Chapter Twenty-Seven

Joelle

He knew, kind of, what he was about to do. Who he was about to meet. I couldn't just force him to go with me without telling him what was about to happen. He knew he was about to meet my mum, my real one, and he didn't seem scared off yet. Instead, he held onto my hand like there was no tomorrow. He comforted me, told me he loved me (and crap, how I loved him back) and didn't ask any questions. He'd let me tell him in my own time.

All he knew was that he was heading to a graveyard where he would meet my mother, the mother I never got to know. To say that I was shaking with fear was an understatement, my breath was uneven and my heart was trying to escape out of my chest. I had been there before many times, but this was so different. This time someone outside of my family would hear about the horrible tragedy and how it screwed up my life. 

Some would probably ask me how it even affected me, because I didn't know them. I didn't know my real parents, because I was nine months old. But see, that's not fair. It would always haunt me, to think about the life I could have been living.

Not that I didn't totally appreciate the family I did have. I love them as much as I would have if I had grown up with my real parents, but growing up and knowing exactly what happened with my real parents was hard.

Slowly the car pulled to a stop, and Zayn turned to me. "Are you ready?"

"No," I said quietly. "But I guess I don't have a choice anymore."

"Yes you do," he squeezed my hand. "You don't have to show me."

I simply shook my head and motioned that we would head out into the street. So then we fell into that comfortable silence that only we could have, where I never felt pressured to even say anything. My mother's grave was close to the road so it only took a few steps before we were standing in front of the well taken care of stone. There were lilies scattered around the ground and I could only assume my father had put them there.

Marie Melanie Banks

I couldn't help but smile, because every time I saw that name, I pictured a beautiful woman with long brown hair down to her waist. She probably loved to dance and sing, and I always hoped she loved music as much as I did. I could picture her in the living room, holding me as a little baby and dancing to some rock song and my dad sitting in the corner just laughing at the two of us. Oh, how that must have been wonderful. Living as if everything was perfect and nothing would ever change.

"Joelle Banks," Zayn said softly after a little while. I tilted my head a bit, not used to hearing that. Then Zayn kneeled down a little bit to the stone. "Hi, Mrs. Banks."

"Well mum, this is Zayn." I laughed out an introduction. Not exactly what I had pictured, but it worked. Zayn cared about me enough to resort to kneeling in front of a grave just to meet my mum. It all felt a bit too surreal, that he could care so much about me even though I took him to a graveyard.

"It's nice to meet you, ma'am." 

"Alright, I guess it's time to tell you the whole story, huh?" I sighed, settling into the grace in a crossed leg position. He followed my lead, sitting and leaning his elbows on his knees as he looked at me with curious eyes.

"If it's too hard, you don't have to."

I completely ignored that sentence and started at the beginning. "I was born completely healthy. Despite being a week early, I didn't have any problems. For the first nine months of my life, we were the picture perfect family. Then mum went to a doctor's appointment, because she was three weeks pregnant. I have a brother or a sister I never got to meet, how weird is that? My dad was going to meet her there after work, while I stayed at my babysitter's house. They're not sure what happened, but I guess she got stuck in between two cars. One stopped suddenly, she didn't notice, so she ran straight into him. Then another was trying to avoid it but ended up pummeling into the driver's side. She didn't even make it to the hospital."

Zayn reached out his hand to place it on my thigh. I smiled at him.

"From what I heard, after that my dad tried to take care of me but he just couldn't. He put me up for adoption, not being able to handle the reminder of his dead wife and dead baby. He didn't even give me to a relative, he needed me out of his life for good. The Parkers are amazing and I never felt any different than any of them. I am Joelle Parker through and through, it's just hard that my dad didn't want me. He never tried to get ahold of me, and the Parkers signed a paper on how they aren't allowed to contact him whatsoever. I guess it's better that way, because he's probably a real deadbeat. He was a great guy, I assume, when my mum was alive. But he invested so much of himself into his relationship with her that he couldn't even begin to think about living without her. So how is that different from you and me? What if one day, we are so undeniably in love and something happens? Would you give up a baby if it meant being reminded of me?"

It was the sting of not being wanted. If I wasn't good enough for him, how was I ever supposed to be good enough for anyone?

"See what I meant, Zayn? I'm not good enough for you. Obviously there's something wrong with me, and there's too many dents for me to be a good girlfriend. I never really should have said yes to that first date." I sighed, staring at his hand and tracing his hand with my finger.

"You are more than enough for me. There is absolutely nothing wrong with you," he said. He then paused for a couple seconds. "Okay, there is something wrong with you."

I glanced up to look him in his eyes, because that's not the kind of thing he would say to me. Maybe he finally realized the truth, that he could find a girl who was so much easier to deal with than me.

"You don't seem to see how incredible you are, how beautiful you are, how smart you are, how talented you are. So you're right. There is something seriously wrong with you if you can't see what the rest of the world sees." The sincerity in his voice was astounding, he meant every single word he said and that might be why suddenly I was wiping away the start of the tears that wanted to fall. "There is no one I would rather be with than you."

"It's not too late to ask you to forgive me, then?" I asked.

"Never," he leaned forward and pressed his lips against mine. I smiled into the kiss because I didn't realize how much I missed this. This perfect feeling, as if I was a fully whole human that had nothing wrong with her. Chapped lips against chapped lips. Who knew that such a simple thing could bring such happiness? Eventually he pulled away. "And I guess you wouldn't mind becoming my girlfriend once again?"

I stopped for a second before smiling. "I don't think I ever really stopped, you never gave up on me."

"I'm stubborn." Zayn laughed before digging into his pocket to hand me a crumpled of piece of paper. My eyebrows crunched in confusion as I slowly unfolded it. It was lyrics, with some words crossed out and half of it was pen and half of it was pencil. My eyes slowly scanned over each letter, piecing it together. 

When your tears are spent on your last pretense 

And your tired eyes refuse to close and sleep in your defense. 

When it's in your spine like you've walked for miles 

And the only thing you want is just to be still for a while

If your heart wears thin I will hold you up 

And I will hide you when it gets too much

I'll be right beside you

I'll be right beside you

When you're overwhelmed and you've lost your breath 

When the space between the things you know is blurry nonetheless.

When you try to speak but you make no sound 

And the words you want are out of reach but they've never been so loud

If your heart wears thin I will hold you up 

And I will hide you when it gets too much

I'll be right beside you

I'll be right beside you

I will stay. 

Nobody will break you,

Yeah.

Trust in me, trust in me.

Don't pull away

Trust in me, trust in me.

I'm just trying to keep this together, 

Because I could do worse and you could do better

If your heart wears thin I will hold you up 

And I will hide you when it gets too much

I'll be right beside you

Nobody will break you

"I'm not leaving you, Jo. I don't care what might happen, I will protect you from this crappy world. Even if something terrible happens, I won't let it change how I feel."

Heyoooo, that was the last official chapter of this story :O I'll be posting the EPILOGUE sometime this week, hopefully. Depends on how my work/school schedule works out. BUT I WILL BE DOING SOMETHING TO HELP YOU GUYS UNDERSTAND THIS STORY.

Leave a question for me below. ANY question. It can be about my writing, it can be about the story, it can be about Joelle, it can be about me. I don't care, just post it below! I'll be posting a Q&A segment after the epilogue. So LEAVE A QUESTION :)

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