STILL GROUNDED AND THE SCHOOL'S COMPUTERS ARE STILL MESSED UP! BLAME THE GOVERMENT! Oh, and yes, I am aware my brother changed my name to Gangstalicious, but I'm gonna keep it there because it's kinda funny. Yeah, just so ya'll don't think I'm crazy.
"I don't do the things I do so I can get noticed. I don't steal because I need, I don't steal because someone asked me. I don't steal because when I do, I feel important. I steal because, in a world of dying siblings, stealing is a way to prove I'm the only one who's going to live."
-Sodapop 'Soda' Manson, 2004
Chapter 8
May 1st, 2004
I arrive in the town of Amity Park around noon. The stretch of blacktop has been my only goal for years now, well that, and to take care of the little girl sitting next to me. I'm no longer on the run, I'm sad to say, because my penance has been lifted.
Sometimes, it pays to have inside connections. Not that I'd ever tell my daughter that I was once a convicted criminal, but I like reminding myself, a small fact that streaks me black, a different father in the endless indifferent faces.
"Dad, where are we going?" My daughter, Lolli, says next to me. She has lost a tooth, and it shows when she talks. I don't have to look at her to be reminded of her copper skin, sandy blonde locks, or ocean blue eyes.
I wonder if I should tell her we are finally going home. If that soon, she will have an aunt and a grandmother. I purse my lips tight, as if the words can be cut off simply at the lips and not at the mind.
She takes it as a sign for a surprise, and settles down, clutching her rag doll. The doll itself is a pathetic sight, one eye missing and an arm nearly torn off, spaghetti sauce stains all over, and the smell of fish will come if you're close enough. But I'd never seen Lolli without it, and because I know what it is like to love something other people don't, I never say anything about it.
I wonder how Scarlett passed away, if it was gentle and painless, or a thrashing of bones against her sides. Here I am, twenty seven years old, and if she were alive, Scarlett would be twenty two. Old enough to have kids, old enough to be married, if she were a normal person.
I turn down a familiar subdivision, where my neighbors used to smile at me as I passed by on my bike. Sometimes I wondered if they knew, but how could they? My family were pros at lying about their lies, at fooling the whole world.
'Your sister is sick Soda, I don't have time to take you to Dylan's house.'
'It's not all about you! Don't you get that? It's about your sisters. Sammy and Scarlett. I don't care if you pollute your mind but don't kill Sammy's!'
I imagine my mother's face, her eyes, so broken, her slim face and too fake of a smile. I remember her endless sobs in the middle of the night, so that I would have to close my eyes and beg God to make it stop, or turn my headphones on louder so I wouldn't have to hear. I remember her holding me against her, my ear on her chest, I thought that in the midst of it all, I could hear her heart breaking.
"Daddy, watch out!" Lolli breaks me from my day dream. I look in one instant, see a teenage boy, and I slam my breaks. For one moment, the car shifts, and I can hear my heart in my throat. Lolli is too afraid to scream.
As I sit there shaking, the boy looks at me, not caring that the car was inches away from taking his life. I am about to yell when his eyes meet mine, and I recognize him instantly from the photos Sammy had given me back when I had my first few years in jail. That boy, Danny Fenton…her best friend.
I remember ripping his photo in half, the one where his arm was on my sister's shoulder, navigating a place that I never could. I imagined him kissing her, his fingers wrapping over the freckles on her arm, to the third one down, pressing down to feel a pulse. A place that was shown to all, like a map, it was always easy to find the spot to find her pulse as a baby, because the road was already drawn for them. His hair is ebony black, his eyes the color of Lolli's only a few shades lighter. He does not seem to be the carefree kid in the photo.
I wonder when he looked into my eyes if he saw Sammy's. If he saw something that reflected over my pain that was Sammy's too. If he could see me looking back now, remembering. Remembering the tube that sprouted from Sam's arm, giving Scarlett blood. I wonder if he saw that one Christmas we spent together, Sam and Scarlett throwing up into a pan. A bruise on Sam's arm, a huge one, branching out horribly so that I thought it had a mind of its own, so that I thought it was going to take over her. Her matted black hair sticking to her face as she hyperventilated her way through a spell.
He walks away, and I am left in my memories. I continue to drive, but as much as Lolli was talking, she is silent now. When I reach my old house, not much has changed. The brick color has changed, almost like a second skin. I get out of the car, going to Lolli and gathering her in my arms.
"Soda?" A voice breaks through my thoughts again, but it not my daughter's. It is my mother, sitting there, in a dress that does not show her weak pathetic form, but rather compliments it. She has put on make-up, her red hair curled.
"Mom." I whisper, and she runs to me. I have been dead to her, and I thought the reason she'd cut off contact was because she was ashamed. But looking at her, I realized that she'd never stopped.
"Oh my God…" She whispers, looking at me, running her gloved hands over my arm, like she was making sure I was real. Her lips form a smile, and I see the fake one she'd been wearing for the years I was gone, for it showed. "You're alive…"
Lolli shifts from my arms, as my mother sees her. When their eyes meet, I wonder if she's remembering me, or if she wonders if Lolli's the kind of child I could have been.
"This is Lollipop." I say her birth name, surprised when my mother does not scowl, but her eyes twinkle as if it's the most beautiful name in the world. Lolli sticks her thumb in her mouth, she has that habit of mine, always trying to find something to do with her hands.
"Oh Soda, she's beautiful, just like you." She says, and as I let Lolli go, watching her scamper across the grass, happy to be nowhere. "Come inside, Adrian is here. Please, come."
I nod, and I go inside, Lollipop following me the whole way. As we sit on the table, butlers come and give Lolli anything she wants. She is not used to this, so she only asks for water and shyly looks down at the table, a small blush of embarrassment on her face.
