Chapter Two: Catching Up

Author's Note:

Hey, guys! Sorry I took so long! We could barely write anything on our computer and soon, pornography started leaking into our systems, even if we weren't on the internet. My mom was the one who alerted me and my sis . After many resets of the computer system's system timing, my mom finally gave up with the ads that continued to leak in, and decided to finally put the new computer for a test drive. Now, we have our new computer, and I finally have my own computer account. The bad thing for my mom and dad is that the programs aren't written in korean like before. I was glad that I wrote down Chapter Two in my notebook, so I didn't forget. I wish you could see the font I used for the Author's Note and the chapter title, but since I'm using Notepad, it's not gonna show. I can tell you it's Jenkins v2.0. If you have Wordpad yourself, check it out. So, here's Chapter Two: Catching Up. I"ll see ya guys later at Chapter Three! ;-)

-Avalons-Healer

I froze.

"My... birth-mother?" I wondered out loud.

"I'll understand if you hate me." the woman named Inez replied, "I should have taken responsibility and stood up to court."

I felt tears swelling up in my eyes. I ran into Inez's arms and cried.

"I'm so sorry!" I sobbed, "It's all my fault! I never should have been born!"

"C'mon, Amanda." Inez choked from tears, "Don't say that! I'm the one that made you! It's my fault!"

But I continued to cry in her arms. It was because of me she had to suffer so much. If I could start time all over again, I would've stopped myself from being born.

"You two got a lot of catching up to do." Dad replied, "I'll go and help Jackie."

"Okay, Matt." Inez replied, still hodling onto me tightly.

And with that, Dad went down the help his other friend, Jackie, with the luggage.

Inez seated both of us down on the couch, as my tears subsided.

"Amanda, you've grown so much since I last saw you." Inez smiled, drying my tears, "And that was when I was 17. You were only three at that time."

"Then... that means you were 14 when I was born." I exclaimed, "You were only in Grade 8!"

"And your father was 16." Inez frowned, "What happened that night was all an accident. I got my period early at the age of 10. A month after the incident, I was pregnant with you on the way. Several months later, you were born, and I was allowed to keep you for 3 years, with your father as a legal parent, since I wasn't old enough. He would visit everyday, until graduation day. He was off to animation college in New York, and he had to leave Houston. He had no choice. He was registered four years before, and since he was your legal guardian, he had to take you with him. He tried to convince me to follow him to New York. But I had to stay and finish my final 2 years. I promised that I would follow him someday...

Then, on my graduation night, a fire was set on our home, and we lost everything, but for three objects. I used to have two things, but I lost it in a flurry of sparks from the leftover of the fire. All I had left with me was your father's violin."

The violin! Dad mentioned it in one of his graphic novels. "The violin was passed down from generation to generation, and housed an ancient, Celtic seal of the family name, which was an ancient spell by the ancestrial Celts."

"Do you still have it?" I asked hopefully.

"Yep." Inez replied, opening her only luggage case, and pulling out a beautiful violin and bow, "It's here."

"Meow."

Uh-oh! Cat! Which meant...

"Arf arf!"

"Obi, no!" I cried.

My dad's old friend, Obi the golden labrador, leapt out from Dad's room, just as Dad opened the door.

"Obi, sit!" Dad demanded.

Obi replied, and ended up slipping on the hardwood floor, sliding until he reached the rug.

"Good boy." Dad smiled, rubbing Obi's stomach. He held a cat inside a portable pet case in his other hand.

"Gatito!" Inez exclaimed, as Dad haded her the pet case. She opened it and pulled out what looked like a skinny Garfield to me.

"Meow!"

"Woof!"

"Obi." Dad frowned, causing Obi to whine, then pant again as Dad scratched behind his ear.

"Oh, I have something for you and Jackie!" I exclaimed, remembering the pictures in my hand. I handed the pictures to the corrosponding guests.

As Jackie awed at the drawing I gave her, Inez gasped.

"What?" Dad asked.

"Arouf?" Obi cocked his head in confusion.

"It's..." Inez was practically speechless, I could tell.

"What?" Jackie asked, peeking over Inez's shoulder, only to gasp herself.

Dad stood up and looked at the picture. He gave me a stern look after staring at it for a few moments.

"Where did you find this picture?" Dad asked sternly.

