Thelma, Tyler's mom, sent me a meme. A meme with the type of humor you'd expect from a mom. Though I did find it a bit funny so a tiny smile formed on my lips before shoving my phone into my backpack as I ran out to go meet up with Toby in the car.

She'd asked for my socials on the lunch date at her house, the one meant to apologize for her outburst the previous visit. Tyler had just left the table to get something she'd asked for from the kitchen. I have a feeling she didn't really need it.

And it doesn't really matter.

The only thing that didn't quite sit well with me was her telling me her name, but quickly adding that it's a different name she uses on the internet. The reason being, "My husband doesn't like me socializing."

She laughed. The way she usually laughs even when something's not particularly funny, I just take it as a mom thing and giggle along. But that. That I couldn't fake a laugh to. I remember smiling, however the smile faded almost immediately, when her statement settled in. Really settled in.

Her husband. Tyler's dad.

Nathan's dad, has questionable character.

The conversation with Nathan from yesterday had been at the front of my mind, well till I got into Tyler's car for our regular ride home and got a no to the question I asked him.

He doesn't say anything more, just watches me, so the car stays quiet for a painfully long time. No. His bodyguard never knew my mom. That's... fine.

At least, it's okay, not as if him saying yes would've made my world any better.

Then why does a no feel so earth shattering.

Is it because I'd put so much hope into it? Or because some knowledge of my mom, besides information which my dad gives little of, would've somehow made me feel closer to her.

But what was I trying to gain from it? What would be the next step if the answer I got was in the affirmative? What if Tyler had said yes. Then what.

What if Tyler has said yes, then what.

We had a fight, Danielle and I. And I might've ended up saying a thing or two I regretted but it at least got me what I wanted. The new code.

"Three three seven two five." She told me robotically. She might have as well not been breathing as we both stared each other in the eye as if daring the other to break contact. 

I changed the code back to the original after I got in because 33725 is not memorable. Then I begun ransacking every nook and cranny of the garage looking through photos after photos of my mother. All I needed was one, to send to Tyler, yet there I was wrapped up in the activity probably appearing somewhat like a scavenger to external audience if it existed. There were many photos of her. A lot of them were solo, while others had people around her, people I can only imagine to be her colleagues as they were usually taken at the same place, and in the same lab uniform. Pictures with them in it weren't many at all but they were enough to conclude. What wasn't clear was her work line. I can't believe I've never known and never asked.

What did mom do?

The formal white coats must mean two things, either she was a medical doctor or something in that line. My mind was in a frenzy as I knelt in front of long-time locked away boxes and cartons searching through things of hers. At that point, I wasn't frantic because I needed a photo, hell I'd found tons of them, so no. I was frantic, my fingers shaking, 'cause I was trying to figure out what I was doing all that for. Why haven't I left? What was I searching for? What did I really want to find?

I took a picture of one photo and sent to Tyler.

As I put everything back in their place and watched the gate of the garage close down once I pressed the right button, it dawned on me that we knew very little about mom. All of us. Or perhaps it's just Toby and me. We don't know her friends, can't remember any ever coming to visit, we're five thousand miles away from her parents whom we only get to relate with via dad's phone when it's Christmas.

And now I'd just remembered that we didn't even know what job she worked.

Dad came home late in the night after dinner. He's relapsed into the workaholic he used to be, but it's fine, there seems to be more understanding this time. Or maybe we're just tired and have given up.

"Mi niña, what are you doing awake?" He inquired, a hand already wrapping my shoulders as I stepped towards him by the door. I told him a white lie I can no longer recall.

It's after he'd taken his suit jacket off and had a tea I boiled for him, that I asked, "Where did mom work?"

He looked dazed. Shocked. Dad is a lot like my sister, Danielle-Soledad. Never really wanting to talk about the past.

However, he did answer, albeit once the initial shock washed off. He told me she was a florist, but that she took orders from home. Not one flower or picture of a plant have I found in the garage. But I didn't want to tell him. Tell him where I'd been, that a florist didn't seem plausible with the photos I'd seen.

I didn't want to tell him he was lying.

Why, was the question, but it didn't bother me too much. I had Tyler's guard for all the info I wanted on my mom.

Except... no. I did not.

Tyler, having noticed my fallen mood, suggests we don't go home yet. He drives us past our street to a fast-food restaurant not too far off. The conversation, carried mostly by him, is light and breezy. Like him. I find myself laughing at some of the things he says, especially when he says it with a straight face. Today's the funniest he's ever been.

And the most comfortable I've ever been because I end up eating a burger beside him right there in the drive through. I never eat except around people I'm extremely comfortable around.

However, the easy air all comes crashing down when he parks at the front of my gate and asks if I'm okay. I'm not.

I'm not because I know what I saw. I've heard of how fragile memories can be and how the longer ago a memory is, the more wrongly you're probably recalling it. Based on the logic, the man I saw in a dark coat and a hat could've never even existed and was just put in there by mind tricks. Or if he did exist and was there, he may just happen to look very similar to Tyler's bodyguard.

But I know what I saw.

I didn't see a similarity, what I saw was him.

"Melissa," Tyler cooes, bringing me back to reality.

"I'm fine." The smile I fake is hopefully good enough to match.

Although it's as I'm about leaving the car, my hand on the door, that I decide dropping the act and look back at him. Only to find him already watching, soft blue eyes simply staring with question.

"Your guard,"

He nods, blinking.

"He did say no," I press, my gaze biting into him just as much as his bore into me. It's the fact that I want to know. No, it's the fact that I know something. Just not enough. "Right?"