Masquerade (Masquerade #1) Read online

  She is survived by her son, Jason Locke Colton, Sr. and his wife, Callie Colton. She is also survived by her grandson Jason Locke Colton, Jr.

  Funeral Services will be held at Carter Funeral Home Bryan Chapel on Saturday, November 9, 2013 at 2:00 pm.

  So her name is Virginia Colton. I reread the obituary several times before I finally turn off the computer. I hear Lucy running down the hallway. I get up, knowing I need to start supper before Chris gets home.

  Getting Lucy situated, I start making patties out of hamburgers. I then begin peeling potatoes and cutting them into fries.

  I have the last batch of French fries finished before Chris walks through the door.

  He walks up behind me, kissing my ear. “Hey, baby.”

  “Hey. How was work?”

  “It was good, but I’m starving.”

  I pull the last of the fries out and put them on the paper towels with the others. “Good because it’s time to eat.”

  He smiles, grabbing the hamburgers and taking them to the table. He sets them down, turns to Lucy, and tells her to get to the table.

  We eat, clean up, sit in front of the TV, and watch Frozen for the hundredth time. I’m not going to lie. I love Olaf, but that damn song “Let It Go” is getting on my nerves.

  It finally goes off, so I bathe Lucy and get her ready for bed. Once she is asleep, I get my own self ready for bed. I haven’t been able to keep Virginia out of my mind all night.

  I climb into bed beside Chris. He reaches over and starts kissing my shoulder. He makes love to me before we turn to go to sleep.

  Sleep comes easily tonight. I am a lot more tired than I thought. I, of course, have dreams again, but this time, it is of Virginia. She is outside one day when I take off for a run. She stops me when I get back to talk.

  “Sweetie, you look wonderful. Why do you run?”

  “I am trying to keep in shape.”

  “Oh, sweetie, back in my time, men loved some extra meat on them bones.”

  “Mrs. Colton, you are too kind, but I beg to differ about the extra meat.”

  “That is because you need a good Southern man to spoil you. In fact, I have a grandson that would be perfect for you. He is from Atlanta. His dad is sending him down here to watch me supposedly, but I know it because he doesn’t want to deal with him.”

  “You are too much. I hope things work out with his dad. That’s sad. I don’t know what I would do without my parents.”

  “See. I knew you were a good girl. He will be here in a couple of days. I hope you two can spend some time together this summer. He is such a good boy even though his dad puts him through hell. Anyways, his name is Jason. He is about your age, and he is easy on the eyes too.”

  I laugh, and she continues. “Please tell me you will meet him. He needs a good girl in his life to make him forget about what he has at home.”

  “I will keep an eye out.”

  She seemed pleased with that response. “Good. I will see you later then, dear.”

  “Bye, Mrs. Colton.”

  I wake up feeling warmth from the dream. She was sweet and enduring, but why would she tell me about how her son seems to be an ass? And Jason sounds familiar too. Did I ever see him?

  Chapter Eighteen

  For days after mulling over what I found through the internet and the dream I had, I was determined to find out more. I had some vacation time, so I decided to use it this week in hopes of getting more answers.

  The first day of my vacation wasn’t by any means successful. I was distracted most of the day with errands and things Chris needed done. Lucy didn’t help either. I had to take her out of school earlier due to the fact that she said she didn’t feel well. I didn’t buy it, but I took her to the doctor, and, as I figured, nothing was wrong.

  The next day, I was able to get back on the computer. I opened the laptop and started it up to get ready to get to business. I began my search with Mrs. Colton’s son’s name first.

  His name appeared on several websites, so I started scanning through some of them. They mostly talked about his upbringing, how he inherited the business from his family, and how he had made it even more successful.

  He wasn’t living here anymore but in Atlanta. He also was involved in several things there. There was a picture of him on one of the sites, and I stared at it for what seemed like twenty minutes.

  He looks familiar, but he seems like an ass too. He is perhaps in his early fifties and has black hair. There is a touch of gray on the sides of his head, and he has the prettiest ocean-blue eyes. He wouldn’t look so much like an asshole, but with the smirk he is sporting, you can tell he is.

  I can’t find too much more on Virginia’s son besides the fact he is married with one child. I keep digging to find a picture of what seems to be her son supporting his wife who is crying. I pull up the article to start reading.

  I scan through the top portion because it just mentions all Jason, Sr.’s accomplishments. I go down to the third paragraph to see where it says their son had been killed in a freak accident while he was in Brazil traveling the world.

  I keep reading, but it doesn’t go into great detail of exactly how it happened. It just says they found a body, and it was so unrecognizable that they assumed it was him considering no one from the family had heard from him since the last conversation that had ended up sour, and the so called ‘friends’ said it was him.

  According to friends’ interviews, Brazil was the last place they had seen him alive. They said they had been partying so hard with alcohol and local drugs from Brazil that he decided to try and paraglide off the side of the mountain that evening. Of course with them all being under the influence, no one tried to stop him. Instead, they egged him on.

