Prologue: At the beginning
Lucky sighed as he finally sat on his seat on the bus after putting his bag in the overhead space. Looking out the window, he rubbed his tired eyes, as he looked at the window beside him, he noticed his reflection in the glass against the blackness of the night. "You look like hell, man," he whispered to himself, noticing the big, black circles under his eyes and the sad expression on his face. He pushed his shoulder length hair away from his eyes, sighing sadly.
He leaned back against the seat, letting his head rest on the seat back for a minute while he closed his eyes. The lights from the neon outside, along with the lights inside the bus, were making weird shapes appear on his closed eyelids. The noises coming from the people inside the bus, which included their speech, their movements, the sound of a baby crying, probably mad to have been woken up at this ungodly hour, were making it increasingly difficult for Lucky to relax. After a few minutes, he sighed and opened his eyes again. He would have to wait until the bus was finally moving to get the peace and quiet that he wanted. At least, once the bus was on its way, the lights would be turned off, and some people would try to get some sleep.
Lucky wanted to sleep. He craved sleep. Every time he closed his eyes, though, the only thing he could see was his father's death bed. The only thing he could think about was the words they had exchanged right before his father died. Lucky felt a tear slowly roll down his cheek and he wiped it away angrily. Even though he had been mean and down right nasty with his father right before he walked out the door, Lucky still loved the man with all of his heart. To have heard the monitor indicate a flat line had been like someone had plunged a knife through his heart.
He had run back into his father's room when he'd heard the monitor indicate a flat line. He had tried to tell his father that what he just learned didn't matter, and that he still loved him. He had tried to tell his father that nothing, not time, not knowing the truth, was not going to change how he truly felt about him. But the man had been unresponsive. The hospital staff had tried their best to save him, but it had been no use. His heart had stopped and it had had no desire to start beating again.
"I will never forgive you," played over and over in Lucky's mind, because those were the last words that he had said to his father before he had walked out of his hospital room, leaving the man brokenhearted.
Lucky closed his eyes again and set his jaw to prevent a sob from coming out. He would not cry here, in this crowded bus. His father hadn't been buried for a week, and here he was, leaving the town that had been home to him for the past 7 years. He was leaving behind his aunts, his grandmother, his mother, brother and sister. He was leaving his girlfriend, along with his friends and other people that couldn't be called friends, but that he would miss nonetheless.
He sighed in relief as the doors of the bus finally closed, and the driver took his place up front. "Welcome aboard, ladies and gentlemen," the man said into his microphone, his voice amplified by the speakers on each side of the bus. "We will be arriving in Washington, DC in approximately 7 hours, so relax, enjoy the scenery, and thank you for choosing Greyhound."
"Enjoy the scenery, my foot," Lucky muttered as the bus left the
terminal. It was dark out, and the city was asleep. There was really nothing to see, no matter what time of the day it was. He had been right, though. The conversations dropped down to whispers, and the lights were finally turned off. He leaned back again and rested his head against the seat, closing his eyes. Hopefully, being in a moving vehicle would rock him to sleep.
An hour later, though, he realized that he wouldn't have such luck. Taking out his discman, he rummaged through his CDs to find one that would help him relax. He was too tight. He could feel the muscles of his neck screaming with outrage each time he moved just a little bit. But how could he relax, when he had no idea what he would find at the end of his journey?
Maybe this had been a mistake. He should've stayed in town with the people he knew, the people who loved him. This going on a wild goose chase because his feelings had been hurt by a dying man would lead him nowhere, except, maybe, to more heartache.
His decision was made. He would go back. He would walk up to his mother, and beg for her forgiveness. He would take her in his arms and let her cry on his shoulder and then he would mourn his father like a son should mourn the man who gave him life.
He still had 5 and a half hours to wait before he could do that, though, because the bus wouldn't stop before it got to Washington, DC, where he had to change buses to go to the other town that would have been his final destination. Now that he knew what he was going to do, though, he felt like a new man, as if a terrible weight had been lifted off of his shoulders. He closed his eyes again and rested his head back, the CDs and disc player forgotten on his lap. Sure enough, he was asleep in no time.
"Don't worry, dad, we will beat this thing,"
"No, I won't, son. This is it for me, but, before I go, there is something you should know. Your mother and I had agreed to tell you once you were old enough to know, but we kept putting it off because you were so happy, or because you were sad, or because you where in the hospital.... but I cannot put it off any longer, and I know that, once I'm gone, your mother won't tell you."
"Tell me what, dad?"
