[A/N: Mighty thanks to everyone who has read, voted and commented on this story. As promised, here is another chapter. Love you all! If you like it, don't hesitate to tap the star and comment! :)]

Ryan

I didn't want to wake up. Yesterday was all so confusing, it was like how your mind gets​ in the morning after drinking loads of alcohol the previous night. Basically, hurting. I was regretting even going with her to the restaurant. What did she wanted to show me? That she is doing so fine without me? Earning so much and being able to feed me in such a restaurant? I hate her. I hate it.

After I left her midway through the meal, I literally ran away. I ran as fast as I could and only stopped when I reached the orphanage's door. I reached my room and found Seb on my bed. He looked at me, bewildered. He opened his mouth to say something but I waved him away.

"Not now, dude. Tomorrow for sure." I had said and now I will have to tell him the fiasco that occurred yesterday.

After telling him so, I sat on my bed and thought. Thought about the reality of the situation. The fact that she knew my middle name means that she knows me because no one except the mistress of this institution knows it.

I thought of every other possibility. I was feeling pathetic and dreadful but I didn't sleep. While most people thought of sleeping after a bad day or the like, it was not my mantra. Sleeping, for me, was a coward's way of dealing with life situations. Instead of clearing your mind, sleep tends to suppress the gravity of the situation. It just numbs your mind towards the important thing and instead of getting better, the situation gets worse.

Today, after breakfast we had half an hour to us. I filled Sebastian in with what happened. All the while, he was as quite as the bird who died in front of our window last week.

When I was finished, he spoke something I had never imagined my best friend would.

"I think you have to meet her." He said looking straight at me. He peered at me so much so that I flinched.

"Are you kidding me? This isn't a joke Seb. She...she is the woman who calls herself my mother. Whom I met yesterday, after sixteen years. She is the woman who made me like this. I can't even...you understand?" I grimaced.

"Yes I understand and I also feel that you have to give your...um, mother a second chance." I cringed at the word.

"Oh man, I don't know. I don't know what's happening anymore. You know saying that is easy 'Giving another chance'. How can I just forget about it all? It's all so frustrating and confusing, you know."

"No I don't." Sebastian said. We looked at each other for a moment and then started laughing hysterically.

Then a knock came at the door. I eyed Seb before opening it. And who could it be except, her! What the hell was she doing here!

"What the hell are you doing here?" I growled.

Ashley just stood there looking at me. She had the same expression of regret and fear and sadness in her eyes. There was something other than that too, something alien. I couldn't tell. Maybe she was sorry or...whatever.

"I am so sorry for all that happened yesterday. Please give me another chance. I'd make it sure to..."

I cut through her crap talk. "What? Another chance? Didn't I give it to you yesterday? Sorry that it got ruined. You got your 'second chance'. Now please leave me alone in peace." I was again feeling rage inside me.

Sebastian who was watching and listening all this time spoke up abruptly. "No you didn't." He said. Dead seriously.

"What?!" I snapped at him shooting my angry glare his way.

He ignored my attitude and spoke very calmly yet darkly. "You haven't given her a second chance. Yesterday was her first, today would be the second." What the hell's wrong with him?

I turned to him. "Don't bullshit me. The first chance was when she threw me away and yesterday was her secon..."

"No you listen up, you cocky brat. It is her second chance meeting you, Ryan! You hear me? This is her SECOND TIME meeting you as you are now- the grown up Ryan. Can't you just forget what happened sixteen years back? What would her age be now? Thirty or something? Can't you see that she was young when she gave birth to you. She might have been your age or something. And yes she made a mistake. She made a mistake to abandon you. Maybe she was confused. Maybe she was scared. Maybe she was in pain and suffering because maybe she had no one else with her. Maybe she was alone. Maybe she couldn't give you all that she wanted to because she didn't had the means. Maybe she was plain careless.

YES. THAT WAS HER MISTAKE. But that was sixteen years back. When she was young and couldn't understand things. And now, she has realised it. Maybe now she understands what she has done and wants to make up for it. Have you ever thought about that? Ryan, have you? No my friend. You didn't. You didn't think about it because all you ever did was think about yourself; how pitiful and sad and unwanted and uncared you were. Did you ever try to see things from her point of view? NO! Because all you ever did was drown in that dark pool of self-pity where nothing else is visible. Where there is no world beyond where you are stuck."

I could hear him panting. His nose was flared up and I couldn't miss the anger in her eyes. I was too shocked to say anything back so I just stared at him. His voice had gone dangerously up.

