In a Tragedy of Love Loss

Epilogue: Alternate Ending

The whole gang gathered at Dylan and Jaycee's for Thanksgiving dinner. Well, gathered in the backyard for a buffet style dinner. Of course everybody gathered in a circle around the patio with their plates in hand, and had some coversation about the time Levi and Dominic decided to drain the pool and use it as a half pipe. Since no one had really seen her in six years, everybody asked Lillith about Europe. No one really knew about her career other than she traveled a lot.
"It's a good job though. I've seen so many places, met so many people, the food was great. Now I have pitcures of Great Britian, Germany, Greece, Spain, Italy and a couple other countries for my scrap book." LIllith took a bite of her corn.
"You went to Germany and you didn't mail me any beer?" Landen grumbled as he cut his ham.
"No, Uncle Landen. Germany was a work assignment, not a party zone. It's at my apartment."
"Levi?" Jaycee nominated her oldest son to play catch up.
Much like his sister, Levi was a career person. For whatever reason, he had decided to go into desktop publishing, and works for a plublisher in New York. Neither Levi nor Lillith had been in a relationship in years, but they both occasionally dated around.
"Work's fine, Mother. I spend twelve hours a day in a suit behind a desk in an office just like I have for the last six years. We talk about this every time I come home. And no, there is no girl in the picture." He said in between bites.
"There's never a girl in the picture from either of you." Jaycee complained.
"Ma!" The twins shouted in unison and she just laughed.
"Maya?" Hazel volunteered her daughter.
"Finishing a four-year project. A couple dates here and there. Nothing serious. Especially since the last guy I went out ended up completely drunk and married my roommate's brother." Everybody burst out laughing. "Yeah, I know."
Maya and Dominic had an argument after Maya got a job after that involved moving to Paris. Dominic didn't want her to go, but she went anyway. She had broken off their three-year relationship so she could. And because she had already left without telling him. After a year in France, she ran into Lillith while she was on a layover. For about two years, both girls would travel back and forth between contries to try to give their relationship another shot. But that stayed between Maya, Lillith, Paris and whatever country Lillith was in. At least until Dominic decided to surprise Maya by visiting. Six months ago.
Dominic hadn't been with anybody but Maya since high school. Not even a crush or meaningless sex. Just him and his four cats in his apartment in Nevadawith no female touch other than his mother, his sister, his cousins, his aunts and Bristol. What Landen and Alana didn't know was theis son had become an alcoholic after Maya had left. An alcoholic construction worker with four cats and hasn't had a single date in he was twenty-one.
Bristol hasn't done much since she finished college a year ago. She worked as a waitress at the restaurant Dylan's been working at since he finished high school. Evidentally, both of her brothers and sister worked there too throughout high school. Until Levi and Lillith went off to college and Braeden enrolled in the military. The restaurant was the only place Bristol had worked throughout high school and college, and she still managed to get straight A's all eight years she's worked there.
Her love life hasn't been that productive either. She's only had a couple of boyfriends over the years. One or two in high school then one in college. Like most waitresses, she got hit on a lot and occasionally went on a date or two. Other than that, she kept to herself, went to school, got good grades, went to work and that was that.
Braeden was currently on leave from the military. Evidently, Maya wasn't the only one visiting Lillith every chance she had. While in Germany. Braeden had found out his older sister was there on an assignment. It's also been a year since they've seen each other. So while on her career high, the only people that had really known if Lillith was okay were her ex-girlfriend and her little brother.
At nineteen, only halfway through his first semester as a college sophomore, he decided to drop out and join the military. He's only had one girlfriend since Lauren. He goes around the base once in a while, but never really had a girlfriend except one after Lauren. That relationship only lasted two years though.
Lastly, Lauren was finishing up her last year of college at UCLA. She had joined a sorority and started working at a coffee shop on campus. On top of also being a straight A student. Much like Braeden, Lauren hasn't really been with anyone else since the break up either. She only had a couple boyfriends. Nothing serious. She only went out with a guy for a few months a year.
