Bandmate ||Ricky Garcia||

《f i f t y - s e v e n》

Ricky's POV

Justin is sitting before me with his head down as his hands pull at his hair. I can feel Audrey's hand in my back trying to soothe me. We've been sitting in silence for a good 10 minutes after I told him we are stepbrothers. I can tell he's flustered with the news the moment I told him mom has lied to us for years.

''I don't believe. That's not mom.'' We finally hear him say and he looks up from the floor. He shakes his head so rapid that I lose focus on his eyes. He gets up and pushes the pillow he had on his lap into the floor and walks into the hall.

I turn to look at Audrey who tells me to follow him, so I do. I leave her behind and rush after my brother. The familiar squeak of mom's drawer starts to echo through the hall, and I walk into her room to see Justin rummaging through her important papers that she keeps in the second drawer to left.

''What are you doing?'' I ask him as soon as the softness of the carpet is felt at the bottom of my shoe. His arm moves frantically lifting and scanning papers like there's no tomorrow.

''I don't know, anything.'' He pulls out a yellow folder that is at least 2 inches thick and lays it on the bed. He sits down and starts to scan those with a burst of light in his eyes. I sit down with him and at first, I just watch him but then I start scanning the random documents as if to prove anything.

''I don't think you'll find anything here that either disproves or proves what mom said.'' I tell him putting down our social security numbers.

''Yeah but maybe she wrote something,'' He pulled out our birth certificates that were clipped together. He takes off the paper clip and a small polaroid falls on his lap. Justin didn't seem to notice so I reach to pick up.

I hear a slight creak come from the door and I find Audrey leaning against the door looking at me with her puppy eyes. I smile at her and look back down at the Polaroid to see the date of my birthday and the hospital name. Turning the photo to see the actual image I see two incubators and the back of mom's blonde hair reaching into the first incubator.

I didn't think much of it until I saw the name tags on the incubators. I squinted my eyes to hopefully get a closer look but I wasn't sure of what it says. I can read the first one said Garcia but the second one is on a weird angle.

''Hey can you read what that says?'' I point it out to Justin, who looks at it for a second and frowns.

''Did you forget I can't read up close and I don't have glasses with me.''

''Thanks, you're useless. Audrey, come in here and tell me what that says.'' She makes her way to me and sits in the bed before taking a look at the photo. She tilts her head to the side.

''Well the first tag clearly says Garcia and I am 90% sure the other one also says Garcia.'' She says slowly giving it back to me.

''What? There's two?'' Justin snatches it from me and stares at it as if his blindness was going to magically disappear.

''There's a lot of people with that last name.'' I hear Audrey comment trying to relax Justin.

Justin nods and hands me back the polaroid, ''Yeah but don't you think it's a little strange...'' My voice drifts away. Something about this picture doesn't settle with me.

''Justin, were you there when I was born?'' I ask him and he shakes his head.

''No, mom and dad said not to.''

''Why did they do that?''

He shrugs his shoulders, ''Well I do remember that they had to drop us off at grandma's because they had to take mom to a hospital that was really far away. They told us that since you were born early we weren't allowed to see you, so there was no point in going?''