Life in Search ✔️

1 ~ Lost

"We're here for hearing number 402."

I sit up in my seat, trying to ignore the shaking of my leg as my attention falls on the judge. The entire room is focused on me, but I can't bring myself to turn around. Knowing I'll find the fragile face of my mom, who's undoubtedly clinging to my dad for support.

This is my mess. I deserve whatever punishment I'm given, no matter how strong it is. For all I care they could throw my ass in juvie, that's where I belong. My eyes fixate on my hands, still bruised. For a second they're covered in blood again. The blood of the kid whose parents are seated somewhere in this room, hoping for the same outcome I am.

"Ashton McClain, after several discussions the Reynolds family has decided to no longer press charges. They are insistent that you are nothing more than a lost soul needing to find the light."

There's a collective gasp let out in the room; most people came to watch me get locked up. Through the buzzing of my ears I can make out mom's shrill cry, no longer plagued by the fear of her baby being taken away.

I wish I could rejoice with her.

"You will be ordered to a month of anger management." The judge continues, giving me a serious look. "You have been given a second chance at life, Son, don't mess it up."

I'm sure I'll find a way to mess it up somehow.

Numbly I walk to my family, ignoring the stares and mumbles directed at me as I pass. This is isn't right, I should be punished. I deserve to be behind bars, after all that's where people like me end up eventually. My father's proof enough of that.

In and out of my life these last two years, ultimately finding his way back behind bars. I spent years running from him; desperate to ensure I became nothing like the man who left my mom all alone, but life had different plans.

Even with Mark, my stepfather, who is my dad, there was a void in my heart. I wanted to know who I was, who I belonged to genetically. On the eve of my fifteenth birthday I got my wish, and the beginning of the end of my life.

I was never one to get into trouble. Mischievous, sure, but aren't we all? Dad's a former cop, so from the age of six I've listened to his stories of delinquents being dumbasses and learned from him. But it was more than that. Being raised by a single mom, I learned pretty early on people will judge her based off how I act. I learned in pre-k after knocking a kid over in retaliation to him hitting me that I would always be the one blamed because it was expected of me.

So much for that decision now.

Mom throws herself onto me, embracing me tighter than I would have ever thought possible. "Everything's going to be okay."

Slowly I hug her back, nothing's ever going to be okay again.

It was never my intention to be a bad kid. However, one judge's decision, who was clearly as stupid as the one who let me go, had my father knocking on my front door every Saturday, and things went south from there.

He faked politeness early on in front of my parents, but, as we spent more time alone, he began to convince me of how restrictive they were. Your mom can't make you do your homework, five years from now none of that shit will even matter anyways.

So, I didn't do it and we argued, but my father was pleased.

Mark really isn't your dad, Son, you're my kid through and through. In my mind he was right, because logically it was true. Mark and I didn't have the same blood. We didn't even look alike. He was nothing compared to the real deal, so I stopped listening to him. I'll never forget the pain on his face the first time I called him Mark. You would've thought I slapped him, and I suppose, in a way, I had.