Speechless.

“Care to share with the class?” He found her beneath the only cluster of shade on the tour grounds—two small oak trees planted on the edge of the large parking lot.
She was spinning a bottle of warm water around in angry little circles, refusing to meet his gaze when the leggy singer sat down beside her quietly.

“You wouldn’t get it.” She shook her head in frustration. “My life is one shitty fuck up after another.”

“It would seem every passing moment I spend with you is just another way to remind me of your likeness to Juliette.” John noted, gazing out at the tour grounds and watching the thrilled and heat stricken fans mull about.

“There is no likeness between Juliette and I in any context.”

“Care to elaborate?”

“I just—“ She paused in bitter frustration, the water bottle pausing in her hands. “My life, is one run away after another; One screw up after another. All I do is run away and fuck things up. Its kind of a specialty of mine.”

“That whole stunt with saving Mickey would beg to differ.”

“That’s different.” She grunted. She propped her knees up to her chest and rested her chin atop them. “Juliette’s right—I was an attention whore. I was a typical girl who was the queen of teen angst. It didn’t help that I had an inferiority complex with Matt. I was just miserable at home so I left.” Guilt filled her voice and her eyes closed as she recalled a memory all to vivid. “Logan was a good friend to me. I knew he wasn’t happy but I had no idea how bad it truly was…nobody did. Logan had gotten a hold of my aunt’s number and rang me…” her voice became little more than a whisper. “I knew something wasn’t right. I went to him, I couldn’t stop myself I just had this feeling in my gut. I went to him and he just, he was just so sad. He begged me to come home, to stay. I told him I had to leave for a bit but then I’d come back. But when I went back to him…”

“He was dead.” John murmured carefully and Amelia could only nod mutely in response as tears blurred her vision.

“I just—it just—it scared me so bad John,” She whispered desperately, her eyes flooding with unshed tears. “I’ve never—I’d never seen anyone like that. I was just so scared, you know? It was too much—just too much. I ran, I mean, I really ran. I ran until my feet could not carry me anymore, I took the bus and the train until I ran out of money. I just—I wanted to erase my past, erase what I’d seen. But no matter how far away I ran I just couldn’t get it out of my head.”

Amelia had not noticed the tears streaming down her face until John took a small step forward and brushed the rough pads of his thumbs against her soft cheeks lightly.

“Amelia,” He started but she seemed to have not heard him as she continued on, her eyes not quite focused on him.

“Then I found Cougar,” She went on, her lower lip trembling with the threat of a sob. “and he was good to me, Metallica befriended me, hell I even liked Candy back then.” She sniffled, her eyes adverting from John who stroked her cheek in comfort. “Then I found out I was…pregnant.” More tears rolled down her face but John just listened quietly. “Then Candice was pregnant.” Amelia took a step back, her heart skipping a beat with the realization of what she was about to divulge. Mia’s chocolate orbs fixated on the Glamour Kills shirt he was wearing unable to look him in the eye. “When I had my baby and Candy had hers things changed…one of the other girls in the tunnels sister had been a nurse, she said she thought I had something called post partum depression…” She closed her eyes. “Candice’s daughter had fallen extremely ill about the same time and because we lacked medical means Candy brought the baby to her sister’s; but I’ve already told you that.

I couldn’t take it anymore, I was close to Candy—seeing as the two of us both had daughters at the same time and all—and I went to her with my baby, begged her to bring her to the hospital for me; I just couldn’t care for her anymore. I was a fucked up teenager with a drug addiction and a newborn—I just couldn’t do it.
At that time Candy was like a sister to me and she was leaving the tunnels; her sister was going to let her stay with her for a while. Candy had told us her sister was a DIFUS officer—I asked her to take my daughter to her sister and find her a good home.”

Tears poured down Mia’s cheeks and the sob she had been suppressing worked its way up her throat; John went to comfort her but she backed away.

“I ne-never saw my daughter again.” Amelia closed her eyes, these words causing physical pain to her heart. “but a few weeks later Candy returned, apparently her sister was a self-righteous bi-bitch who kept trying to tell her how to raise her daughter. Only…when I saw McKenna again as a 5 month old she was paler then I remembered. Of course around that time 8 Balls were my favorite thing to play with so I couldn’t be sure as to what McKenna’s finer features were as a newborn. I asked Candy once and she told me that I-I was a failure as a-a mother and a sorry person that should just OD and die already, but charming Candy also added that McKenna had been extremely si-sick for a long time and that was what caused her to seem darker—fever you see.”

Amelia covered her face with trembling hands. She wanted to disappear in that moment, become nothingness. She wanted to run, her heart panicking with the revelations she was speaking.

“You believe she was lying?” John assumed, trying to coax her to continue speaking. It was breaking his heart to see her like this, she always had a way of doing that to him—making his heart hurt, not for himself but for her.

“I know she was!” Her hands flew from her face and a sob escaped her lips, it racked her entire body and constricted her lungs.

John moved to comfort her but she backed away from him, unable to accept the comfort she craved from John. If she gave into his comfort, his warmth, his love now she would fall to incoherent weeping pieces.

“Candy’s baby was half Latino!” Her voice was rising to hysterics as she voiced things that had only tortured her mind in silence. “The father was Viper’s right hand man Rocko!” Amelia sobered suddenly, her face devoid of all emotion as she went numb. “Do you know who the father of mine was?”

John’s heart began to race as adrenaline suddenly coursed through his veins with the feeling of a revelation that was on the tip of his tongue.

Then time seemed to stop, the loud cacophony of multiple bands playing went silent to their ears. John shook his head in disbelief, the name on the tip of his tongue.
He did not shake his head because he didn’t know, he shook it because he did. The name hit him so suddenly it felt almost inconceivable. No…It wasn’t possible. His head was spinning and the blood was draining from his face as he stared at her.

This was Amelia, the sensible side of him reminded him, anything is possible.

“Logan.”