Social Pariah

TRUTH

 "Mom, I'm ready for this."

Lucas's mother grinned. "I know you are, Lucas. Now, please be good to her. I don't want the two of you fighting without a reason."

"I'm not a jerk, Mom," grumbled Lucas. "I know my boundaries. Besides, it would be really very illogical of me to fight someone just for the heck of it."

"Language," warned his mother, causing Lucas to roll his eyes. "Now, be a good boy and stay safe."

Lucas snorted. "I'm a teenage boy, not a toddler. Don't worry about me, Mom."

His mother sighed and hugged Lucas tightly. "I hope this goes well."

Lucas met his mother's eyes as he walked outside their house. "I hope so, too."

The path towards the coffee shop where Lucas and his real mother were going to meet was very chilly. It was nearing winter in their city and Lucas shivered as a gust of wind blew. He trembled for two reasons: he was cold and he was nervous, very nervous.

He practiced what he would say at the mirror a few times before going out but it didn't seem to have helped his nerves at all. As he arrived at the coffee shop, he noticed a woman who looked just like him on the table next to the door. Their eyes met and the woman smiled. She gestured for Lucas to sit on her table and he complied.

Lucas looked at his real mother warily. They looked very similar: same hair, same eyes. The only difference was their nose which he got from his father.

"Hi, Lucas," greeted his real mother.

"Hi, mother," greeted back Lucas, his voice as emotionless as he could possibly make it to.

Lucas and his mother stared for a while before she finally peppered him with questions about school and his plans for the future as well as his job at the museum and his life with his stepmother. She also told him that her name was Mary. She seemed really curious about his well-being that after just a few minutes, he felt comfortable telling her everything about his life, leaving out what happened to him at his school except him being friends with Kyle and his friends and Namya until it came to his dreaded part...knowing the reason why his mother left him.

"I believe I owe you an explanation," said Mary, looking at Lucas nervously.

Lucas raised an eyebrow. "Yes, you do."

Mary sighed. "Your father was a very fine man. He was very down-to-earth and he was very charming. That's what I liked –"I see," Lucas replied, flinching at how his mother didn't say love – about him. We met in this coffee shop. You see, I was already married during that time and you can blame me all you want because he didn't know that time. He thought I wasn't married and so we had you. I cheated from my husband with your father, Lucas, because I didn't feel the love from my husband anymore. Still, I came back to my husband." Mary became teary-eyed. "I realized that he was the one I love and your father and I was just a one-time thing. He wouldn't let me take you and I just agreed to his wishes so that I could at least lessen the misery I caused him by leaving him. I'm sorry, Lucas. I hope you could forgive me."

Lucas froze as soon as he processed what his real mother told him. The truth had hit him hard, as hard as he felt when he learned that his father died.