[British and American] Jason Wayne's Struggle

Sometimes when a person dies, you will find traces of her everywhere around you. Jason is young and he has not learned this yet, but life will push him to learn everything he is willing and unwilling to accept.

So when he passed by the cinema, he remembered that when he and Andrea earned that money in a maid outfit, the first thing Andrea did was to put another of her nice-looking, everyday clothes on Jason, making him look less like a kid from Crime Alley, and then took him into the cinema.

Andrea told him that she hadn't watched a proper movie for a long time and now she really wanted to watch a movie.

The most popular movie in the cinema at that time was the first part of "Twilight", which had just been released. They watched this movie and then watched the re-release of "Pride and Prejudice" in the corner theater.

Andrea likes Twilight and she says she is a fan of the original book, while Jason prefers Pride and Prejudice.

Andrea then asked with a smile, "Do you think Elizabeth is beautiful, or Darcy is handsome?"

Jason replied without hesitation: "They are all fine."

Andrea said "oh" and patted his head: "It seems that you might be bisexual, my little darling."

As they passed by a sushi restaurant, Jason remembered that Andrea had once taken him there to eat sushi, which was delicious.

When passing by a bench on the street, he remembered that Andrea had once arm-wrestled with a very strong woman there, supposedly for a bottle of wine. Jason then kept saying things to attack Andrea, including "You ran onto the subway tracks to pick up a dollar coin, but you didn't pick it up in the end," "You always meet scumbags," "You're a pole dancer"...

Andrea was devastated, but she won the arm wrestling match driven by grief and anger. Afterwards, they watched TV together for two hours to celebrate. Jason wanted to watch the news, but Andrea insisted on tuning to the sports channel to watch the figure skating competition. She was a real ice fan.

Jason once said disdainfully: "It's just skating on the ice, I can do it even if I want."

Andrea patted his head and replied, "Ice skating is not as easy as you think, kid. It's a pity that learning figure skating is too expensive, otherwise I would let you go and experience it, you know? The middle school I attended before had an ice rink and a figure skating club. I can do the 2A, but it's a pity that I can't do a triple jump, otherwise I could have become an athlete."

When Jason got home and saw the oven, he remembered that this oven was very old, so when starting it, he needed to use a match to light it. If he was not careful, the flames might burn his eyebrows. Jason was burned once, and Andrea kept talking about replacing this oven.

In addition, Andrea also took Jason to eat his first birthday cake in his life. There were two cherries on it, as well as cut strawberries and dragon fruit. It was sour and sweet and very delicious.

……

Jason thought a lot. He was young, but had suffered a lot. His mind was a few years older than his actual age. He also learned some worldly knowledge when he was running a small cake business with Andrea. He knew that it was very normal for someone to die in Gotham. Moreover, the robber who killed people was knocked down by Robin who passed by and sent to the police station.

He knew that the prisoner would not be sentenced to death, but would most likely be sentenced to life imprisonment like his father. Since he was too weak, he would not even be able to take revenge.

Losing Andrea was just a stab in his heart, but he couldn't just live without it. Time wouldn't stop flowing because of it. He had to look forward.

It might be better for him to get out of this period sooner, but he couldn't do that for the time being.

After all, Andrea had given him so many happy memories. He had not had many happy moments since he was born, and Andrea was the most cheerful and lively color.

She was the first person who gave Jason hope, and the only person besides his mother who knew the secret of his deformed body.

Jason also knew that Andrea left the pole dancing bar in order to save more money, left the gangster who slept with her and gave her very little protection, and stopped handing over part of her income to her. Her reasons for saving money should also include Jason.

So she died because she had no protector. Jason suspected that the gangster might be one of the masterminds behind her death because all her belongings were swept away by the gangster on the night of her death.

Not only did Jason regard Andrea as family, Andrea also regarded him as her own family, protecting him, taking care of him, paying his tuition and fees like a parent, and thinking about giving him a better future, which was something that even Jason's parents could not do for him.

Andrea was one of the best people in the world to Jason, and he had lost that forever.

Jason closed his eyes, hugged one of the only two relics Andrea left him - a Paddington Bear doll, and sobbed softly.

In the end, he failed to save enough money to send his mother to the Metropolitan Drug Rehabilitation Center, and his life began to become increasingly difficult.

