Poker Face ✔

Chapter 57

"Here" my uncle Jared said as placing a cup of black coffee in front of me.

We sat in the front yard, around the wooden circular outdoor table.

"He tells me his grandmother claimed to see the future," I said slowly.

"What?" He narrowed his eyes as folding his arms.

That was the first time I had spoken to my uncle Jared in weeks; he had to do a double take.

"Is it true that your grandmother Taylorina was a gypsy who claimed to see the future?" I asked the fifty-three-year-old man.

"Why are you asking?" Uncle Jared wondered in his cream coloured trousers, white button up and black sweater.

"I'm curious," I admitted, "...so is it?"

He nodded. "Yeah, she claimed she knew things"

"Did she ever get anything right?" I furrowed my brows.

"She predicted my father would die young from a gunshot" he looked down "what can I say, sometimes she got things right sometimes she didn't"

I nodded slowly. "So what did she predict about me?"

I figured that it was something big if my Uncle Nate wouldn't tell me.

"Honestly I don't know" Uncle Jared admitted.

"Well, did she ever record her predictions?" I asked, hoping that I could find them and read some.

"Yeah she did but I don't know who has them...it could be one of her sisters relatives or...." He trailed off before firming his gaze at me, "why do you care....there just predictions...guesses... it's not like they're accurate"

Something quickly switched for Uncle Jared in that moment. He grew defensive and uncooperative. He realised he had been unknowingly sitting through an interrogation.

"You said it yourself...she got things right" I reminded him.

"She also got a lot of things wrong...she said my dad's brother would go deaf, but it never happened....she was a superstitious old woman who wanted attention" Uncle Jared grew defensive.

"But she got things right" I told him.

"Educated guesses" he reinforced.

"But she predicted your dad-" I said.

"Face it all Ashton's end up in prison or a body bag Taylor" he folded his arms.

That wasn't a lie; it was rare for an Ashton to live happily ever after; I think that's what scared my cousin Ethan into leaving.

I stood up and entered my home where I found Chace sitting around our kitchen table, slowly stirring a teaspoon in his coffee cup. He just sat they're, looking at his coffee cup; his eyes looked like he was somewhere else; somewhere far away from here.

What's up with him? I wondered.

I sighed whilst climbing up the staircase. "No its mine!" I heard a man cry from down the hallway on the second floor.

"Don't be a child!" The other screamed.

"No, you don't be a child you selfish rug rat!" The first retorted.

Oh how much I missed their voices.

I stood at the door frame and smiled. The two seventeen-year-old boys we standing in the centre of their bedroom arguing over a T-shirt.

Zac was now 6'2 and wore a grey T-shirt, leather jackets, dark jeans with black and white converse shoes.

Chris was also 6'2 and wore an oversized black jumper with light denim jeans.

"I see you boys are back to your old ways" I smiled by the door.

"Rina!" Chris greeted with a smile whilst running to my side, picking me up whilst squeezing me tight.

"Hey, their kiddo" I grinned as he let me go.

"Hey, Taylor" Zac waves awkwardly from the centre of the room.

"Hey, Zac" I half smiled.

Zac looked at me like the rest of my family did; with sympathy, sadness and pain. Chris, on the other hand, was full of joy like he had no care in the world.

"Uncle Danny!" Chris grinned whilst looking behind me.

I turn my head to see the thirty-seven-year-old, 5'11 man who wore his white T-shirt, red flannel and denim jeans.

"Hey man, how you been?" Zac greeted.

"Taylor" Dad sighed as I stormed out of room.

He had been released from the containment unit.

I couldn't be around him; I just couldn't. I entered my room, sat on the floor, beside my bed and pulled out my bottle of bourbon that sat in my nightstand drawers.

I drank the bourbon quickly. There were things in my life that I couldn't deal with; no matter how hard I tried. I needed something to numb the pain; I wanted to be put in some alternate reality where everything was okay.

I couldn't help but think of Gabriello Larrunzario; the boy who made my heart skip a beat. Then my boyfriend Jack who I had been refusing to see for weeks. Then there was Chace, that lost boy downstairs, lost in some alternate reality.

***

"What do you want from me?" John stood in his pale blue button-up with black trousers and a suede coat.

"I want you to be here!" Vanessa cried as jumping up from her seat in her Hampton home, rubbing her five months pregnant belly. "You've spent all your time in Brooklyn with her!"

Vanessa was only twenty-five, 5'9 and stood pregnant in a long blue flowy dress.

"What's the big deal?" John asked her. "They're your family afterall"

"You did not just ask me that" she facepalmed in frustration "you are my husband, you have a son and another child on the way! isn't that a good enough reason for you to stick around?"

"Vanessa I need to be there for Taylor...you know that" he sighed.

"Right cause she's first priority over the rest of us!" Vanessa waved her hands above her head "you should have just gone off and married her!"

Suddenly his cell began buzzing. He immediately pressed his flip phone again his right ear. "Yeah" John greeted.

"Hey, how fast can you get back here?" Michael asked.

"Why? What's going on?" John asked 

"I found Taylor out cold with a marijuana-filled cigarette in one hand and a bottle of bourbon in the other" Michael announced, "its a miracle she didn't set anything on fire besides her T-shirt"

"Alright, I'll be their soon" John nodded as ending the phone call, reverting his gaze to his wife.

"Don't let me stop you" Vanessa clenched her jaw.

"Vanessa I'm sorry-" John told her.

"No, go!" She screamed as throwing the novel from beside her at Johns left cheek before storming out of the room.

We didn't know it then that John and Vanessa's marriage was falling apart. If we had known, then my family wouldn't have called so often. That argument and many more like it occured most nights for the couple.