Anything But Ordinary

6- Apologies and Tears, then.. Celebration and more Tears.

*********Carly's POV********

"It was our mom," I said. "apparently the whole thing with our dad was on the news. She saw it, said she wanted to stop in, talk to us. She's coming here soon." 

"Really?" Kyle said.

"Why would she think we would want to talk to her?" Tony said, "She left us. I remember, he used to smack her around, too. She left and he blamed you. So he took all that anger out on you."

"Maybe she has a good explanation for why she left us," I said, trying to convince him this is a good idea. "Maybe she needs us, she is your mom after all." I said.

"Fine, but if i don't think it's a good enough reason i'm never talking to her again." Just then someone walked in. She was beautiful. She looked like me, but older.

"Mom?" I said.

"Yeah."

"I see where you get your good looks Carly," Kyle said, smiling. I smiled back at him, blushing, then looked back at my mom. We all grabbed chairs around Kyle's bed. 

"So how are you guys doing?" Tony just sent her a 'How do you THINK we're doing' look.

"Tony," I hissed, "be nice!" 

"No, it's okay. I understand. I should never have left you guys." she started, "I didn't want to, I loved you guys. I just had to get out of there. I promised you two I would come back for you, but I never kept that promise."

"You can say that again." Tony muttered. Mom just kept going.

"You guys don't know how bad I wanted to come back, I actually tried, many times, to come back and get you guys out of there. I was going to press charges against your father, try to get full custody of you two, but I got really sick. I had breast cancer. You guys were probably six and seven when that happened."

"Right about the time he started beating me," I whispered.

"I'm so sorry. I really tried, I promise." she said wiping tears from her eyes, "Anyways, I was in the hospital for a long time. They did many surgery's on me, and finally the cancer was gone. Then I had to find a job, so I could get a home, and go get you guys back. There wasn't a day that went by that I didn't think about you. Then I met Bill. He's my husband. We dated for about 4 years, so you were about 14 and 15 then."

"That's when he started to RAPE me." I said so quietly that only Kyle heard me.

"Me and Bill got married. He has two kids. One is 16 and one is 13. A girl and a boy. There not my kids, there his. I'm there step-mom. There real mom died when they were little. I never had any time. I was always working. Saving up so I could come back here and get you. Bill doesn't know about you guys. I plan to tell him tonight. I really hope you guys can forgive me." she said. "I really tried. I did." I reached out and grabbed her hand.

"I forgive you." I whispered.

"You do? Oh that's wonderful!" she said.

"I don't." Tony said. "After you left, it was my job to protect Carly. I failed on that. He was going to shoot me if I tried to help her. I couldn't protect her, because you left. I felt so bad because i couldn't do anything but sit there while that jerk sat there and used Carly. Just sit there. Do you know what that's like? I can't even forgive myself, so how can I forgive you?" He said, tears coming to his eyes. I had never seen Tony cry. Even with everything we went through, I never saw him cry. I went over and hugged him.

"I love you Tony. I forgive you. If I can forgive you, then you should forgive yourself."

"I love you, too, Carly."