All in all, when Jaycee and Dylan had both sets of twins, Hazel had Maya and Landen and Alana had Dominic and Lauren, they all thought their kids would be the best of friends. Or at least get along. They turned out to be more than friends, some of them, but that kind of ruined some of their friendships. Most of them had distanced themselves from each other because of their relatiosnhips with each other. But all seven had hoped that with all them being in the same place at the same time would for things amongst the bunch.
After dinner was done, they were all caught up on each other's lives, the parents went back inside while the kids spread out across the patio. That was something they used to do all the time until Lillith didn't show up for holidays that first years along with-
"We should build a tent!" Bristol yelled.
"What?" The rest of them said together.
"Like we did before Lillith went on her career high! Remember how the seven of us used to pitch a couple tents in the backyard every weekend and holiday and school beak?"
"Oh!" They all chorused.
"Bristol, we haven't done that in six years." Maya pointed out.
"We probably would've if somebody had come home." She eyeballed her older sister.
"Just out of curiousity, did you switch teams? The Lillith we know would never dress like that." Lauren pointed out.
"Hey now, I had to change my fashion sense because of my job. I have to dress like a girl instead of a transgender. Not to mention, people get a little snipy when a girl dresses like a guy in a foreign country."
"Either way. Never come home dressed like that ever again." Dominic told her. "You look weird."
"Not to mention, my mom asked her who she is and what the hell she did to Lillith this morning." Bristol commented.
"I'm pretty sure we all thought that when we saw you, Lil." Her twin laughed as he sipped his beer.
"Oh shut up, Levi." She threw a cushion at him.
"Now we're getting back to our usual selves." Braeden said through a mouthful of chips.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my ex-boyfriend." Lauren mumbled.
"Braeden, don't talk with food in your mouth." Lillith threw another cushion at her younger brother.
"Alright, children. Here's your sleeping bags. Y'all know where the tents are." Jaycee and Alana dropped all seven sleeping bags. "Good night. Stay out of trouble. Don't hurt each other. Lillith, please change. You look weird." They walked back into the house.
Lillith and Jaycee never really got along, but Jaycee still loved her daughter when she showed her true colors. The whole tomboyish look and the fact that Lillith was never afraid to show anyone who she really was was what made Jaycee proud of her. Now that Lillith looks like a woman's department store threw up on her, Jaycee wondered if something was wrong with her daughter.
"Do you think something's wrong with Lilly?" Jaycee stood in the doorway between the bathroom and the bedroom.
"Why? Because she learned how to dress like a girl. She's twenty-nine. She can dress how she wants. Maybe she has to dress like that for work. Who knows. Either way, she's still our daughter." She sat on the edge of their bed.
"I know, but it's so weird seeing her like that. Remember when we wanted to get her hair trimmed and she completely freaked out? She absolutely hated leaving her hair down. Now she can't put it in a ponytail because it's so short. And the whole time she was growing up, we had to tell her to stop stealing Levi and Braeden's clothes. Now we have to yell at her to stop stealing Bristol's."
"I know." Dylan rubbed her back. "She dropped off the face of the earth for six years. Now she's basically a whole different person."
"Six years feels like a long time, and I feel like I missed out on some of my daughter's life." Jaycee started crying.
"Lilly, run up and grab more blankets and pillows!" Bristol demanded.
"Fine!" Dylan and Jaycee heard their oldest daughter's footsteps coming up the stairs.
Like the kids, around the holidays Landen and Alana, Hazel, and sometimes Damon if he was home, also spend the night at Dylan and Jaycee's. It had become a tradition for everyone to gather at their house as the kids got older and relationships amongst the child brigade began to spark. The kids slept in tents outside in the yard while the parents slept in the spare rooms.
Lillith had just walked into her parents room over to where they kept the extra blankets and pillows while announcing to them that she was borrowing all the pillows and blankets. After she walked out, her parents couldn't help but laugh. It reminded them of spring break during their oldest twins' freshman year of high school when a tiny fifteen-year-old Lilly was walking through their room with pillows stuffed everywhere and wrapped in blankets because she couldn't carry them all. Then they had to spend the rest of the night in the hospital because she broke her leg. That ended up being a gathering nobody forgot.
