Hey guys I'm back.
I apologize for the absence, I've just been struggling a lot with my depression lately so it's been hard to find the motivation to write.
That being said I can't say that this is the best I've ever written but I did my best and hopefully you'll like it.

CHAPTER 7

Surely, he must have heard her wrong, how could she so easily believe his story when she was the one telling him the other side of the story, and when she carried so much dislike for the man.

"Are you serious?"

He asked, but she didn't answer instead she just gestured for him to sit down again and after a few seconds of hesitation, he reluctantly sat down.

"First of all, the story I told you was what your mother told us and just because it's the story we chose to believe for all these years, doesn't mean it's the truth. To be completely honest I've always had my doubts about it but I have never questioned it before since I trusted your mother. Second of all I do think that Nina would lie about something like that."

Mike frowned at her words, he didn't know what she meant by that.
His mother had always been a kind, honest person and he was more willing to believe that Harvey would lie than his mother.

"What do you mean by that?"

He asked his grandmother in an accusing tone which caused her to sigh.

"Your mother always had very strong beliefs that a child could not be happy with separated parents, since her own parents got divorced and she was truly unhappy with the situation."

His mother's parents had both died when he was very young and he had no memory of them at all, but he was sure that his mother never mentioned that they were divorced or that they were anything but the perfect parents that never gave her a reason to be unhappy.

"I can easily imagine that she wouldn't want to involve you Harvey, because if you wanted to be a part of it, then Mike would have separated parents and to Nina that meant that Mike would not be happy and not feel safe."
"Did she really think that?"

Mike questioned as his grandmother painted up a picture of his mother that he didn't recognize at all.

"When you were five, James wanted to get a divorce but Nina wouldn't let that happen and they fought constantly, I honestly thought they would end up killing each other. Your mother just wouldn't let him leave."

The only thing he remembered was that his dad started to drink a lot when he was five, but he never knew that it was because of his mother and a possible divorce.
In his eyes his parents had always been the perfect couple, but it seemed as if another part of his life had been a complete lie.

"I just need to be alone and think."
Mike said before he got up and walked out of the room.

He fled to the room that he once knew as his and sat down on the bed.
The room was small and kind of cramped, it had been a guest room before his parents had decided to move his sick grandma in to the house.
Mike had been more than happy to trade his bedroom for the smaller guest room in order to give his grandmother the bigger room.
He didn't know why but he had always had a special bond with his grammy, and he had always been close to her and ready to do everything to make sure that she was alright, but now for the first time in his life he was unsure if he could trust her.
His head was spinning, someone had been lying to him but he didn't know who.
The first option was that Harvey was lying and he had actually abandoned him, which of course raised the question if the man had changed or if he was doing this because he felt like he had to.
Even if the man had changed, the thought of being abandoned, of being unwanted really hurt and he wasn't sure if he could ever get over that if that was the truth.
The second option was that Harvey was telling the truth and his mother had been the one lying.
If that was the case then Mike had treated Harvey unfairly, when the man was just trying to connect to the son he never knew he had.
Mike really wished that his mother could still be here so that he could confront her and ask her why she had kept this from him, why she let him live a lie and ask if she had ever planned to tell him.
He wanted to know if his mother had never told him the truth in order to protect him from knowing that he was unwanted or if it had been for her own selfish reasons.
The thought of his mother, mixed with all of the confused feelings, caused tears to escape his eyes.
He cried because he wanted his mother back, even if it was to just confront her, and he wanted the man he'd known as his father back too.
He cried because he didn't know what to do or who to believe, he was lost and his parents weren't there to guide him.
All he had now was his grammy and his new dad, and he didn't know even if he could trust them right now.
A part of him desperately wanted someone to come in and tell him that it was going to be okay and provide him a magical solution to this trust dilemma, but the other part of him didn't want to show how much this affected him.
Luckily when Harvey knocked on the door a while longer, the tears had dried and Mike didn't have to show his weakness in front of him.

Several kids stared at the car as it stopped in front of the school building, it wasn't often that you saw someone arrive in a car as nice as the one Mike was in.
He took a deep breath before he opened the door and stepped out of the car.

"Thanks for the ride, Ray."

Mike politely said to the driver, who he had really taken a liking to despite having only met the man this morning.

"Have a good day."

Harvey said and Mike answered with a quick 'you too'.
They hadn't really talked to each other since they returned from his grandmother, mostly because Mike had shut himself in his room and Harvey had respected his will to be alone.
The car left and Mike walked into the school building, ignoring the way people whispered about him.
He couldn't really blame them for wondering, he usually arrived to school in his father's old Volvo and not an expensive, classy car like he had today.
They would wonder about it for a while and then forget about it, or at least that's what he thought.
Mike was on his way to his second lesson of the day when Kyle and his minions showed up out of nowhere, circling around him like predators circling their pray.

"What do you want?"

He asked, trying to sound tough despite feeling like a zebra cornered by a group of lions.

"I heard you had a new daddy."

Kyle said and Mike couldn't help but frown.
He hadn't told anyone about Harvey, well apart from Trevor but his best friend would never tell anyone else if Mike didn't want him to.
Mike sighed, Kyle's try to taunt him was just pathetic, pointing out that he had a new dad wouldn't annoy him or hurt him since he was simply stating a fact.
He would just have to wait for Kyle to realize that he wouldn't succeed in his bullying attempt today and leave him alone so that he could go to his lesson.
Kyle however was not done, instead he managed to press just the right button.

"Are you sure that it's your real daddy this time? I mean you have had two now, who's to say there aren't more options out there? Your mother seemed to be a real who-"

Kyle didn't get the chance to finish that word before Mike's fist connected with his face.
Mike had never been the violent type but Kyle's words really made him see red, Kyle knew that his mother was dead and still he dared to speak of her that way.
No matter how he felt for his mother at the moment, he wouldn't let anyone speak ill of her.
Despite the fact that Kyle was both bigger and stronger than him, he managed to tackle him to the ground and he ended up on top of him as he continued to hit him in blind rage.
Kyle managed to get in a few blows himself but it was Mike who dominated the fight, too engulfed by rage to stop.
Kyle's minions stood like frozen next to them, they were too shocked by the sudden attack to help their leader.
The minions were suddenly pushed aside as two teachers rushed to the scene, one of them pulled Mike off of Kyle while the other teacher helped Kyle up.

"Don't you talk about my mother ever again."

Mike threatened as the teacher had to hold him back from Kyle, and he couldn't help but feel a little proud when he noticed that he had managed to make the toughest kid in school look like a terrified little puppy.