "He kept saying how there was something I didn't know about. Like... like an actual reason, you know? But he didn't say what exactly..." I trailed off, reading through the part of the letter again.

"I mean, I know if you knew something you would have told me, but I thought I'd-" I stopped talking when I looked up and saw the expression on my mom's face had changed completely, now pained and worried.

"What?"

"Nothing, sweetie, I-" She forced a smile, but I could see right through it.

"Do you know something?"

"Look, it's nothing you-" She said nervously, but I cut her off once again, standing up from where I had been sitting on the couch.

"Have you known something about why he did it this entire time and not told me?" I couldn't help the raise of my voice. I couldn't even process the idea of her keeping something like that from me. Her eye's were starting to water now as she looked up at me in sadness.

"He didn't want you to know." She whispered, shaking her head and moving her eyes to ground.

"Know what?" I asked harshly, waiting for her response. She sighed.

"He was diagnosed with brain cancer, Justin."

"What?" I questioned, even though I'd heard her perfectly clear.

"It was terminal." She nodded slowly.

"So, you... you knew that he...?" I trailed off again, hardly believing what I was hearing.

"No." She quickly shook her head. "I knew when he was diagnosed, and I knew that it would have killed him within the year, but I had no idea what he was going to do. I..." Her words broke off into a sob.