Taming Lucas

Chapter 21

"What? No I'm going to go with her. She's my daughter. I should be there for her." Claire quickly says. I almost gag when she called me her daughter. She is a lunatic. I don't understand how dad can't see that side of her.

"Claire I think it would be best if Matt went with her." My father says, turning up to look at Matt.

"But honey, I'm her mother. Don't you think I should be there for her?" Claire fakes her best sad voice. I swear this woman could win an Oscar for her acting.

"And I'm her best friend. Before you were her mother." Matt glares at Claire.

"Enough." My father puts his hands down on the table. "I think Matt's right. He should go with her." My father interrupts the both of them. I thank god dad finally says something right. I look at Claire and sees that her face is red, glaring at both Matt and me. She must be so pissed of at the both of us.

"Okay I'll call my mother to make an appointment. She has her night shift tonight." Matt says. Matt's mom, Janet works as a nurse at the city hospital.

"Alright." My father says and gets up from the chair. He leaves to go to his room, leaving a fuming Claire behind. She stands up from her chair, glaring at me but does not say anything. She must be refraining herself because Matt is here.

Matt and I head up to my room shortly after Dad and Claire leave the kitchen. Matt slouch down on my bed while I'm sitting on my desk.

"Matt you're not really taking me to the hospital, are you?" I ask him. I was a bit surprised when he said he would take me to the doctor. Does he think I'm crazy too? I really hope not.

"Of course I am. Would you rather have Claire take you?" Matt says, propping himself up by his elbows.

I eye him weirdly. "But why? Don't tell me you think I'm crazy too."

"What? No! Ems we're gonna talk to my mom. I already told her about everything when I went home. I hope you don't mind." He eyes me as if asking for my approval. "I thought she'd be able to help us." He continues to say.

"Yeah its okay." I assure him, knowing how Janet has always been like a mother figure to me. "But how is your mom gonna help us?" I furrow my brows in confusion.

"So you see how Claire and my mom used to go to the same high school? I went and looked for my mom's yearbook this evening when I went home, but I couldn't find any picture of Claire in the yearbook. I was suspicious why she wasn't in it. But I'm hundred percent sure mom said they went to the same high school before. So I thought we could ask my Mom what happened to her." Matt says, now sitting up.

I nod my head, thinking about how Matt actually made sense. We don't really know much about Claire's past life or about her family. When they got married, the only guests attending from her side were only some mutual friends of ours. Now that I think about it, there has never been a visit from her family or friends ever since she married my father. I never much cared about Claire to think about her past, but now I think I need to know everything about her.

"Yeah that's a good idea. We literally know nothing about Claire." I say, suddenly curious about the woman that has made my life a miserable one. "Let's go see her right now!" I stand up.

"Ems slow down. I already told mom we'd see her at home tomorrow." Matt announces.

"Okay. But we're leaving right after breakfast." I tell him. I need to know everything about Claire if I want to prove what kind of person she really is.

•••

The next morning we head over to Matt's house. He lives only fifteen minutes away so, we walked by foot. I was already panting when we reached Matt's house, another reminder why I need to excercise more often.

"Really Ems? That was like only a quarter of a mile. You look like you just ran a marathon!" Matt laughs at me, which earns him a glare from me.

"This is exactly why I don't do anything exercise related." I say, still panting, heading to the fridge to grab myself a drink.

"No this is exactly the reason why you should take more exercise." Matt follows me to the kitchen.

"Nope! Exercise and I don't do well together." I take out the drink, pouring it for both Matt and I. I hand him the drink and continues to say, "So has Janet returned home from her shift yet?" I ask Matt.

"She should be home any minute." Matt says, gulping down his glass of juice in one drink.

Just then, the front door opens. Janet comes in with her nurse uniform, looking tired but still beautiful. When she notices me, her face lights up immediately. "Amelia! How are you, sweetie?" She approaches me.

"I'm good Janet." I tell her, giving her a tight lipped smile.

"Oh you don't have to pretend to be okay. Matt told me everything. I am so sorry about everything sweetie." She gives me a hug, which I welcomed it. I needed a hug more than ever now.

"Yeah its okay. Its not your doing, you don't have to apologize." I tell her, putting my hands on her back.

She pulls away from the hug, pouring herself a drink. "So what did you wanna talk about? Matt said you guys needed to ask about something." She says sitting down on one of the chairs.

"Its about Claire. You guys attended the same high school right?" I ask her, cutting to the chase.

"Yeah if my memory serves me right, I think it was senior year." She tells us.

"Do you know anything about her?" Matt chimes in.

"Yeah like what kind of person was she?" I added.

Janet scrunches her brows, as if trying to think back about her past. "I'm not sure. I mean we were never really acquainted much with each other. She was really silent, always kept to herself."

"So she never bullied anyone or something like that?" I ask.

"No not at all. She never even talked much. She would sit in the corner, never doing anything much." Janet shakes her head.

"Then why was she not included in the yearbook from your senior year?" Matt finally asks.

"How did you know she wasn't included?" Janet says, turning to look at Matt questioningly. "Have you been going through my things again Matthew?!" Janet exclaims.

"I only looked for your yearbook. I swear!" Matt puts his hands up in defence.

Janet shakes her head, rolling her eyes at Matt. "You won't find your childhood videos even if you tried dear. I hid them really well."

I chuckle at that. Matt has enough embarrassing videos of his childhood to make him never cross his mother. Matt pouts when he heard his mother said that.

"I have no idea why she wasn't included in the yearbook." Janet shakes her head. "Oh wait! She never finished senior year. I heard she shifted schools before the end of the year." Janet snaps her head up.

"I wonder why she skipped schools." I say. Its not really much to hold against Claire, about what we learned from Janet. My hope begins to crumble down bit by bit. What if we never find out about anything related to Claire? Which will mean that I won't be able to prove myself to dad.

I sigh. "What are we going to do now, Matt? We literally have nothing against her as of now."

"Wait! I think I know someone who can help you. Remember Mary, Matt? She used to live right next to Claire. I remember because whenever we'd have sleepovers at Mary's, I'd sometimes bump into Claire on the way." Janet says and my hopes begins to build again.

"Yeah. Ems we could go see Mary. She must know something if they lived close to each other." Matt says.

I hope this time we find something about Claire that will help us in some way. I nod my head, praying we succeed this time around.

*******

Yes no Lucas in this chapter. I want Amelia to deal with her problems first so Lucas is not needed right now. Lol. But yes it kind of feels empty without him.

Don't worry. Lucas will be back. Or will he? *evil laugh* I should stop talking yeah.

Happy Sunday everyone!