He spoke again. This time, calmly. "You know this funny thing about luck? No one is born lucky or has some weird stars positioned in their lives to make them luckier. No. It's all about how you deal with things in life. And you...you..." He was pointed to me and chuckling. "You are one of those who don't see what is ahead of them. That life for them can be so much more beautiful. But they can't see it because all they see is themselves. How people hurt them. How people abandoned them. How everything goes wrong with them.

And when things can go right, when their luck goes right or whatever you want to call it, you know what they do? They run away from it. They run away because they fear they would start seeing something else apart from them. They run away like you ran away, Ryan." He looked at me for a moment and then​ went outside without another word.

Now I was alone with my mother. She hadn't moved a muscle. Her eyes were still searching for mine as the awkward silence filled the room. It felt as if some loudspeakers were turned off and people were going back to their business. Like life going on. But me and her, we were stationary. I was trying to make sense of what Sebastian had said and she was watching the screws in my head turn.

"Alright. I am coming." I said giving her a very weak smile. I can't believe I just said that. She was as amazed as I was and then I saw a tear trickling down from her weary eyes. She said, "Thankyou Ryan. It means the world to me."

My body moved on its own accord out of that room. We went outside the building and she smiled at me again. Her face had regained the normal composure. I breathed a sigh of relief. What?

------

This time we went to a park. Well, it was more than a park. It was a zoo. Yeah, a mother taking her sixteen year old teen to a zoo for the first time.

"Are you fine with this place?" She asked nervously.

Well whatever. I can't trouble her unnecessarily. "Yeah I'm cool." I said shrugging.

She smiled. I don't know how she smiles so much. How can she smile so much? It's as if she has no troubles in the world. And there is something else, in her smile, that just increases. It's so mysterious. I noticed that Iwas staring at her and quickly withdrew myself to look at a nearby giraffe.

Ashley hired a guide for an hour to take us through the whole zoo. It was fun. To be honest, this was my first time visiting a zoo. We had gone to a botanical garden for some biology project or something but not a zoo. There were some other rare animals in there too. Later, we found out that this place also had some kind of evening show in it. Strangely, I felt excited. I couldn't wait for evening to happen.

We did our lunch in one of the cafeterias provided inside the zoo itself. Even the chairs had animal's faces printed in them. There was a huge variety of food to choose from and best of all, the food looked fresh. Unlike the orphanage, where you could mistake a potato for a rock. Everything felt so refreshing. After all, I was outside after such a long time. I made a mental note to go out more.

We ate our lunch in silence apart from the general speeches of passing food across the table to each other.

After that, we relaxed a little before going for the anticipated night show.

-----

There were stone staircases arranged in a circular fashion around a common circular raised platform. The trees surrounding us were decorated heavily with fairy lights and other festoons. Why would they hang festoons? What was the celebration? The platform had additional lights of all colors.

Then a woman appeared and carrying with her a cage of birds. Their colors were so vivid and beautiful, it was breathtaking. I glanced at my mother whose eyes were sparkling. It made me smile. What is happening to me?
I don't even know her that better.

Later we got to know that the show was all about birds flying here and there in various mesmerising formations. There were parrots talking to each other and finally was the nocturnal show. The nocturnal show had all the night creatures in them. I forgot their complicated names after a while.

In the end, was a short fountain show where numerous different showers made up strange colourful formations in the night sky. I had never seen anything like this. It looked amazing behind the dark stary night's background.

"This is beautiful." I uttered before I could stop myself. I immediately tensed. It was so hard speaking something to her.

She was still looking ahead when she said, "Yes. This is beautiful." Then she glanced at me and I realised that she was referring to us. This made me happy. I was feeling so contented and happy that I was a little afraid of her; afraid of what she could do to me. I checked myself.

She patted me on the back and started laughing.

"What's so funny?" I said, offended. Was she laughing at my vulnerability? I had to keep my guard up around her.

"Nothing. I was just laughing at this..." she waved both her hands around us and continued, "this miracle that you are here with me. That I was able to meet my son again. I feel so blessed."

I was uncomfortable again. I wanted to go back but something told me otherwise. For once, I wanted to be uncomfortable. For once, I wanted to feel the change. I wanted to discover and risk and see how would things turn out to be. I wanted to see the end of it.

I want to see how it... how this ends. But I am so afraid.

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Hey readers and silent readers! Hope you enjoyed this chapter. Love and peace.

-Polluted Puck