Mom started to have her guests come back with her, and they got high together. Jason curled up in the corner of the kitchen, very close to the oven, holding his schoolbag and Paddington Bear. He knew that after the summer vacation, he would have no school to go to, because the little money Catherine earned, except for keeping him half-starved and not starving to death, was all used to buy drugs.

Their house was very small, with one bedroom and one living room. Jason had never slept in the bedroom since he could remember. Before Willis Todd went to prison, Jason slept on a folding bed in the corner of the living room. In the summer, he slept on the balcony because that would reduce the number of times Willis saw him. That man would always beat Jason, and the child who had no ability to resist could only do everything he could to stay away from him.

Then one day, a man fell on top of Jason.

Later, Jason hardly remembered what the man looked like. He just remembered that the man had rotten teeth, strong bad breath, a rough and dirty hand covering his mouth, and the other hand tearing his clothes, calling him "pretty baby".

After waking up, Jason stabbed him in the lower body with the knife he had been holding when he slept. Fortunately, the man had taken too many drugs and his reaction was very poor, so Jason was able to seize the opportunity to attack him, otherwise a child would be too powerless in front of an adult male.

This was one of the only two relics Andrea left him. Although the girl was actually very weak and could not beat any adult male or most adult women, she always carried a knife with her, and now this knife belonged to Jason.

Amid the man's screams, Jason got up in a panic, ran into the room, shook Catherine's arm, and called her mother in tears.

At times like this, the only person he can rely on is his mother.

After Catherine came to her senses and realized what had happened, she immediately packed her clothes in horror and fled the room with Jason.

That man turned out to be a gangster, and Jason's attack on him would bring unpredictable consequences, so they had to move. Jason only had time to take Paddington Bear with him when he escaped, and he couldn't even take away his only set of picture books, "Beavers", which he cherished.

The only thing to be thankful for was that as a woman from Crime Alley, Catherine was not angry at Jason for stabbing her. She even kicked the man when she left and ran away with her child.

To be honest, Catherine is really a good person, at least when she is still clear-headed.

Because of this incident, even after moving into the new house, Catherine still couldn't get rid of those drugs, but Jason had no complaints about her, and took on the housework without complaint. He cleaned everything when she vomited all over the place, and only gave Catherine 10 minutes of hot water every day. He took cold showers himself, and started to do some petty thefts on the streets to bring some income to the family, so that they wouldn't starve to death together.

Jason eventually fell to the point where he was just one step away from being a street child, but his mother was still alive, so it was all bearable. As long as he could make a living, he could hold on.

But soon, Catherine also died.

To be honest, Catherine's death was not unexpected to him. It would be strange for someone like her to have a good end, but Jason still fantasized that this day would come later, because he was Catherine's son, and because Catherine's death symbolized that Jason had completely lost his home.

He never had any unrealistic hopes for old Todd in prison. The only thing that man did before going to prison was to beat his wife and children after getting drunk. It was a relief for Jason to have him in prison.

Jason was caught off guard by this sudden accident. The only thing he was thankful for was that when Catherine died, the old lady next door discovered everything and helped him deal with the funeral so that he didn't have to face that scene directly.

But Jason's heart ached when he thought that he would never be able to get close to his mother's thin, cold arms again.

He stuffed the thick clothes and shoes at home into his backpack, and hid the only change he had under a loose brick under a trash can he found in a hidden corner on the street while selling cakes.

Holding Paddington Bear, he was sent to an orphanage. After only a few days, he had several fights with others to protect his bear. He rarely lost due to his ferocity. Then he was sent to a foster family because he could not live peacefully with others.

Although foster families generally have to undergo assessment by social welfare agencies and require income and family members to have no criminal record, this is Gotham.

So Jason was almost numb when he found out in the middle of his sleep that the man of the house was reaching into his quilt and touching his thigh.

He took a knife and stabbed the other person, and then he had his first sketch.

Sketch of the criminal drawn by a GCPD officer.

Then he stayed in the juvenile detention center for two months. After he was released, Jason didn't want to go back to the orphanage, and there was probably no foster family willing to take him in, so he simply sneaked back to Crime Alley and officially joined the group of street children.