Atonement

•12•

My eyes droop as I down my fifth coffee, desperately trying to keep myself awake. I've been up all night trying to find more information on Aurie's mother, but all I've found is her name. Adriene. Other than that she basically doesn't exist, something so much bigger went down when she got in that car accident.
My office door opens, and a well rested Tom enters the room. He's still in his pajamas, and has a cup of tea in hand.
"So what's going on? Aurie is still sleeping." He asks, sitting down in the chair across from me.
"The woman downstairs.. it is her mum. I'm sure of it." I say.
"How sure?" He raises his brow.
"Positive." I say.
I pull together all my papers, stuffing them into the file, and putting it away.
"Listen man.. you can't be getting involved with Aurie." I say.
"Involved?" He questions.
"No dating, no hooking up, no sleeping in her bed." I state.
"Woah first of all, She was crying, I was only there to comfort her and then I fell asleep." He says. "And secondly, I'm pretty sure I'm not the one you should be worried about falling for her."
"Yeah? Who should I be worried about then?" I ask.
"Mate.. you seem really invested in her.." He says.
"You're fucking stupid. I'm just doing my job. I promised to look after her." I roll my eyes, feeling the exhaustion even more.
"You've never cared to keep those kind of promises before is all im saying." He shrugs, getting up from his seat and leaving my office.
I finish up clearing my desk, and head to bed for a few hours sleep before I have to get back to work.

•Aurie's pov•
I wake up, feeling the ache in my body from sleeping so long. As I sit up in my bed, looking into the mirror on the wall, I notice my eyes are still puffy and red.
The door opens, and Tom walks into the room with a cup of tea in hand. A small smile rests on my face as he hands it to me.
"Thank you." I say.
"Course.. feeling better?" He asks.
"A little.. I need to talk to Haz about the woman downstairs." I start. "I need to know-"
"He's sure.." Tom says quickly, making my brows knit together.
"So.."
"She's your mother." He nods.
My heart quickens, and my breath becomes uneven. How is it even possible? How did she fake her own death and stay gone so long? And even more importantly, why did she leave?..
"I need to go down there and talk to her." I say.
"You can't." Tom says. "Haz wouldn't want you talking to her alone and-"
"Then come with me." I say.
He sighs, knowing when I put my mind to something I'm going to do it.
"Fine." He nods.
"I'm going to clean myself up, then we can go down." I say.
"Alright.. you know Haz might kill both of us for this." He warns.
"Oh well. I can't handle Haz." I shrug.
Tom leaves my room and I quickly clean myself up, changing into some clean clothes and washing the dried up tears from yesterday from my face. Every question I could possibly ever come up with is running through my brain, along with anger, feelings of betrayal, abandonment, and sadness.
It starts to set in, that I'm about to go talk to my mother for the first time in almost fifteen years.
"You ready?" Tom asks as I walk down the hallway.
"No, but let's do it anyways.." I breath out.
He unlocks the basement, and I look up at him, before walking down.
As I walk down the stairwell, I make eye contact with her. She's definitely gotten some work done, she's almost unrecognizable.
"Hello, darling." She gives me a small smile.
"Mum.." I test the word, seeing how it fits to her. It fits right. It's her. "I really can't begin to understand how this is happening right now.."
"Pull up a chair. I will explain everything." She says.
Tom stands there watching protectively as I grab the chair from the side of the room, dragging it over to sit down in front of her, distanced enough to be completely safe.
"The car crash.. I really did get badly injured, and I really did need to be in the hospital, but I didn't die obviously." She starts. "Going through that, it made me realize that this wasn't the life I wanted.. to be in the hospital due to your fathers own mistakes... I left, and I told him if he wired me enough money to live off of every week I wouldn't snitch. When the payment didn't come I started following you.. saw what a beautiful strong girl you've become."
Her words make me sick to my stomach..
"Really?" I ask, my voice cracking. "You just left, no word, no explanation, you just left."
"It wasn't good for me." She says.
"What about me?!" I raise my voice, standing to my feet. "What about me?! Did you even care about how I would feel?"
"Aurie I did what I had to do-"
"I was a kid!" I yell at her. "I had to loose one of the closest people in my life, move here, become a person I was never supposed to be, because of you!"
The sadness of her face was evident, but I couldn't care less about her emotions right now. She abandoned me. Traded my happiness for hers. She ruined my life and I will never forgive her.
"Look at you now! You are in such high power, you got what you wanted, and I got what I wanted." She says, making me scoff.
"I got what I wanted? You really believe this is what I wanted?" I ask.
"You would have ended up like your father either way, I just made it a little easier." She says.
"I deserved a choice." I say.
"And so did I." She counters.
I shake my head in disbelief. This is not the mother I remember..
"Tom." I say, turning to face him. "Tell Haz to dispose of her."
"What?!" Her voice raises, obvious anxiety in her tone.
I turn back to her, showing no emotion whatsoever.
"You did what was best for you, and now I'm going to do what's best for me." I say. "What's best for me, is to know a human as disgusting as you isn't on this earth anymore."
I move quickly, walking up the stairs and out of the basement. That will be the last time I ever see that woman.