SUPREME VISION SYSTEM

"I know why he is a persistent mom. He wants you of course. That bastard man always had eyes for you. " Cole seethed in anger.

"Cole...mind your language. " Ivory shouted, whispered. Her voice was in between.

"And every man is not after your mother. He genuinely wanted to help. Do not forget that he saved your life. " Ivory continued.

"Whatever mother. " Cole rolled his eyes.

He was out only for a day and men started to line up behind the back of his naive mother right away. Damn! Men were really thirsty. And it got worse after the news spread that she worked in a strip club. She yet did not know he had already come to know of her secret.

He just did not know how to ask her out, approach her. He did not want her to feel embarrassed or anything. He was not good with words either and did not want her to get the wrong impression. He did not want her to feel that he was ashamed of her working in a strip club.

He just needed to know why all of a sudden she chose to work there...why suddenly they needed a bit of more cash? Because the money sent off by his douche father and her salary from the diner just worked fine before. He was curious.

"Can you see clearly now than before?" 

His mother's question bought him out of his reverie. His vision...it was still hazy and it was uncomfortable as if he was seeing the world with one hundred forty-four pixel quality. But as the doctor said it will get better later. So he just shrugged it off.

"It will be alright. "

"If it continues to stay like this, please do not hesitate to drop a text to Doctor William only because he was hitting at me. " his mother stretched.

Cole bobbed, "Yeah mom. I know. I m not a baby. " 

His mother inched closer and dropped a sweet kiss on his forehead, "You will forever be my baby. "

"Ahhh....mom. I m going sixteen for God's sake." He groaned in annoyance. 

When the nurse came asking for signatures of his mother, Ivory went out, and Cole took her phone to casually only to be confronted with the truth.

He saw the text his mother sent to his bastard father. He curled his palm into a fist. He just hated him so much. He was ashamed to be his son.

'Cole got into an accident! He has been taken away to George Hospital. No major injuries. '

The text was sent yesterday and there was no reply yet. He sighed in distaste. He scrolled up to see what more texts his mother sent him and that was when he got to know the reason...the reason he had been searching for these whole damn month...a few months to be exact.

The answer to his unanswered question was right before his eyes. The question he did not dare to ask his mother without messing the whole thing up. 

'Gerald, I had not received the money for the fourth time past few months. Cole's school fee is impending in case you forgot!'

'Gerald, can you please send the alimony?'

'Are you alright? ....because you never withdraw from sending the child support money...please contact me!'

'Are you pulling out of sending the money?'

He felt like someone punching him in his guts when he read his mother's texts to his bastard biological father. He had taken off from sending the child support money and that was why she had to chose to work in the strip club or else he would have to drop out of the school.

He now knew it...knew why his mother had taken into that path. Because...because she was desperate and in dire need while also trying to solve the entire situation without letting him know about it...or worry about it. 

A lone strand of tear rolled down his pale cheeks for being the prime reason behind his mother's misery.

Perhaps if he was not born, his mother could have had moved on with any men not complicating the entire situation with him in it. It was such a pity that his father was enjoying his life while his mother tried herself out to meet his needs.

He felt like a damn loser. More tears came out of his eyes. He did not want to be the reason behind his mother's misery. He wanted to make her proud of him.

And at that exact moment, he did not notice his mother entering the room after being done with filling up the discharge forms. She was taken back by seeing tears in her son's eyes. She immediately rushed to his side and held his face with both of her hands.

"Why are you crying, Cole?" Ivory asked, shocked.

Was there something that her son was not telling her? Did something happen in her absence? She was curious.

"Why...why did not tell me, mom?" Cole questioned.

"Tell you what?" His mother implored in confusion.

Cole handed her cell phone to her and Ivory eyed the texts that she had sent to her ex-husband, some a few weeks ago and a little of them a few months ago before she took the job offer in the strip club.

She looked down in shame not knowing what to say and what not to say. She was out of words. She did not mean for Cole to find it out this way. 

"Why did you not tell me we were running short of money because that douche stopped sending the alimony?" Cole wailed out.

"Cole, language, please. He is your father for Christ's sake. " Ivory yelled back.

"Hse is no father of mine, mother. Why did you?...why did you not tell me about this?" Cole retorted back

"I...I knew you would not take this in the right way and you will force me again to let you work but I want you to know that I will manage somehow. You were always worried about our financial status...." Ivory tried to explain to her son.

"Of course I m worried mother. How can I not be? How could you keep such information out of my reach?" Cole intervened, cutting his mother short.

"Cole...Cole listens to me...ok...listen to me...please." His mother begged him to stop.

She did not want her to stress out when he just woke up from his medically induced coma. She made a mistake. She should have taken her cell phone with her. She was aware that Cole always has the habit of checking her phone since he was a little boy.

Earlier the reason behind checking the phone was different. It was to check if his father sent him a text about his arrival for his birthdays or the Christmas which his father never showed up to always make an excuse about his job. 

And later when he grew up, he might lie to her that he did not care about his father but the small boy inside him still longed for his father's love and his mother was aware that he went through his father's texts but would end up disappointed as always.

Oh! How much she hated Gerald for making her son feel that way! 

But could she do anything to change the situation? That was why she kept the information from him. She did not want to make him worried again and give another reason to be hurt that his father did not care for him anymore.

"No, you listen to me mother. You do not...you do not need to send these begging texts to him anymore. I will just drop out of that fancy school and start working with you in the diner. " Cole asserted.

It was his father who admitted him in that fancy, a high-class school in the first place when he could always have gone to the public school, ran by the government. 

His mother's waitesing salary could not afford to pay the fees there but it was only because of his father who insisted that he would pay his fees entirely and so his mother agreed. Which mother would not want their son to have the highest quality education? 

But being a bastard, his father was now even pulling out of that responsibility. And making his mother again a deer caught in the headlight.

"No...no you will not drop out." Ivory shouted.

She did not care if they were in the hospital anymore. That was her worst fear of her son dropping out and that was why she did not tell him in the first place.

"I will manage as I told you..."

"...oh how? By dancing in the strip club?"

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