Chapter Text
"You're gonna miss me, Taylor. I know it." Two clear blue eyes stare over me while I'm busy folding up my sleeping shirts and figuring out how to squeeze them into my already stuffed-to-the-limit luggage. "I know too, Ed. " I sigh and look at him. He's leaning on the doorframe. His eyes are squinted, which he often does when he's being stubborn about something. He thinks it makes him look intimidating but it never works on me.
"Then why don't we prevent that from happening and you could just stay here in San Diego?" He shakes his head which made strands of fiery red hair fall on his icy blue eyes. "You know I can't do that to mom." I leave my shirt and luggage on my bed and walk over to him. "She needs me and I need you to understand that." I brush out the strands and stare back at him. His eyes lose their squint and I can see his resistance melting away.
"I do understand, Tay. It's just, it sucks not knowing when you'll come home. Not to mention I can't visit you because your mom doesn't want to tell anyone where you're going. What's up with that?"
That's exactly what I'm worried about myself. My mom never talked about where she came from. I've thought of asking her about it but she always dodged questions about her past. If my dad has any idea, he doesn't seem to want to share it with me either. Basically, my mother's side of the family is a completey blank slate. Well, except for my deceased grandmother I never knew I had. She wrote a letter that said that when she dies, her property would be given to her only daughter, Alexia Swift, which is my mother.
Everything happened pretty fast after that. My mother needed to stay in my grandmother's house to take care of some legal works. She insisted on taking me with her. Two days later, my mother already took me out of school before the start of my senior year. You could imagine that this whole situation sucks for me, but when your mom asks you to be with her when she's afraid of facing something on her own---even if she doesn't admit that she's actually afraid---would you have the heart to refuse?
I'm not saying my mother's a soft person, she's very tough. She's tougher than dad even, but she can be a nervous reck at times. Dad always makes me do what I want but once my mother doesn't agree on it then there's no way I'm ever gonna be allowed to do it. She's very strict. I barely got away with dating Ed. I won't be surprised if she keeps a hidden camera in my room just to monitor my every move.
"Can I ask you a question?" I sit down on a little upholstered stool I keep at the corner of my room. I watch as Ed nods his head. "Do you think my mom ever killed somebody?"
"What?!" Ed's eyebrows shot up. "Where are you going with this?"
"She doesn't talk about where she came from, she seems to be paranoid all the time, I've never met anyone who'd met her before she came to San Diego. I mean, I have the right to be suspicious."
Ed makes a sound that I'm pretty sure is a combination of a snort and a laugh. "Actually, you don't. Your mom did not kill anybody. There's nothing 'dangerous' about her."
"You should've said that when I saw you hide under my bed the time she got home early." I laugh out. "You definitely looked like she was gonna kill you."
"Ha. Ha. Ever the comedian," he says flatly. "But seriously, your mom is a little scary sometimes but that's because of her maternity instinct to protect you. Killing somebody is a whole new kind of territory. Maybe she just doesn't want you to know about her horrible childhood or something."
"That makes sense. You're right. I guess I'm just overanalyzing things."
"Exactly"
"Oh where would I be without your eternal wisdom, great Ed?" I give him a quick peck on the cheek and started to get up and packing again. That signalled the end of the discussion although it's obvious that I don't know exactly what I'm going into moving to this mysterious old town and walking into my mysterious mother's past.