"Uncle Landen! Can you take these outside?" Lillith started tossing pillows over the railing.
"Oh, my god. Why is it raining sheets and pillows from upstairs?" Everybody heard Hazel ask.
"Aunt Hazel, can you help Uncle Landen?" She called from over the railing.
"Sure."
"Thank you." She walked into her room.
When Lillith walked back outside, everybody literally dropped everything in their hands when they saw her. She had changed out of the clothes she arrived in and into her usual basketball shorts and jersey. Not to mention, she had taken off the wig everybody thought was her real hair. She was still a ginger, and she still had long hair that she started wearing down. She was still the same Lillith they all knew. But like she had told them all at dinner she had to change her look because of work.
"Oh, my god. Lilly is normal." Dominic had stated the obvious in a drunken state.
"What happened to your hair?" Maya asked her.
"Do y'all really think I would cut and dye my hair? I have issues getting it trimmed. Imagine how bad it would be if I actually did get it all chopped off. And when was the last time y'all actually saw me dress like a girl? I haven't dressed like a girl since I was seven, I'm not about to start now." She polished off her beer.
"She's back!" Levi announced.
"Here's the last of the blankets- Holy normal Lilly." Landen dropped the blankets on Levi's head.
"Really? When did I become the blanket shelf in the line closet?" Levi complained.
"Sorry." Landen pushed the blankets off his nephew's head.
"It's all for work, Uncle Landen. There's no lesbian in Milan that actually looks like a dyke." She pointed out and everybody agreed.
"Well, goodnight." Landen went back inside.
Everybody finished pitching the tents, and laid out their sleeping bags, blankets and pillows. As everybody crawled inside, Dominic stayed parked at the patio table with a glass full of whiskey and the bottle next to him. Maya had noticed and went over to him. Lillith was content with her work assignments she had to finish. Levi and Braeden were wrestling in their tent. Bristol and Lauren were sitting on the edge of the pool, painting their nails. Everybody was back to normal except Dominic and Maya.
"Since when do you drink anything other than beer?" she sat down at the table.
"Since the love of my life moved to another country without telling me then broke up with me." He drank the rest of his whiskey in his glass. "Then decided to start banging her ex-girlfriend."
"Me and Lillith is way over. When you showed up in France, me and her weren't together. Well, not together together. It was more or less a fling. We were closer in distance, and never really saw each other that much. I moved to another country for work because it was amazing opportunity that I could not pass up. Something like that only happens once in a lifetime. For most people anyway. Running into Lillith in Paris was just a coincidence. The last time I heard from her, she was in South America." She took a deep breath. "I still love you, Dom, but I had to do that for myself. I went to France for me, not Lil."
"Sometimes dating a girl who's bisexual is hard." He muttered.
"Dom?" He looked up at her. "Come back with me."
"What?"
"Come back to Paris with me. My work is almost done. After my contract is up, we can move back here and everything can be normal again."
"What am I supposed to do in France?"
"Work. See why I took the job. Once you see France, you'll see why I love being there."
"Okay." He agreed.
"You think your brother and Maya are back together?" Bristol asked Lauren.
"Probably. Wouldn't surprise me. He's been wanting her back since she took off. About six months ago, he walked in on her and Lil." Lauren whispered. "I mean I know she's your sister, and I don't mean to sound like a bitch, but that was a dick move. That really hurt him, and I really don't think this is a good idea."
"Remember, Laur, Maya and Lillith were together first, and they were together for five years."
"Oh, yeah. That's the problem with this group. Everybody gets into a relationship, and it usually ended up a problem or awkward and we all distance ourselves from each other."
"Coming from the girl who dated my twin brother." Bristol raised an eyebrow.
"Good point."
While Dominic and Maya were sitting at the table on the patio, and Bristol and Lauren were sitting on the edge of the pool, Levi and Braeden were tossing the ball back and forth on the other side of the backyard. The brothers were pretty close. Probably closer than everybody else in the group. Even though some of them had dated, and Levi and Dom were best friends.
