Apple Core

Nineteen: Lies

After returning to the cell, I realized that the old man was in the same cell as I. Of course, I thought; where else would he be to find out that I didn't keep yelling about my innocence?

We got back in, and I realized there were four of us: besides the old man and I, there was a kid a bit older than me with tattoos and piercings, and a guy with black hair in around his thirties. Unsurprisingly, they all had beards.

The tattooed guy and the other one sat down in one corner of the cell, playing checkers with an old board that was under one of the bottom bunks earlier, but the old man was on one of the top bunks, sitting there doing nothing.

I felt like I shouldn't push the issue. He wasn't going to tell me why he was in jail, and I could understand that. People sometimes go to jail for reasons they don't want to talk about. But that meant I had nothing to do, so I just snuck into the toilet.

I looked at my reflection in the mirror. Those honey colored eyes. And all these years, I had never known. All these years I had lived right next to her, wondering why she had my exact same eyes, yet the answer was right in front of them: she had been my mother all along.

I was blinded by my own mother-who wasn't my mother-and chose to deny the truth and yell at the innocent. I chose the wrong side. I picked the wrong way.

And my real parents were probably having the time of their lives. They probably had no idea that their younger child was in jail because of the same person who took him from them.

It could have all been different.

What if I had never been kidnapped? Then I would be a normal almost-nineteen-year-old. I would have never known my 'mother'. I would have lived with the Redd's, learned things from Ralph, played tennis or football with my real father, and received love from my real mother. I would have gone to real schools and colleges, gotten real friends and teachers. I would have probably been one of the coolest kids in the whole school, with Ralph and my parents by my side.

It could have all been different.

And we'd have played monopoly when it rained and went for picnics when it didn't, and we'd have built snowmen in December way before I was ten. And I would have had a party on every single one of my birthdays and, when I became a teen, I would have payed for a dinner for two somewhere, to get my parents out of the house and get the parties even crazier.

It could have all been different.

It could have, but it wasn't.

Could have, but never was.

And then I felt my lunch of bread and water and green-stuff rising in my throat, and I turned around just in time to throw up in the open toilet.

And I could have played hide and seek with Ralph when I was five..

And I kept vomiting..

And known him for ten years before I did..

And vomiting..

And he could have taught me everything, from how to spell my own name to how to ride a bike..

And vomiting..

And I could have had a brother.

There was nothing left in my stomach. I flushed the rusty toilet and went over to the equally rusty sink to wash my face.

"HOW DARE YOU! I RAISED YOU, FROM A TINY LITTLE USELESS CHILD TO A USELESS TEENAGER!!"

She said it that way because she was afraid.