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Chapter 2

"Have a wonderful day," Cate says waving goodbye to Lux. She doesn't drive away immediately, instead she stays parked, staring at her retreating daughter, all golden hair and skinny frame wrapped up in a parker coat, jeans and beanie.

Her daughter.

Sometimes it just hits her all at once, how easily that may have not been the case. How different her life could have been, not that she would change anything. It was actually quite the contrary in moments like these. Cate's love only grew more, if that was possible, and the thought of not having Lux in her life made her grow more protective and fierce.

Nobody could question Cate Cassidy's love and devotion to her daughter.

"Lux! Lux!"

The blond teenager turns from her locker smiling when she sees who it is. The shouting voice continues, "Happy birthday! Happy biiirrtthhddaayyy!!"

Jones reaches his girlfriend before throwing his arms out. Lux obliges, jumping into his arms while he repeats his earlier mantra, "Happy birthday, babe." This time, though, it's more of a whisper.

They break apart and it's then she sees the flowers he's holding. He follows her eyes and realises what she's staring at.

"For you." He hands the daffodils to her.

"My favourite…they're beautiful." Lux fills her noses with the flowers beautiful scent.

"Can I walk you to home room ma' lady?" He's tried to put on some sort of English accent and has his arm out in front of her.

"Why certainly." Lux says playing along. They both laugh.

However, they try to keep the little role-play going as he takes her arm in his and they walk off smiling, ever the perfect couple, to home room.

That night, after her birthday dinner and presents, Lux turns to her mum. Ryan has gone up to take a shower.

"Can we talk for a bit?" Cate's wiping over the kitchen counter but pauses to look up at her daughter.

"Yeah sure. What's up?"

"Uhh..you might want to sit down for this."

Cate's face turns weary. "What's wrong Lux?"

"No nothing, well nothing bad I don't think. Can you just sit down on the couch with me?" Lux doesn't wait for a response, instead she turns and sits down on one of the big sofas in their living room.

She can hear Cate's footsteps moving closer and inhales a breath, trying to get rid of the butterflies in her stomach.

Cate sits down beside her, clearly worried. Lux stays silent for a moment and Cate waits silently for her daughter to say something.

Finally Lux speaks up, her voice is soft. "Who's my real dad?"

Cate's face contorts for a second as she processes what her daughter has just asked her. Lux doesn't say anything.

"Well, look Lux, I know I said that we could always talk openly about this, and whatever you wanted to know I would tell you…" Cate pauses, taking a long breath, "Can I just ask, why now? I mean I always knew you would want to know one day…"

"Honestly mum? I'm curious. I mean was he a nice guy? Was he a jerk? Was he ugly or handsome or average or short or tall or fat or ridiculously skinny?" Lux stops, kind of running out of breath.

"I know, I get it. And I will tell you. Only can I ask you one more thing?"

Lux nods.

"Do you want to meet him?" Cate asks, her voice not giving away any type of detest or approval.

"Uh…" Lux falls silent. She actually hadn't considered that. Did she want to meet him? I mean, sure she did - kind of. But the thought scared her.

"Maybe, I don't know. Not for right now. I just want to know what he was like. What he looked like, that type of thing."

Cate lets out a small sigh of relief. It's something she doesn't really mean to, or even consciously realises she does. Lux notices it however, but tries to ignore it.

"Okay, that I can do." Cate gives a small reassuring pat on Lux's knee.

"So he was a jock? Really? And he went out with you?" Lux is laughing.

"Hey, I wasn't that bad." Cate says adamantly.

"No no, I'm just joking." Lux says, realising her bluntness. "It's just that, well, I've seen your yearbook photos mum, and you're not…well, you kind of looked like a bookworm. 'Nigel no friends' if you will."

"Harsh Lux, harsh."

"Just saying it like it is." Lux pokes out her tongue.

"Anyway, Nate didn't technically go out with me. We didn't really talk that much to be honest."

"Wait, so you guys weren't even dating."

"No.."

"But you had se… somehow made a baby?"

