Unexpected Love ✔️

T W E N T Y S E V E N

TWENTY-SEVEN

"It's okay," I hug a crying Amelia to my chest, biting down on my bottom lip hard enough to draw blood at the sound of the sobs wrecking through her little body.  Wrapping an arm around her small body shaking with sobs, I open the door to my room, kicking it closed behind me as I lead her over to my bed.  "Everything's okay, squirt." I coo softly with a small sigh escaping me at the sight of her because I don't know what to do to help her because she doesn't understand what has happened, she just knows she can't find her mum, tugging the duvet up so that it's covering the both of us, rubbing a hand down her back.

I whisper sweet nothings into her ear, clutching onto her tightly because I know there's nothing I can do to ease her pain as her breaths eventually turn shallow, a sign that she's out cold, hopefully for the rest of the night. Carefully, standing up with her in my arms, I place her on my bed, tucking the duvet in around her, before heading downstairs.

"Hey," I murmur, stepping into the family room and seeing Sierra up, her MacBook Air, another place to the side of her, presumably Kayden's, placed in front of her as she types away.

Sierra glances up, sending me a smile, "You alright?" 

Nodding my head as I sink onto the recliner opposite her, exhaustion seeping into my aching bones, just as Ayla and Adrian stroll into the room, the latter arching a brow when he spots me as a slow soft smile spreads across his lips. "Hey, thought you'd be asleep,"  He murmurs, plopping onto the couch next to me. 

"Couldn't sleep," I mumble, leaning forward and grabbing the TV remote off the coffee table in front of me, and turning on the telly for a well-needed distraction. Turning the volume on low, when the television comes to life,  I press the big red button that says Netflix in bold before logging into Zayn's account.

Clicking on my profile from when I still lived here, I select something at random and I select the first one that comes up. Manifest.  "What are we watching?" Sierra asks, strolling in with two steaming mugs. I hadn't even noticed her leave the room. She hands me a mug of hot chocolate, before re-taking her seat on the opposite couch beside Ayla, who came earlier this evening along with Val and her fiance, Ryan. 

I'm pretty sure that my dad doesn't like the idea of all these random men, to him, floating around the house where Amelia is, but he hasn't said anything. And besides, I trust them enough to bring them home during this time, and that's saying something considering how hard it is to get me to trust someone after what happened that night.

Speaking off, Valentina strolls in, eyes flickering across the room before they land on me, her shoulders sinking with relief as she saunters over. "Hey, I've been looking for you." She declares breathlessly, plopping down onto the arm of the couch and throwing an arm over my shoulder. "How are you doing?"  She breathes into my hair, and I shrug my shoulder, not knowing or wanting to respond.

"Arianna comes on," She groans in exasperation, pushing my shoulder and turning me around so that I face her. My gaze flickers over her messy bun, wild blue eyes stare back at me in a mixture of frustration and shock like she doesn't know what to do with me. Well, I guess that makes two of us. "You've got to give us something, babe." She whispers, her gaze flickering over me and to Sierra and Ayla before moving on to Adrian because well she knows me.

She knows that I haven't said a word to anyone because no one fucking gets it. Nobody here knows how hard it was coming back home to see her getting worse with each and every visit. To see her getting frailer and frailer, losing weight because her stomach couldn't handle what she ate for lunch and dinner until she was eventually all skin and bones.