Never the Same

Chapter 23

"Dad, you're not thinking of building something are you?" I query, taking a step closer to him.

"Mum said you're not up to something like that and you know yourself you aren't," Chloe adds.

"That's exactly what I've been telling him," Uncle Dom agrees. He frowns at his brother. "He's just back to being his stubborn self."

"I can think of another male that's exactly like that and he's away to uni right now," Chloe mutters, looking at me.

I nod in agreement.

"All the men in our family are like that," my dad points out.

"I'm not," Uncle Dom defends.

"Yes, you are."

"No-"

"If this is all the two of you are going to do, I'm going to go and settle in." I shout over the bickering. I turn and look at Chloe more directly. "My room still the same one?"

"Yeah, it is." Chloe nods. She leads the way back into the house and up the stairs. "Mum has changed all the bedding and tided some things away since you last stayed here but everything else is pretty much the same."

At the top of the stairs, we turn to right and Chloe pushes open the second door on our left.

"Just how you left it . . . almost." She announces.

I step into my old bedroom and look around it. Not a lot has changed and I don't know if I'm happy about that or if I'm sad about that. The colour scheme I changed it to after my break up with Luca is still the same; the wall behind the double bed a medium grey while the other three walls are white. The white furniture is still the same but my mum has upgraded all the lights, the chair that sits in the corner of the room, and of course the bedding. The wall opposite the bed is missing the television that I spent uncountable hours watching over the years. Declan has no doubt claimed it for his room.

I step further into the room and turn to look at the chest of drawers. The large pale pink and white ribbon notice board is still up on the wall and its contents are still in place. It was something my dad made from scratch for me when I threatened to pin up all of my photos on the walls. My mum was furious at me for saying that and my dad got straight to work on making the board for me. It didn't take him long to make and it also didn't take me long to fill it up.

The majority of things on it are photos of me with Allison throughout the years but there's also a large amount of space unoccupied. It's that space that contained photos of Luca and I when we were first together. All of them were taken down apart from one. I couldn't bring myself to take it down and just covered it up with a photo of Allison and I the day we found out we got accepted into university. If the picture of Luca and I is still under it, I'll be surprised.

I pull the picture of Allison and I away from the board and my breath catches in my throat.

It's still there.

"Declan didn't remove it," I whisper.

"Neither did dad," Chloe adds. "Despite them both threatening to do so."

I smile at the photo and pull it free from where it's sat untouched for years. It was the first picture Luca and I had taken together. I didn't want to take it but Luca was adamant that we should because he wanted something that would be a reminder of the day that I agreed to be his girlfriend. I called him cheesy for doing it but he didn't care. He was happy and so was I. The photo was taken in his parents back garden in front of his mum's cherished roses – pale pink roses to be exact. The roses are in full bloom and I'm shyly smiling with my gaze looking at the single rose Luca had given me. Luca is standing next to me, placing a kiss on my temple. It was a tender moment but something that was a key moment in our relationship because Luca was clearly nervous to ask me to be his girlfriend because we were only together for two weeks before becoming official.