"Okay, I can't believe I'm telling you this but… look, in my defence it was Winter Formal - my date had dumped me for a drunk cheerleader and his date had been MEDEVACed to the hospital. I'd had a really big crush on him for years, and we were both a little tipsy…" Cate pauses and cringes a little, her mind continuing silently with the story.

"Mum. Just tell me." Lux nudges her mum lightly on the shoulder, breaking her out of her internal monologue.

"Okay, so basically we found we both had a mutual like for the Spin Doctors and the next second we were in his mum's minivan singing along to one of their songs...he had a really disarmingly charming smile, ya' know? And those eyes, I always liked his eyes, they were always so blue..." Cate realises she's gone off on a tangent and quickly shakes herself out of it. "Anyway, that's as far as I'm going. You are my daughter after all."

"So I was conceived during a high school dance in the back of a minivan." Lux says, clearly not impressed.

"That you were my dear." Cate says patting the shoulder of her non-plussed daughter.

"Okay, so my immaculate conception is no longer a mystery - but when did you find out you were pregnant with me? How did you tell Nate?"

"Well basically I missed my period and knew something was up because up until that point, I'd had a pretty regular cycle."

"Ew mum, seriously? Too much information." Lux's says disgusted.

Cate feigns a look of surprise, "What, so now it's too much information. Before you couldn't seem to get enough."

"Yeah well the content was a little different."

Cate smiles, "Anyway, I bought a pregnancy test and it came out positive, so I went and bought another and another, until I was surrounded with about 10 white sticks all with little pink tops. I couldn't even cry. By the time I really accepted that I was pregnant I was so exhausted from running to the shop and back that all I could do was fall into my bed and sleep." Cate pauses to take a breath and regather her thoughts.

"So the next day was monday and I knew I had to tell Baze. I mean he was the father and he deserved to know. I looked for him the whole day but he must have had football practice or something because I didn't find him till after school and by then I'd stopped looking for him. It was in the school parking lot, and I had been waiting for my mum, he had been was as well…"

Cate can feel her throat turn a little dry at the thought of what came next. But she wants to try and put up a strong front for her daughter, so she keeps going.

"And then I told him. He was really, really shocked at first, then he kind of denied it. Then he just cried. I didn't really know what to do, so I just hugged him. It was really awkward because he was so tall and I had never really comforted a boy before. Then when we broke apart again, he was kind of mumbling about how this was going to mess everything up, how he was scared and how his father was going to kill him. I kind of got angry at this point. Did he really think that I wanted to be pregnant at 16?" Cate stops realising her daughter has a sad look in her eyes.

"Hey, we can stop if you want. I'm sorry babe. I didn't mean to upset you. I just, I wanted to tell you the truth…maybe I should've left that out…"

"No no, I'm not sad about that. I get it mum. You were 16, I don't blame you. Plus, you kept my anyway, so it's all good." Lux gives her a reassuring smile.

"Alright, but if you start crying, I stop." Cate says smiling back at her daughter, however her eyes are laced with worry.

"Okay, so before me and Baze could really get into it, like talking about what this means, his mum turned up. He says he was sorry or something and that he would call me…" This time Cate's eyes turn sad, but also angry and hurt. "But he never did. And when I tried to talk to him the next day at school he completely ignored me."

"I'm sorry mum."

"It's fine really. That was a long time ago. It's in the past now. But after that I didn't bother with him. When I told my mum, she was so supportive. I had considered adoption at one point, but your grandma was the one that convinced me to keep you. As I've already told you, I had you between junior and senior year. I only missed a week of senior year and to be honest, no one even noticed."

"So you never told Baze about me…"

"…No I didn't."

Lux takes a moment to digest this information. Cate waits but then tries to justify, "It's just that it was clear he wanted nothing to do with me, and I was angry. I was so angry at him. I did try though, at the beginning of senior year, but he would just ignore me. And I just couldn't take it anymore…"

"Yeah I understand mum, I'm just not sure how to feel now."

Cate leans in and kisses her daughter on the forehead. "Just know that I love you so much."

Lux closes her tired eyes, letting out a deep breath. This night had not turned out at all like she had hoped.

"I love you too mum."

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