"This is the hardest thing I've ever had to do," the old man sighed. "Lucky, I love you. I love you with all my heart, with my soul. You have been the perfect son to me. God knows I tried to do right by you. To teach you everything I know, to give you everything I could, even though I knew that, one day, there was a chance that you could be taken from me."
"Taken from you? What are you talking about?"
"Be quiet and listen to me, Lucky. I don't have much time left and there is a lot I have to tell you."
"Stop talking like that!"
"Lucky, please! Now, you have to understand that everything your mother and I did, we did it out of love for you. Maybe it wasn't the best decision we made, but it was the only one we could live with. But now thatI'm dying, I can't put it off any longer. Lucky, you aren't my son."
"No, I don't want to hear this!"
"You will hear it!" The old man roared. "When you were just a baby, the neighbors came to us one night, and said that we needed to take you in for a month or two. They begged us to take you, because they had stuff happening, and they couldn't take you with them right away. They promised that they would be back for you, so your mother and I took you in. We didn't have children at that time and we were happy to have a baby, even if it was just for a little while. The weeks turned to months, and the months turned to years, but we didn't hear from them again. When it was time for you to start school, I just gave you my last name and wrote your mother and I as parents. It had been 4 years. We loved you as our own. I admit that, at that point, I didn't want them to come back. I didn't want to risk losing you. But they never looked for you."
"So I'm not even legally yours?"
"No. We thought about adopting you legally, but we would've needed their signatures, and your mother and I were scared that if we started the legal procedures, that they would finally remember you and decide to raise you. We weren't ready to lose you, and since you were already ours, calling us mommy and daddy, we decided that it didn't matter if you weren't legally ours. You were our son, in our hearts, and it was all that mattered."
"And you didn't think that it would be important to tell me?"
"I did think it was important, Lucky. But it was never the right time. I kept putting it off because I didn't want to hurt you, and I didn't want to lose you. The more time passed, the more I knew that I had passed the point of no return, that if I told you, chances were that you would hateus forever. So I kept silent. But time is running out, now, and you needed to know."
"All this time," Lucky cried, "all this time I thought I was yours! I believed what you told me, that I was your son, and that I mattered. I realize now that I don't!"
"Yes, you do!"
"NO!" Lucky's shoulders were shaking with sobs as he looked down at his father. "If I had mattered, you would've told me the truth! You would've believed that I loved you more than anything else and that I would never leave you! I don't care about them! You are my father! Do you have any idea what you are doing to me? I wanted to be like you! The most honest man on the face of the earth!" Lucky took a deep breath before he started pacing the room. "It was never gray with you, always black or white, right or wrong! I knew in my heart that I would always be like you, because I WAS A PART OF YOU! "
"Lucky, I know you are angry and hurt right now but..."
"Angry? Hurt? No, dad. I'm numb. Do you know what it's like to have the rug taken from under your feet, again, and again, and again? That's what's happening to me. No more secrets, right?" Lucky laughed bitterly. "What a joke. And to think that I actually believed you."
"Lucky---"
"You know what? I think THAT I might just give you what you want. I'm going to go out there, and find my real parents."
"This isn't what I want--"
"Isn't it? I would have been perfectly happy all my life if I had never known this particular secret. But since you thought it was important that I know, I'm going to do what everyone thought I would do, and go find mybirth parents."
"Lucky--"
"Take a good look at me, *dad*, because I'm leaving, and I don'tknow when I'll be back."
"Lucky, wait!"
"I'll never forgive you!"
Lucky woke up with a start, disoriented for a minute. He looked around and still couldn't comprehend where he was, but as he looked out the window, it all came back to him. He was in a bus on his way to find his birth parents. The dream hadn't only been a dream, it had been a memory of what had happened in the hospital room that day. The day his father died.
With his heart still beating wildly he wiped the sweat from his forehead and sat up straight. The sun was already quite high in the morning sky, so Lucky knew that they were approaching Washington. Even though he remembered his decision to go back and to forget about his real parents, now, in the light of day, he wasn't sure if he couldn't do that. He needed to know why they had left him there and never returned. He needed to know what it was that had been so terrible that they hadn't been able to take him with them. Why they had raised him for a couple of months only to leave him behind.
Still confused about what he wanted to do when he walked out of the bus with his back pack on his shoulder and his travel bags in his hands, he walked inside the terminal to look at the announcement board. With a sigh of resignation he walked to the ticket booth and took out his wallet.
"One way ticket to Port Charles, please"