Finding Home ~ Chapter 11: The Truth
I just can't wait for school to be over for six weeks. 50 more days, can't wait for July 19th.
"Alright, sit down. Now prepare yourself for this, I don't know how you'll all react." Lolita said uneasily whilst directing her daughter, stepdaughter and nephew to the red velvet sofa. She stood in front of them all, Michael by her side. Autumn was still sniffling slightly, Lauren was uncertain about what was about to be said and Cameron had his usual blank expression.
"Well, where do I begin... when I was fourteen years old, I was confused about my entire life. I had no idea what I wanted to become once I'd left school and who I would marry. You see, Michael apparently had a huge crush on me. But the problem was that Holly, my best friend at the time and Lauren's mother, also had a huge crush on him. I knew that whatever happened, someone would be hurt. So one day towards the end of August, I was just preparing to start high school. But I was grounded and stuck babysitting Cassandra's parents, who were seven at the time. After they'd had some food, I began to wash the dishes. But Mortimer insisted that I bring the old radio from my room downstairs and into the kitchen. It was plugged in next to the sink, big mistake. Whilst the radio was playing, my arm caught it and it flew into the sink which was full of water. I made the extremely foolish decision of not even draining the water or turning the radio off by the socket and just reached in and grabbed it. Hundreds of volts got sent throughout my body and it resulted in my death."
The room fell silent as Lolita watched everyone's facial expressions. Lauren was the first to speak.
"But... how does that all work? How are you even stood here today then?" she questioned. Cameron seemed to be in deep thought and Autumn was just too shocked to the point where she couldn't even speak.
"That's another long story. Are you prepared to listen to that too?" Lolita asked. Everyone else nodded.
"Well, it was Bella and Mortimer's freshmen year at university. Cameron, I believe you'd just been born the day before. Bella had just discovered that her best friend Kaylynn's Aunt Zelda, who both she and I were very close to, had died in a car accident. When it came to her funeral, Bella hung around by Zelda's grave for a few minutes whilst everyone left for the funeral party. But apparently Michael was waiting at the graveyard entrance for her. Anyway, mine and Zelda's ghosts showed up at the same time, although Zelda's left pretty sharpish. I still hung around for a few moments before Michael came over, wondering what was taking Bella so long. And he just saw my ghost standing there. After-"
"Okay Lo, I'll take it from here." Michael interrupted his wife.
"So I explained to Lo's ghost about this thing called ambrosia which basically resurrects ghosts. Now that I think back, it was a bit unfair to bring it all up at Zelda's funeral. So it took a years worth of work that's a bit complicated and to be honest it doesn't really sound all that logical, but we eventually got Lo back alive on this planet. A couple of years later, we married and had Autumn. And besides from the complicated and confusing things, that's really all there is to it."
Yet another silence happened. But Lauren was still curious.
"But what's the whole deal that happened with my real mother? What even happened to her after she shamelessly abandoned Tommy and I?" she asked.
"Well, I've heard from her a couple times since, begging me to join her in Hidden Springs or wherever she is now, but I've ignored those attempts. She just left her two children behind, of course I lost a load of respect for her."
"Well... this would be an extremely good story for my final science exam." Cameron finally broke his silence. Michael smiled slightly at his nephew whilst Lolita's eyes widened.
"No, you mustn't tell anyone this at all. I know most of Sunset Valley knows anyway but I'd just prefer to keep it in the family." she insisted.
"Don't worry, I was joking." Cameron gave a rare grin that was so much like his father's.
"Uh... Cameron? Are we gonna go and get cards now?" Autumn asked urgently, wanting to get outside as quickly as she could. Her parents had kept that secret from her for all of her life, of course she was mad! She had every reason to be!
Without a word to either of her parents, Autumn stood up and left the room, Cameron following not far behind.
"Uh... don't worry about it. She'll calm down soon enough." reassured Lauren, seeing that her father and stepmother seemed a bit upset by Autumn's negative reaction.
The next day, Mortimer went straight to the hospital to see Cassandra once he'd finished work. But upon arriving to the intensive care unit, he was surprised to see his daughter's room empty, as if she'd never been in there at all. Mortimer's heart started racing. What if the worst had happened and they couldn't get ahold of him to break the news?
Slowly leaving the ward, Mortimer looked up the main hospital corridor. And there he saw his wife and brother-in-law standing outside a door, smiles on their faces. That really gave him hope; smiles usually meant good things, right? Mortimer approached the two; his face said everything.
"She's made a major improvement in the last few hours. They think she might be waking up soon." Bella beamed, greeting her husband with a loving kiss.
"Are you serious?! Is our little girl going to be alright?!" Mortimer exclaimed, feeling his cheeks hurt from smiling so big.
"Sure looks like it."
"Hey Morty, I'm about to go get a coffee. Bella doesn't want one, do you?" offered Dylan, reaching into his pocket for his wallet.
"Please. Just get me whatever you're getting, I'll pay you afterwards."
Dylan nodded as he turned to walk away.
"So they're just running some tests on her before we can go in to visit." Bella explained.
"Well they'd better hurry up, I can't wait to see my little girl again." Mortimer replied.
As if by magic, the door suddenly opened and a nurse popped her head out, smiling.
"You can come in now." she announced before stepping aside to let Bella and Mortimer in.
And there she was. Sitting up in her bed, staring around the room in full consciousness was Cassandra.
"Hey there baby girl!" Bella squealed before rushing over to hug her daughter.
"Mom?! You're here!" Cassandra gasped, hugging her mother tightly and never wanting to let go.
"Yeah, everything's mostly back to normal now. But we've missed you so much, the entire family has!"
"But... what exactly happened? The nurses barely said anything, they insisted on waiting for you and dad to to the explaining." Cassandra asked curiously whilst Mortimer took his turn to hold her close.
"Well, can you remember the warehouse fire?" Bella asked.
"For the most part, yup."
"Well, afterwards the entire place collapsed on top of you. You've spent the last couple of weeks in a coma."
"Oh... what happened to Stephanie? I saw her in there and screamed in her face."
"I swore that was you but didn't really consider it until it was too late. And she died in there."
Before Cassandra could ask any more questions, Autumn just came barging in.
"Cassie! Thank God you're okay!" she grinned, running over and giving her cousin a huge hug.
"Yup, guess I'm lucky to still be alive." Cassandra replied.
"I know right? We were actually told to prepare for the worse."
"Wow."
"Anyway, next time we're both alone I need to tell you something that I found out yesterday about my mother."
"Keeping secrets from us now Autumn, hmm?" Bella teased her niece.
"Haha. But really, it actually is top secret information."
So yesterday I kinda thought that my laptop was broken forever. I was halfway through writing this chapter and the screen was literally hanging off. I thought I'd lost everything, and plus I can't get a new laptop until Christmas. But my stepdad somehow managed to fix it last night, which I'm extremely grateful for. So anyway, once this story's finished (one or two chapters left and also an epilogue) I'm definitely doing an entire Story of Bella Bachelor rewrite. Idk if I'll include her older sister Jessica in it or not; she was kind of a pointless character. But we'll see.