  He didn’t strap himself into the seat. He simply hooked the parachute to the glider and started the motor. Once he had everything in place, he took off running, pulling the parachute with him, and started the flight.

  He had just gotten off the side of the mountain before he made his way towards the sky, and all of a sudden, the motor burst into flames. All they could see was a fireball, and all they could hear was screaming. They said he started falling back towards the earth.

  The police and ambulance were called to the scene, but when they had gotten there, the body was so badly burnt they couldn’t find any trace of DNA to get a positive ID. They had his body sent back to Atlanta for the burial.

  I sit back in my chair with tears in my eyes caused by my empathy for the loss of their son. I can’t imagine that ever happening. I lean back up and scroll down to see a slideshow of pictures of Jason. They range from his younger years to the most current ones they had of him.

  He looks like his mom but has his dad’s eyes. He was a cute little boy. He looks mischievous in most of the pictures as if he is up to no good. I keep scrolling until I get to his teenage years, and that’s when I feel a pang of anxiety kicking in.

  I look to see a picture of him with his grandmother. It’s in front of the house his grandmother lived in next door to mine. I keep searching through them and find another picture of him with someone cut out. Then the next picture is of his grandmother with my parents, Jason, and myself.

  I jump up from the computer and start pacing the floor. My breath is becoming labored, and I know now I am having a full-blown anxiety attack. I make myself sit back down, breathing in deeply and exhaling.

  I finally get ahold of myself and take the laptop back into the office to print the picture off and close the laptop for the day. I really need to get my mind focused.

  I stare at the picture, getting myself worked up again when I decide I need to clean to help get my mind back where it needs to be. I walk into our bedroom, go to the closet, and pull out two boxes that still need be gone through since we moved in here.

  I start taking things out, putting them in either the trash or a keep pile. Most of it is trash. Chris probably wanted to keep most of this junk, but he isn’t here, so I am getting rid of it.
Finally done with that box, I take all the junk to the trash can.

  I start on the second box, pulling little things out like old receipts and some pictures. I thumb my way through the pictures of us from college with Alan.

  I grin as I realize that even then anyone could tell that Chris felt something more for me than just friendship. I set those down in the keep pile then turn back to the box to find a black shoe box sitting on the very bottom. I open it, seeing what looks like to be more pictures.

  I pull them out, and that is when I find the same picture I had just printed. I also find the same one I had on the computer in which someone had cut one of the people out. But this one has the person in it. That person is me.

  Looking at it, I see Chris, but this isn’t Chris I am staring at. This is Jason. How in the hell did I know Jason. This makes no sense.

  Picking up the rest of the pictures, I look through them seeing more of me and Jason at my parents’ house, his grandmother’s house, and us at the beach. This can’t be right.

  Anxiety starts to come back, but I push it down, so I can call my aunt to see if she can pick Lucy up from school. I need Chris home early. We need to talk.

  I am able to get Lucy taken care of for the night. My aunt actually wanted her to spend the night, so that worked out well. The next step was to convince Chris to come home early.

  I call his office, and his secretary answers the phone.

  “Mr. Knowles’ office.”

  “Hi, Suzanne. This is Julia. Is there any way I could speak to Chris. It’s urgent.”

  “Of course, honey. He just got back from court. Hold on, and I will put you through.”

  “Thank you.”

  The line goes to that god-awful hold music.

  “Hey, baby. You okay?”

  “No. I really need you to come home now.”

  “Julia, what’s wrong? Are you hurt?”

  “No, but I need you here now.”

  “Give me five minutes, and I will be home. I love you.”

  I hang up the phone. Chris is Jason. It is the only explanation I can come up with, and it plays over and over again in my mind.

  I have all my evidence on the coffee table when I hear the door start to open. I turn my head towards the door seeing Chris walking in with a worried look on his face.

  “Julia, what’s wrong?”

  “A lot of things, but let’s start with you telling me who you really are?” I pick up a picture of us taken in my room at my parents’ house.

  Confusion covers his face. “What are you talking about?”

  “Like how your name is really Jason Locke Colton, Jr,” I say with a sigh.

  As soon as it leaves my mouth, he falls back into the couch. “What did you say?”

  “You heard me. Now I need answers and the fucking truth.”

  He sits in complete shock. He can’t seem to form any kind of a response.

  “Are you still here with me?”

  He shakes his head like he is clearing his thoughts. “Yes. How did you find all of this stuff?”

  “I have been doing research. You can’t hide the internet from me. I also remember the day you gave me your charm for the necklace. You told me how much you loved me, but then the next day you were fucking gone.”

  He puts his head into his hands.

  “Now are you going to tell me what I want to know and why you have lied all these years?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good.” I sit on the opposite couch facing him. “Now, Jason, tell me everything.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  “My real name is Jason Locke Colton, Jr. We met when I was forced to move to my grandmother’s house one year by my dad.”

  “I’ve got that much according to what I found. I want to know why you lied to me, faked your own death, and why you never told me?”

  “You found all that huh? You would think if you could find it then maybe my dad might have investigated further.” He lets out a huff before he continues. “We dated in high school. I loved you from the first day I saw you running, and you ran right into me. I had never had this kind of love for anyone.”

