Don't tell me bye bye (mystery/ thriller)

Chapter 19

I burst into the living room, panting and dizzy from running all the way from the church. Jin leaps to his feet, a book and the remote control tumbling across the carpet.

"Where's mum!?" I shout.
"Y/n, keep it down! Teddy's in-" He stops mid-sentence as soon as he sees me. "Y/n, are you-" "I said, where is she, Jin! Tell me!" I shout.

"She's upstairs, Y/n," he says, his voice gentle. "What's this about?"

"Did you know? Did you know as well?"

He blinks at me. "Know what, Y/n?"

The living room door clicks shut and I turn around to see mum standing in front of it, her wide eyes betraying the confidence of her straight back and shoulders.

"Are you okay, Y/n?"

Her voice, free from shock but drenched with fear, is just a whisper and her words set off an explosive mist of anger that descends over my eyes. I wheel around and fly at her, ready to shake the truth out of her mouth but Jin restrains me like a teacher trying to stop a fight.

"Jesus, Y/n, what the hell has got into you?" he says from behind me.

"Yeah, what's got into me, mum? Is there anything you want to tell me? Jin obviously doesn't know, are you going to share with him too?"

"Jules? You're both scaring me," says Jin, his arms loosening from around waist. "What's she talking about?"

Mum shakes her head, her eyes searching the floor for a hole she can crawl into to escape my questions. I glare at her, willing her to look up and come clean with me but she just stands there.

"Have I been here before, mum?" I ask, my bottom lip wobbling. "Did I used to live here?" Jin releases me and his voice comes out in a delicate whisper. "Jules?"

Mum fixes her eyes on Jin, doing that non-verbal communication they're always doing and think I can't decipher. "Jin, I need you to go check on Teddy," she says.

"No way," he says, stepping around me so he's standing to my side. "You need to start talking. Now." "I need to talk to Y/n alone, Jin. We'll talk about this later."

I shake my head. "No. I want Jin here." Mum shakes her head and opens her mouth to order Jin away again. "We can stand here all day, mum. Neither of us are moving until you tell us what's going on. I swear, I need some answers, mum. Why did Namjoon's Dad tell me that I lived here when I was little?"

"Sit down," she says.

"I don't want to sit down! I want you to tell me the truth!" Mum slumps into a chair, rubbing her temple with a shaking hand but I couldn't care less if she's getting a migraine. "Just tell me! Did we used to live here? Yes or no?"

She looks at her hands, twisting them in her lap, then looks up at Jin, her eyes lingering on him before she looks at me. "Yes. We did."

The truth materialises in the room and uses up all the air, and confusion and anger swirl around in my stomach. I sit down in the chair opposite her.

"I don't....Why? Why would you not tell me that?"

"Why would you not tell us that? Any of us?" says Jin.

Jules looks at me, and the tears spilling down her cheeks are a total shock to me, even in the middle of this bombshell.

"I'm sorry...I...I wouldn't even know where to start. I just, I had to keep it from you. From both of you."

I feel like I'm on one of those fairground rides, the ones that spin around and then the floor drops away. Only the floor is never coming back up, and I'm going to keep whirling round and round for eternity.