My mother sits down, handing me a cup of tea. She gives me peach tea, my favorite flavor, as I notice she says nothing about my ragged appearance. About how I had left her many years ago, about how I failed to be a good brother and son. She smiles. "How old is Lollipop?" She asks as I look at Lolli.
"Four." She mutters, but somehow my mother hears it. She smiles.
"That's wonderful. Dutchess has a little boy too you know, about to turn four. I think he's upstairs, would you like one of our butlers show you the way?"
At the sound of a potential friend, Lolli smiles a shy smile. "Yes ma'm."
A young woman leads her upstairs, and in one moment, I see her looking down at her plain blue dress. As she leaves me, I turn my attention back to my mother. "Oh Soda, I missed you so." She says after awhile and she puts her head down, not before I notice the tears running down her cheeks. "All these years…you…"
Before I can say anything, the door opens and my father comes home. He sees me, and his eyes widen. There is a small instant, where I miss him more than the world could ever even hope to know. But then I see something that makes me stop dead in my tracks.
A policeman, and he holds my father's arm, tight. The back door opens, as we look to see Sammy, coming home from school. I stop, surprised. My little baby sister, the one who sat between my legs and pointed out constellations, is all grown up. Even as she sets her backpack down, looking at me and Dad like we are crazy, there is a woman grace there that she has acquired over the course of time.
She sees our father, being handcuffed, and her eyes widen. "Daddy?" She squeaks, and for a minute, her features blur, and I see Lolli. So scared and open, I can see her scooting back slightly, and then her features stand out more, she is Sammy again.
She breaths, and I know in the fear and sadness, her throat is swelled shut. "Daddy? What's going on?"
The policeman answers for her. "Adrian Manson is under arrest for stealing the unreleased embryo of Tizarah Vorabend. 1990, in South Dakota."
1990, That was over 14 years ago. As they haul out my father, Sammy runs to me, grabbing my arm, tears forming in her eyes. She asks me, frantically, what is going on. I close my eyes, but her voice of need pushes me awake. I thought I'd never have to tell her, I never thought this day would come. Or, if it did, I never thought I'd be the one to tell her.
"What's happening? What are they talking about?" She asks me as I bit my lip. "Who is Tizarah Vorabend?"
I can feel my breath stop. An unbearable silence as I watch my father being shoved into a car, looking at us helplessly. "You were." I say, as she falls silent beside me.
Our mother holds her hand, trying to comfort her. "Sammy-kins, please-"
But my baby sister is not in the mood for talking. She glares. "Just tell me what happened. I deserve that much."
My mother sighs, and she looks at me and Sam as she starts her story. "When Scarlett was five, we discovered that she had something strange in her bone marrow. Back then, it hadn't developed into cancer, but we knew there was the smallest chance that it could. We needed a future plan, just in case."
Sam tensed up. Mom continued. "But with her special blood type and strange blood patterns due to the bone marrow, it was impossible to find a donor. There was only one person in the world that could help us."
Sam swallowed. "Who?"
"Zepha Vorabend, she was the only one who'd had cancer once, but survived and killed it. She, or her child, would be the perfect donor."
My mother's hands tightened, so that the skin turned white. "But there was no way she'd be able to, living that far, we wouldn't be able to get her blood for Scarlett in time if she ever became sick. Then we found out about her embryo. Turns out, scientist can take a sperm and an egg, and make a baby, only they can determine the sex, future complications, the whole ordeal. They could…in a way, make a baby in the lab, create it, then impregnate the mother if it was what she wanted."
Sam was crying now. Her life had been turned upside down. "Was I that embryo?"
Mom nodded, and she licked her dry lips. "Your original name was Tizarah. You were the only one who could save us. Adrian broke into the lab one night, and stole you."
Sam shook her head. "No, I have Dad's hair, Grandma's eyes."
My Mom nodded. "All traits Adrian was able to put in your DNA before he took you. He gave you to me, and then we had you." She looked into Sam's eyes, before reaching out and putting her hand on her shoulder. "Sammy, I love you, regardless of where you came from. You were born from me, and that's proof enough."
But Sam was already storming up the stairs, and I could see the tears running down her face faster than a river's current.
By the time I reached her door, she was halfway into closing it. "Sam." I started.
"You knew about this?" She asked, as I nodded. Her eyes softened, bruised. She then gave me a glare. "What other secrets are you hiding from me?"
Before I could answer, a door slammed. And as mother put her face in her hands. I tried to hold her together, but I couldn't even hold myself.
"I had to," She was sobbing. "I had to. I had to save my baby." She looked at me. "You have Lolli, you must know how it feels."
I tried to remember a time when my life had been normal. I couldn't. I thought of Lolli, how I'd destroy anything who even thought about harming her. How I loved her all the way to the moon and back. If I'd ever been told she might get sick. If I had been told there was only one way to save her, but it was stealing an embryo. If I ever lost her...
"Yes." I said finally, an agreement between us. "I do."
REVIEW! Oh, it seems that Sam isn't who she thought she was. Will she side with her father? Will she go agianst him? If she does, who will help her? How will everyone else take this news? Will she go to Danny for help, or will she confide in her new friends? I'LL NEED 102 REVIEWS TO CONTINUE! YES, THIS STORY'S GONNA REACH THE 100th MARK!
How did you like Soda's point of view? What about Lollipop? I suddenly thought of this overnight, although I'm probably gonna get a review with someone yelling because someone already thought of it. Oh well. I'm still grounded sadly, had to write this in school agian. When I'm able to write at my home computer, I'll let you know.