"So how's the military?" Levi tossed the ball to his little brother.
"Fine. Same shit, different day. I'm getting transferred when I get back."
"To where?"
"Don't know yet." He looked at Lauren.
"You hoping to get back with her while you're home?"
"I always do, but it never happens. It might be because she lives in LA and I currently live in Germany. Could be because I never know when or where I'm getting transferred. It might even be because she wants to wait until she finishes college. No one knows."
"You never know unless you try, man."
"I know."
While everybody was scrambling for the tents, Lillith was on the phone with some chick she had met before she left Italy for Thanksgiving. She had also found out that when she hands in her assignment after she gets back, she's being sent to Tokyo. So no more visits with Maya or her little brother. But she would try to come home for holidays more often. Or at least try to get them to visit her.

Around two theirty the next morning, Lauren was woken up. She wasn't sure if it was because she was crammed in a tent with Bristol, or because the boys' tent was right next to theirs and she felt their every move. For all she knew, her body might've just told her it was time to wake up. Either way, she was awake.
She crawled out of the tent, and walked into the house to use the bathroom. When she came out, Braeden was sitting on the edge of the pool with his feet in the water. She sat down next to him, and they sat there in silence for a while.
"How's Germany?" Lauren finally asked.
"Fine. How's LA?"
"Fine. Where are you going next?"
"No idea. What about you?"
"I don't know. Probably move back in with my parents until I can save up enough money to get my own place."
"Or after you're done school, you could move in with me." He said awkwardly.
"I thought civilians weren't allowed to live in the barracks."
"I can live off base. Or on base if I'm married."
"Oh."
"I miss you, Lauren." He finally admitted. "Every time I come home, I leave disappointed because we didn't get back together."
"Really?"
"I thought you just broke up with me because you were going off to college. As time went on, I figured it was because you didn't wanna be with me anymore."
"Braeden, I broke up with you because I wanted us to each have our own college experiences, which had turned into my college experience because you enlisted."
"So what now?"
"I'll be finishing college in the spring then we'll see."
"Or we can build up to that." He took her hand. "Write each other letters, Skype, you can come visit me, things like that."
"I'll sleep on it." She went back to her tent.

Morning came, and all the kids were still asleep when the parents went out on the patio. Landen decided to go into Dominic's tent and drag him into the pool. Dominic's screamswoke up the rest of the yard, and Landen and Jaycee couldn't stop laughing as his son emerged from the pool. Levi and Braeden jumped into the pool and pulled Dom with them. Lillith crawled out of her tent with her work bag and went to the kitchen to make a mimosa.
Dylan, Hazel and Alana just stared at her as she walked by. Bristol and Lauren just stumbled out of their tent and face planted into the grass. Maya had fallen asleep on the patio chair while her and Dominic were talking. Everybody was so distracted by the rest of their children, they hadn't even noticed Maya.
"Everybody up!" Jaycee yelled.
"Yes, Mom." Levi and her younger twins said in unison.
"Lauren, go take a shower. Dominic, get out of the pool." Their mother told them.
"Hey, where's Maya?" Hazel asked.
"You walked right by me." She stood up.
"Oh. Sorry."
Dominic, Levi and Braeden got out of the pool and went to break down the tents. Lauren went upstairs to take a shower. Bristol and Maya collected all the pillows and blankets. All the parents piled back into the house so Jaycee could make breakfast and Dylan could get ready for work.
Sadly, the holiday came to an end, and everybody went back to their own lives. Landen and Alana took Lauren to the airport so she could go back to school. Dylan and Bristol continued working at the restaurant. Braeden went back to Germany when his leave was up. Dominic and Maya went back to Nevada to pack up his apartment so he could move to France with her. Levi went back to his publishing company in New York, while Lillith went back to Italy to collect her things before heading off to Tokyo on her next assignment.
The group continued to move around, work things out and situate themselves while occasionally talking to or completely ignoring each other. At least until Christmas.

Dedicated to my ex, who made it possible to write this. Thank you, Ben. I wouldn't have been able to write this if it weren't for you.