Stay With Us

Jimin and I had discussed it in grave detail and decided to go meet him. I talked to Tae and he said he was going too. We took Jimin’s car to the café to meet him. We were late since I had gotten cold feet for a moment. But the boys wanted to know why he was stalking me.
We walked in seeing him sitting at one of the tables. Papers sitting next to him. He saw us walk in and stood up from the table.

Jimin took my hand leading me over with Tae right behind me. “Ok. We’re here. Now what do you want?” Jimin asked him roughly.

He then clears his throat. “I’m sorry to have scared you.” He starts. “My name is Matthew Roberts.”

I get a confused look on my face. His name seemed familiar but I didn’t know why. “What do you want to tell me?” I ask sitting down. Jimin and Tae both sat on either side of me.

He sat down in front of us then taking out a piece of paper. Handing it to me. It was a blood test. “I am your biological dad.”

I continue looking over the test then look at him. “When was this done?” I asked him shocked.

“When you were ten.” He explains. “When you were about to start Jr High your mom looked me up. They needed the test done and for me to give up my rights so your dad could adopt you.”

I didn’t know what to say. I knew I had blood drawn before I started school but Mom had told me it was because of school I needed to.

“I know this is a lot to take in.” He says to me.

“Why did it take you ten years to tell me this?” I ask almost cutting him off.

He gives me a sorry look. “I wasn’t sure if I should. You were so happy I didn’t want to ruin that. I saw you at the doctor’s office with them. I didn’t know about you until your mom called me.”

“What changed your mind now?” I asked irritated by his answer.

He then takes out another set of papers. “A year ago I was diagnosed with liver and pancreatic cancer.” He says handing the papers to me. I take them from him looking them through. “Both of which were genetic. I wanted you to have your biological history in case anything happens to you in the future. I only have about two months left since the treatments are no longer working.”

He then hands me another stack of papers that have medical history leading back four generations.

“I understand if you don’t want any more contact. I just wanted you to have all of this.” He then starts to stand from the table.

“Wait.” I say stopping him. I then pause before my next question. “Can I have your number?”
I ask him standing up. “I may have more questions after I finish processing this.”

He then takes another paper out of his pocket handing it to me. “Of course.”

I take it from him then gather the papers he had given me before leaving. Jimin and Tae followed quickly behind me. I get into the car not saying anything to either of them. Once we were back at the house I went straight to the bed room looking through the papers again.

Tae’s POV

“What happened?” Jin asked seeing Maranda run off to the bedroom. Jimin went over sitting on the couch to give her a minute to think everything over.

“He’s her dad.” I say still in disbelief of what happened.

They all look at me surprised. “What?” Jin asks.

“He is her biological dad.” I say sitting down. “He wanted to find her to give her medical history for his side of the family. He is dying of cancer.”

“Is she ok?” Rap Mon asks.

“We don’t know. She hasn’t said anything since we left.” Jimin tells him.

“What did she say to him?” J Hope asks in disbelief still.

“She got his number before we left but she really didn’t say much.” I tell him.

We all went quiet after that. No one knew what to say. I wasn’t sure if I should call Uncle and Rebecca or not. After sitting in silence for an hour Jimin decided to go check on her.

Maranda’s POV

I hear the door open seeing Jimin walk in. I go back to the papers not saying anything. He comes up behind me massaging my shoulders.

“Jagiya are you ok?” He asks worried.

“I don’t know.” I say shaking my head. “I just found out who my dad is and that he is dying from cancer.”

“Maybe you should call your mom.” He suggests.

“I don’t know what to say to her either. I’m not upset with her or anything I just don’t know how to tell her what happened.” I lean back putting my head against his arm.

He leans down kissing the top of my head. “Let’s just talk about this. We can figure out what you want to know if there is anything. And then you can do whatever you want when you’re ready.”

I stand up from the desk hugging him. “I don’t even know how to feel. Should I be mad that he hasn’t contacted me? Should I be upset that he is dying?”

“You can feel however you want to. There isn’t a set rule book for this.”

“Can we just go to bed?” I asked him holding him closer.

“Of course.” He says kissing the top of my head.

We both get into bed and I snuggle up to his side as he wraps his arms around me. I couldn’t seem to fall asleep no matter what I did. I finally gave up at six. I took the papers off the table going into the kitchen to look through them some more so I didn’t wake up Jimin.

I got out a blank piece of paper writing down any questions I had. I wanted to know why my mom left without telling him about me. If he had any other kids. Different things like that.

Jin came into the kitchen seeing me sitting there at seven. “Morning Maranda.” He said walking by me to get food out of the fridge.

“Hey Jin.” I say looking up from my papers.

“How are you doing?”

“Alright I guess. Still trying to understand some of this.” I hadn’t noticed he made a cup of tea for me until he sat it next to me. “Thanks.” I say picking it up taking a drink.

“Did you get any sleep last night?”

“No. I gave up about an hour ago.” He starts making breakfast for everyone while I continue with my question list.

I finish my tea then clean my cup. After putting the papers back on the desk I decided to go for a run to clear my head. I grabbed Begae’s leash to take him with me.

We were gone for a couple hours when I heard my phone ringing. I looked seeing it was Tae.

“Hello.” I answered out of breath.

“Hey where are you?” He asked sounding worried.

“I went for a run.”

“Come back to the house.” He instructs.

“Why what’s wrong?” I ask noticing how he was sounding.

“Just come back to the house. You’ll see why.”

He then hangs up the phone. I put it back into my pocket then turn around heading back to the house. Nothing seemed off when I walked up to the house. No strange cars or anything. I open the door walking in. I then get a huge surprise. My mom and appa were sitting on the couch. I set my phone on the table then taking off Begae’s leash.

Begae started growling at them both. “Jeongji.” (Halt) I command to him. He then stops growling sitting down next to me.

“What are you guys doing here?” I ask them surprised.

They both had very serious expressions on their faces. My mom spoke up first. “We know about Matthew seeing you.”

I then look over at Tae and Jimin. “It wasn’t them.” Appa said to me.

“Matthew called us a few days ago. He told us he was going to find you so you would know what was going on.” Mom tells me.

“If you knew then why didn’t you say anything to me?” I asked getting upset. Begae started growling again. I then turn to Jimin. “See what your training did?” I ask him. “Now I can’t even have a conversation with my parents!”

“Begae wassda!” (come) He said taking him into the bed room.

“Maranda, we didn’t know what to say.” Mom says to me.

“And why didn’t I get to have the option of knowing him? What was so wrong that you didn’t even tell him about me until I was ten? And the only reason for that was because you needed him to give me up!”

Begae started barking and scratching on the door.

“Jimin will you get that damn dog!” I screamed. I had officially snapped. I never have even yelled at Jimin let alone screamed at him for nothing.

“Maranda!” Tae yelled. “Calm down. There is no reason to get this mad.” He said gently.

“Oh. No reason to get this mad? Ok. Fine. I’m not mad.” I said condescendingly.

“Maranda stop acting like this.” Appa said sternly. “We didn’t know how to tell you so we thought it would go better coming from him and then we would be here after to answer any questions you had.”

“I don’t have anything I want to say to either of you.” I say turning around grabbing my purse off the hook leaving the house.

Notes