Work Text:
June sixth twenty thirteen mama and papa went out for date night, clarke is at art camp till tomorrow with her art class, and Mom has to work late so it’s just me.
Over the past six months i’ve been curious about who the other half of my DNA came from. What do they look like? Do we look alike? Do they have any hereditary diseases I should be aware of? Do they know about me? Where are they? Do they like basketball too? What color are their eyes? Are they tall? What’s their favorite food? Are they smart? And so many more things I want to know. None of the adults ever talk about them. Do they not know who he is?
It’s about eight pm when I finally enter my moms name and town into google. At first it’s just like her social media and college stuff so I keep scrolling and no success. So I type in papa’s name and town and the first few pages there’s nothing so I keep scrolling and when I get to page four middle of the page there it is. An article about angry father of fourteen year old rape victim at court. It gave details of the incident and about how I came to be. I read the first paragraph there it is in bold letters fourteen year old girl pregnant after rape by seventeen year old. Gustus Burns pleads guilty to rape with special circumstance and he was charged to twenty years in prison, has to register as a sex offender and five years of probation. He is not allowed to contact the victim or the child. He has to pay one million dollar to the victim and two million dollars to the child. The court payed out two million to the victim and two milion out to the child.
Then I was curious about how that works how do they pay someone who was still growing in their mother. I found a page on the polis state website and the money is put into a trust for the child and they start getting monthly payouts when they turn eighteen. A total of four million dollars but is that really worth having experienced life before I was even born, a story out of my control. I don’t feel like that magically fixed anything. I’m thirteen and I already have experienced being the product of rape and of abandonment from my mom.
I am so incredibly thankful for mama and papa and everything they have done for me since I was born but It still hurts reading how the both wanted her to give me up for adoption since it was too late to abort me. It just makes it all feel like a lie, I just thought and was hoping it was going to be some tragic fatal accident that he died in not that. Not that he was a rapist.
I heard the front door opening so I quickly closed the private browser and cleared the history for good measure. I looked at the clock it was eleven pm, I hear footsteps coming up the stairs I quickly climb in my bed. There’s a knock on the door. Come in I say and papa comes in, hi sweetie just came to check in on you did you eat dinner papa ask. Ya I picked up a pizza from Mario’s I answer. That’s good were going to leave here around 10am to go pick Clarke up in the morning, good night sweetie I love you papa says. Sounds good papa i’ll be ready, good night I love you too. Papa kisses my forehead and heads back down stairs closing the door behind me. I lay awake thinking about all the new information I know now. I finally fall asleep around three am, I wake up at nine thirty and quickly get ready and head downstairs to grab breakfast before we leave.
It’s only been a week apart but it feels like it’s been ten times longer. It’s the moments like this when we are apart that I truly realized that I can’t imagine a life without Clarke I can’t see us ever breaking up, but I can see us ninety years old sitting in our wheelchairs still flirting with each other trying to get the other to go out on a date and being utterly heartbroken when they say there married never mind we’ve been married for over eighty years. I will love her at her worst when she don't love herself and I will support her when she at the top. Most of all I know she’s my one because despite everything I learned last night she’s the only one I want to talk about it to.
We pull up to the camp around noon and I get out of the car and run to where clarke is just getting the last of her things packed up. I wrap my arms around her waist kissing her temple, Hi love I’ve missed you so much i whisper into her ear. She turns in my arms to face me wrapping her arms around my neck leaning up to kiss me on the lips. I’ve missed you alot too baby girl she responds. We stay hugging each other for a little while until I help her carry her bags out to the car papa finishes checking her out.we hold hand the whole way home. I help her carry her stuff back up to our room and I ask about camp and she tells me of the mosaic paint mural she did, then she asked me what had been going on here and I told her about the article and she held me as I cried and she reassured me I was nothing like him. I have a huge heart and i’m so empathetic and caring that its not possible that I’m like him. And that she loves me unconditionally and we can make it through this together and that this doesn’t change the that mama and papa love you always they were mad at the situation but they met you and they fell in love with you. She said she will be right by my side when i’m ready to tell the adults that I know.