"It's not a picture, it's a drawing." I replied defendingly.

"I meant, where did you get the idea for this drawing?" Dad asked, his voice almost dangerous, "Where did you find the original photo?"

While my heart was beating rapidly and my breath was quickening, alarms were going off in my mind. It was a bad idea to draw the photo! No, it was a horrible idea! A cruel, horrible, and senseless idea!

An idea that was going to hurt someone...

Somehow I knew, Dad never wanted me to find that photo.

"Well?" Dad said, his voice breaking with anger and... something else.

"I was cleaning up my room," I answered, my heart beating wildly, "And then I found the photo that I snatched when I was little. Back then, I had no idea what it was, and what it meant! But now I know, and it was a horrible, senseless idea to reproduce the photo with my own two hands. I'm sorry. I'm terribly, horribly sorry. I didn't mean to harm anyone."

My dad seemed to be fuming inside, and I could see that he was on the verge of tears.

"Matt..." Inez said softly to my father, "It's okay."

"No, it's not." Dad said, taking my picture from Inez. He stood up straight and directed me to my room. "Go to your room, and wait for me."

Horrified, I didn't think of rebelling against my father's willlike I used to. I rushed to my room, heart thumping and mind racing.

I slammed the door shut behind me and broke into shameful, guilty tears.

I felt horrible inside. It was the biggest mistake I have ever made.

I slid down against my shut door, the tears streaming down my face like rivers. I tried to hold them back, but it was no use. I made a huge mistake, and I was going to face the punishment for it.

After a few moments of sobbing on my bed, I finally calmed down. The last time I checked the clock it was almost half an hour since the guests arrived.

A minute after four, my dad came in. I heard him open the door and close the door shut behind him. I felt him sit down beside me on the side of my bed.

But after hearing the voice, I knew it wasn't my father.

"It hurts him, you know." the voice said.

I turned my dried-tears face from my pillow and turned to face my birth-mother.

"Mom..." I rasped, my throat sore from all of the crying.

Inez took a deep breath, before saying, "I don't know if you're really ready to call me that yet. I know I gave birth to you, but I never officially became your mother. But, your father, the one that I know as Matt..."

I knew what was coming.

"...You have the right to call him father."

There. She said it. I can't believe she actually said it.

"Your father and I kind of drifted apart the past few years, y'know." Inez frowned, after a moment of silence.

I stared at her, sitting up in my bed, crosslegged.

"What?" I exclaimed, "But, what about the e-mails? The letters?"

"It wasn't enough." Inez replied, "Apparently, after his deadline started nearing, he stopped sending e-mails, and letters, and called me. He said to come here. The time was right. I was dying in the orphanage for the remains of my college years, and I couldn't even go to college, even though I had a high degree, and that I was a graduate. Since my family lost everything from the fire, all we could afford now are clothes every month. Most of the times, the orphanage would give me cloth, since I knew how to make clothes. My parents worked at an elderly home, where they had food and shelter, but they worked there, and now, they live in one, since I agreed with your father to move to New York. But it isn't enough. I miss the old days, when your father and I, along with Jackie, had not a single care in the world. When we went to school. When Jackie first set your father and me up..."

"When you had your adventures in Cyberspace..." I muttered.

Inez heard, and faced me. "How did you-?"

"Dad used to tell me the adventures you had in Cyberspace every night when I was little." I explained, "All my life, I've been looking for a portal that would lead me there. Dad even made me one of the characters in his 'Adventures in Cyberspace' series. Nobody else believed me after Kindergarden, so I stopped telling the stories and kept them to myself. But I kept searching, and I keep on believing."

Inez looked down, and scoffed. "I can't believe your father told you."

"I know." I replied with a small smile, "At first, I didn't believe him, until he mentioned you and Jackie. And the people there, like Slider, Motherboard, Digit, and Dr. Marbles. And Hacker as the bad guy. I just had to believe him. He never forgot anything."

"I can't believe he still remembers from all these years..." Inez laughed.

"Yeah." I smiled. And soon, both of us cracked up laughing.

Finally, we calmed down and I said, "Don't worry..."

"Call me Inez." my birth-mother replied with a smile, "For now."

"Don't worry, Inez." I smiled, "Everything's gonna be alright with you and Dad."

And I was ready to make it happen.

'Time I went into "Matchmaker" mode.