“I’m probably not making any sense. I guess what I’m trying to say is, you guys make it better. That day I found out my parents were gone, I hated that I made myself survive those eight years, that I went through so much pain and misery to come back to nothing, but now I am more grateful than I can ever say that I did, because I have all of you, and our amazing family. I have this new life, and I’m not sure where it will head, but I don’t care as long as you are all with me. Yes, I wish so much my Mom and Dad were here too, but I can handle the fact that they’re not because I found my new safe, with you. I love you all very much.”
“We love you too Livy.” Kade said, as the others all quietly agreed. “You’re giving all of us these exciting new beginnings too, and I for one, cannot wait to see where our future leads.”
“We’ll be together, that’s all that matters. The rest is all just semantics.” Cole added, making me smile even wider.
“They’d love you guys, you know?”
“Your parents?” Matt asked as he looked at me from where he walked just ahead of Kyle. I nodded, and he laughed. “I doubt it. Four reprobate foster kids with their precious little girl.”
“Yeah, I bet your Dad would have chased us off with a shotgun!” Cole laughed.
“Ha! More likely my Mom. My dad was one of the gentlest men you could ever meet. He was all arty and musical. He got on with everyone, and never raised his voice. He’d have completely been on board with our new age relationship, and he’d have loved all of you.”
“And your Mom?” Kyle pushed.
“My Mom was a tough cookie. She was crazy protective and would have interrogated each of you until you cracked.” I explained, a huge smile across my face as I remembered how my Mom hated when I had any kind of boys for friends at school. She’d make me point them out to her, so she could scowl at them in warning every time they passed outside school.
“Cole would totally break first!” Matt joked.
“It would all have been alright in the end though, because she would have found that you are all good men, and she’d have warmed to you, then fed you cakes and cookies until you burst, every time she saw you.” I sighed, enjoying the fond memories of my parents and the images of them older, interrogating and sizing up each of my guys.
“Well, you can tell them that we all intend to take very good care of you, Love.” Kade stopped and when I looked up to him, he nodded over to a row of graves a few metres away. I hadn’t even realised we had walked all of the way into the cemetery now. We were surrounded by stone markers and graves adorned with flowers, all dusted in snow and ice.
“Should be under that big tree.” Kade added. I took a deep breath, then looked over to the huge tree he mentioned. It stood over twenty feet high and glistened with snow and ice. The whole place looked really pretty, even though it was filled with Loss, as Kyle had said.
I nodded once and Kyle led me forward, meaning I needed to release Kade’s hand.
It was harder to hobble across the uneven grass, but Kyle just took even more of my weight, and I pretty much hopped over to the tree.
“Here, Princess.” Kyle declared as we stopped between two markers. I was looking down at the snow beneath my foot, too scared to look up and see their names, etched in the cold slabs of stone. I knew it would be so final once I looked.
I stood silently, just focusing on my breathing, and trying to make myself look up and just get it over with. They weren’t coming back. They were dead. Those stones were my only place to be close to them and I knew it, but still I couldn’t make myself look. I felt like I stood on a cliff, trying to make myself jump, but my body would not allow it.
A full five minutes of silence must have passed before someone stepped in front of me. From the aftershave I knew it was Cole.
“Livy? Talk to me.” He whispered as his hands moved to cover my now trembling shoulders.
“I can’t.” I whispered, the words barely coming out through the tightness of my throat.
“It’s ok. We can come back when you’re ready. We don’t have to do this today.” He said softly.
“I just…...if I see their names, then they’re really gone. I…...I’ll never see them a-again and I…..I fought so hard Cole…..I fought to come home to them. All…... I wanted was my M….” The first deep sob escaped before I could get another word out, feelings of the lost child
