Breaking Away

Prelude

Life can get away from everyone sometimes. Even the closest of families drift apart, friends don't talk as much, the big things become old news and old news fades into jaded memories. Days turn into weeks which turn into months and then years, and before you know it, time has slipped away.

It can take something bigger than the big things that became old news to bring everything to a sudden halt.

It goes like this; they're a strong family. Close-knit, happy, supportive. The kind of family that just fits, just works, somehow. Built on love and affection and not out of necessity.

Zayn is an extra support tutor with long hours that take over evenings and weekends, Liam is a nurse at the local hospital with unpredictable hours that give him barely enough time to rest between shifts. It hasn't always been like this, the two of them barely spending five minutes together before one of them has to leave, or when they do have more than five minutes, they're both too tired to talk. But that's life, somewhere along the line, the hours grew longer and so did the monthly pay, and neither of them take the time to pause and question whether it's even worth it. They're happy anyway, it isn't like their jobs make them miserable. They still take the time to let each other know that they love one another. It's just how it is.

Their children are all teenagers now, they mostly take care of themselves. There's Harry, sixteen and in his first year of sixth form. An overachiever since the day they adopted him at six months old, he's rarely home enough to notice the absence of the two men — usually at the library studying or hanging out at one of his friends' houses, always with his nose stuck in a book. He's a good kid, looks out for his brothers and cooks dinner (or orders it with the money that is left on the counter each morning), and his parents are beyond proud of him.

Then there are the twins, Louis and Niall, adopted thirteen years ago at birth with matching smiles and bright blue eyes — though they couldn't be more different now. Louis is popular. Chatty, confident, the kind of kid who likes to fit in but doesn't have to be a bully to do so. He's a people person and he always has been, making friends easily. Out of all the boys, he's the one who's home the most; though the empty house goes unnoticed by him when he spends ninety-nine percent of the time with his phone held up in front of his face, video-calling five friends at once, all of them apparently forgetting that face-to-face conversation is a thing.

Niall isn't exactly his opposite, except he's never cared much for popularity. He's the kid that always kept Zayn and Liam on their toes when he was little; getting into mischief, always finding the best spots at hide and seek, running before he could even walk. He's adventurous, as Liam has always softened it, because it sounds better than the 'naughty' and 'cheeky' everybody he's ever met has dubbed him. He's the sweetest of the three boys in that he's forever putting everyone else first, but that adventurous spirit of his makes him unable to sit still for long, and as such, he's barely around — always out exploring some unknown place with his friends, coming home with knees covered in swatches of black and blue, muddied hands and words that tumble from his mouth at a million miles a minute.

At thirteen, the twins aren't grown up yet. At sixteen, neither is Harry. But with life so hectic and full of the things that make time slip by, Zayn and Liam don't often take the time to pay attention to the fact that their children are just that — children. And if they blink too slow, time will continue to pass by and someday it'll hit them that they never did take the time to live in the moment. To embrace this family of theirs whilst it's in its prime. To appreciate what they have whilst they still have it, all under one roof.

Life can get away from everyone sometimes. And sometimes, it throws out obstacles that wouldn't appear in the wildest of dreams.

Or the worst of nightmares.

An ordinary day becomes a life-altering one with no warning, no heed.

Liam leaves for work first, early morning shift that will likely turn into a graveyard one because it's a Saturday in May and A&E will no doubt be swarmed with drunks. He kisses Zayn on the lips and creeps down the stairs without waking any of the boys.

When Harry wakes up, he lays out two extra bowls for his brothers and then makes himself some toast, returning to his room to study while he eats. Louis says 'good morning' to no-one, filling his bowl with cereal all the while talking ten to the dozen to some new friend whose name Zayn doesn't know as he passes him by on his way down the stairs.

Niall runs down to the kitchen at twelve o'clock noon with one shoe on and one shoe off, hair sticking up in wild blond tufts that tell the man that the smallest of his sons has likely just woken; the boy stops by the living room with a granola bar in one hand and his left shoe in the other, throwing his arms over the back of the couch in a strangling sort of hug before he runs out of the door without so much as a hint to where he's going.

Zayn isn't worried. He trusts all of his boys, knows that they always have their phones on them at all times because hello, they're teenagers living in the twenty-first century. Their gadgets are basically on extension of their external being, a detached limb if he wants to be weird about it.

At two in the afternoon, he sets a couple of notes on the kitchen counter and scribbles a quick note for the boys, ending with a smiley face and a heart because it's difficult to show emotion with a marker that's running low on ink and the back of an old receipt. He leaves for work like every other day. The boys probably don't even hear him drive away.

Niall certainly doesn't, five miles away in the woods that he and his friends tend to hang out with. Devil's Ditch, they call it. They like to think they named it themselves but truth is, it's been titled that for decades, maybe more.

It's a twenty foot drop with sloped sides, framed by tall trees that have names carved into their worn trunks. There's an old couch down there, only they don't bother sitting on it today because it had rained a few days ago and the material is still damp. Instead, they stay up on the level ground, sitting in the low-hanging branches.

Maia draws in a book that she doesn't let the others see, just like always, her back against an upturned root, knees drawn in, brows furrowed in concentration. She glances up momentarily to where Niall and Luke sit, side by side on a thick branch, laughing when Luke flinches away from a wasp so violently that he falls onto his back on the earth below.

Alec cackles, hanging upside down from the branch above. Makes an offhand comment that it would have been funnier had he fallen the other way, into the Ditch. Niall disagrees but says nothing, continues to laugh as his best friend sits up with a scowl, brushing the dirt off of his clothes.

The four of them talk about the usual rubbish. School and teachers, the new music they've been listening too. Mostly they make fun of each other in the harmless way that friends do. It's normal.

Then Niall and Alec get into a dispute over who can climb the best. Maia claims that they're behaving like children and of course, they're thirteen and that only spurs the two boys on further.

So they climb. Alec overtakes Niall and then Niall overtakes Alec. Alec calls it quits barely half way up the tree and Niall stands up on a creaking branch to claim his victory.

There's a resounding 'crack' that seems to echo through the woods for miles. Niall falls, or plummets would better describe the speed of the action. He passes the level ground, into the Ditch. He lands on his back and barely registers the pain before everything melts away. His friends, sound, sight, the whole world, it all zaps to black.

There's no warning, no heed. An ordinary day has become a life-altering one.

An obstacle to appear in the wildest of dreams, or nightmares.

And for one oblivious family, everything comes to a sudden halt.