  He loosens his tie and continues. “My dad made me leave one day out of the blue. Apparently, I wasn’t supposed to have found love while I was living there, especially with someone not approved by him. When we got back to Atlanta, he sent me off with my friends on a trip around the world, mainly boozing it up. He wanted me to forget you. I couldn’t though. My mother had called me one day, saying you showed up at the house wanting to see me because you were pregnant. My dad, being his normal assholey self . . .”

  “He called me a slut. Told me I would never see you again and to get rid of the baby.”

  He looks at me with surprise. “Do you remember that?”

  “It’s slowly coming back. Keep going.”

  “After hearing how my father treated you, I decided once and for all to tell him to stay the fuck out of my life because I was coming back for you. I did call him and said some pretty harsh things, but not nearly as bad as what he told me about you. He told me about your wreck. He told me you died. I was so lost then. I couldn’t let him win anymore, so I did what I had to do and faked my own death.”

  “So why did you come back?”

  “I had heard from my grandmother that you had survived. She was the only one who knew I really wasn’t dead. That is when I decided to seek you out. I enrolled into college, catching up by taking as many classes as I could to graduate with you. Then when I saw you with Alan that night, my heart broke, but I was determined to get you back in my life. So I lied.”

  “But why not just tell me the truth from the beginning?”

  “That night when you looked at me, I saw in your eyes you had no idea who I was. It about killed me. I asked around later to find out about you, and that is when I learned about your coma and lapse in memory. I didn’t know what else to do.”

  “This is all still confusing, Chris or Jason or whatever the hell your name is.”

  “I know, and I am sorry for it, but I couldn’t live knowing you were alive, and we had a baby. The first time I saw Lucy and you, said she was your sister. I knew it wasn’t true. She is so much of both of us. I had to get back into your life.”

  “I need wine and lots of it,” I say, standing up.

  I start pouring myself a glass when he comes in the kitchen and tries to put his arms around me. I shrug him off.

  “Is this how it’s going to be now?”

  Downing the whole glass I just poured, I begin pouring myself another. “Right now, yes. I still don’t have all my memories of the whole thing, but right now, you feel completely foreign to me.”

  I clutch my glass of wine and the bottle and carry it into the bedroom. I walk in and close the door. I need to be alone for a while.

  I wind up drinking the whole bottle before I pass out crying in the bed. Of course I just have to dream of all this shit again. This time it’s different though. I wake up panting.

  I get out of bed, walk down the hallway, and make my way to the kitchen. I set my glass down and look over to see Chris sitting at the table, staring at me.

  “You okay? I went to check on you, and you were asleep, but it seems like you were having a dream again.”

  I nod my head. “I did, and this time it was real. I remember everything, Jason.”

  “Please sit down.” He pulls a chair out for me to sit.

  “My dream was from the first day I met you all the way up to the present. I remember our first night together. I remember the way you always made me feel special. Then I remember the day that you disappeared. I went to find you only to get treated like shit by your father. Then I got into a fight with my parents, which caused me to wreck carrying our child. I always knew there was more to us than just what has happened but never could get it all together. Now that I have, I need to do something that you may not like.”

  He rubs the stubble forming on his chin. “What’s that?”

/>   “I need to move in with my aunt for a while. I need space. There is so much to figure out at this point. I still don’t know what to tell Lucy. I mean, she thinks her parents are dead when in fact, they are two fucked up people in her life every day.”

  “I understand. Just please know I did this for us. I did this so we could always be together. I don’t want to hurt you anymore. I will do whatever it takes to have you back and Lucy back in my life.”

  “Good.”

  I get up from the table to go and pack a bag for myself and Lucy. I have all of our stuff by the opened front door. I start grabbing bags when Chris begins helping carry them to the car.

  It’s all in the car and ready to go when I open the driver’s side door to get in. Chris grabs me, pulling me into a hug.

  “I will be here when you’re ready. I love you.”

  I shake my head and climb into the car. He shuts the car door. I buckle up and turn the car on. I take off, only looking back in my rearview mirror to see his deflated face.

  I pull up at Aunt Karen’s house and sit in the car. I look next door to remember the good times before all this shit fucked it all up.

  I finally get out of the car and don’t realize anybody is standing there until I hear a voice.

  “Is there a reason you are staring at my house? Did you miss me?”

  “Nope, can’t say that I have, and to answer your question, I was remembering better times.”

  I pull my luggage out and close my trunk to walk away from the idiot next door. I don’t have time for stupid shit. Apparently, he gets the memo because he walks back to his house.

  I open the front door to be greeted by Aunt Karen. I drop it all out of my hands when she says, “Come here, honey. Chris called me.” She pulls me into a hug.

  We break free from one another, and she guides me to the couch.

  “Do you want to talk about it?”

  “Well, what did Chris tell you?”

  “That you two had a disagreement, and you were coming to stay over here for a while.”

  “Hmm. A disagreement huh?”

  I then go into the whole drawn out story. She never says anything until the end.