author's note: so.. i didn't have much of a plan for this epilogue so uh bare with me
ALSO SORRY FOR TAKING LIKE FOREVER TO UPDATE I HAD A GIGANTIC WRITERS BLOCK AND MY LAPTOP BROKE I HOPE U ALL HAD A GOOD CHRISTMAS AND A GR8 NEW YEARS I LUV U ALL <33
[[unedited]]
__________________________
Ashley
It's been eight years since Niall surprised me by visiting me in America.
I wish I can tell you that everything was a good ending.
I wish I could tell you that Ally and Nathaniel ended up together.
I wish I could tell you that Venus and Dean got back together.
I wish I could tell you that Venus survived her fight with cancer.
I wish I could tell you that Lizzy was still close with us.
I wish I could tell you that Emily and Louis are still together.
I wish.
Ally and Nathaniel lost touch after we moved away.
And so did their love.
When Venus' and Dean's relationship ended, Dean turned into a wreck. He started to do drugs, do illegal stuff, joined a gang even. But, that didn't end well for him as he was shot dead.
Venus did fight against cancer. She got over her fear and started getting chemotherapy.
But it was too late.
The cancer spread all through out her body. Organs shutting down one by one.
She was twenty-one-years-old.
Lizzy moved away and studied abroad, losing touch with everybody.
Emily and Louis' relationship ended when Emily wanted to focus on her acting career. She moved to Wales to start her acting career. The long distance relationship didn't end well when Emily walked in on Louis with another girl.
I really wish I could tell you a great story.
A good ending.
But, like Nathaniel said, this isn't Disney.
Nothing ever really has a happy ending.
But I can tell you this one thing,
It's been 10 years since I laid my eyes on Niall James Horan,
And I'm still madly in love with him.
__________________________
I turned off the tap and got out of the shower. Today was a little date night with Niall and I wanted to look special since it's going to be our anniversary date. A joint anniversary of knowing each other for 10 years and being together for 8. We're 26-years-old now. Isn't that crazy?
I quickly blow dried my hair and fixed up my makeup. I wore a flowy maroon dress that stopped an inch above my knee. I added a small black belt since I thought it looked better. I grabbed my maroon high heels and walked downstairs into the living room and waited for Niall to finish getting ready.
I still think it's unbelievable how long I've known Niall for and how long we've been together. Over the years he's opened up to me more. He's better now, happier; like how he should be. You would think that Niall would be a little miserable, not having a family to lean on. But the boys are his family. Liam, Harry, Louis, Zayn, They have always been his family. I always thought that family isn't just blood, it's more on who loves and cares about you. Niall and the boys go through rough patches, like sorting out the whole Zayn thing. But, in the end they'll always have each other's backs. Whether if it was from 10 years ago when Niall was seventeen-years-old and doing stupid things, or if it's when Niall and I would fight and would need some time apart, or when they're fat and old and have kids that think they're a joke.
They'll always be family.
I heard footsteps going down the stairs and I turned around to find Niall all dressed up in a nice tuxedo. He straightened his jacket as he reached the bottom of the stairs, he looks up at me and smiles at me. I swear, his smile could end a war.
"You look beautiful." He compliments me. I blush and smile widely, 10 years and you would think I would be used to all his cheeky compliments.
"Well, you're also looking very dapper yourself." I say in a stereotypical 'high-class' voice. We share a small laugh.
"Shall we?" He asks, holding his arm out for me to hold.
"We shall." I answer, giggling as I grasp his forearm.
We walk out and I was taken back by the mini limousine waiting for us. I look at Niall in shock and he smiles at me sheepishly.
"It's our ten year anniversary, thought I would do something special." He says.
"You're silly." I say to him as we got into the limousine.
It wasn't that big of a deal, it was just a mini limousine that could probably just fit 4 people. Not that I was complaining, it was nice. There was champagne laid out in front of us along with little champagne glasses. I watch Niall as he got in and I flashed him a smile when he turned to look at me.
"Where are we going?" I ask him even though I was sure he wouldn't tell me. Usually Niall would tell me unless it was an occasion.
"You'll see." He answered as the limo driver started to drive. Niall picked up the champagne and poured it into one of the glasses and handed it to me. He poured himself one as well before turning to me.
"To us." He says, raising the glass for a cheer.
"To me for dealing with your shit for all these years." I say before raising my glass and clinking it with his. He looked at me with a pouty face and I pinch his cheeks.
"I'm not a child, don't do that." He whines.
We soon pulled up to the restaurant and we walk up to the receptionist. It looked like a really nice restaurant, no wonder they require you to reserve a table 3 months prior to the occasion. I stand behind Niall as he said our last names and the lady skims through the list. Niall stretches his arm behind him and I hold his hand, intertwining our fingers. The lady looks up at us with an eyebrow raised.
"I'm sorry, but there is nobody under the name of Horan and Johnson in the list." She says, sounding confused.
My mouth gaped in shock and I look at Niall as he looked back at me with the same facial expression. Niall looks back at the receptionist and asks her to check a second time and once she did she just looked back up and shook her head, giving us a sad smile.
"I'm sorry, maybe you confused it with another day?" She suggests.
"Thank you." Niall simply stated before we left the restaurant. He turns to me, his expression a mix of frustration and anger. "I'm sorry, I-I.." He lets out a sigh before pressing his hand against his face and sliding it upward, running it through his hair.
"Hey, don't worry about it. We can go somewhere else." I say, turning towards him and smiling.
"But, to where?" He asks, looking at me sadly.
"I don't mind, as long as I'm with you." I say, shrugging. It was cheesy, but it was true.
"I love you." He says, squeezing my hand.
"I love you, too." I say, squeezing his hand back.
We paused for a little bit, just thinking. I honestly wouldn't mind staying at home and binge watching the entire Iron Man series with him with a bowl of popcorn, but I knew Niall wouldn't allow that. Niall's face lights up, I'm guessing an idea popped into his mind.
"Still hungry?" He asked, walking towards the limousine and dragging me along.
"I haven't eaten all day. So, yes, I'm still hungry." I say, nodding. I have no idea where he's going with this.
"What do you dig right now?" He asks, opening the limousine door for me. "I don't care if it's fancy or not, just say."
The limousine driver looked back at us confused. "I thought you two were going to be in there for a lot longer."
"Change of plans." Niall says to him, Niall turns back to me. "So..?"
"Honestly, I'm digging shit food. Not like McDonald's or Panda Express, but like crisps and chocolate." I say honestly. "Or if you want something more practical we can just go to a nice diner."
"Driver." Niall called in a dramatic tone of voice. "You heard the lady, bring us to a 7/11." He states proudly, I roll my eyes at Niall and chuckle.
"Whatever you say, boss." The driver says. I see him smiling through his rear view mirror.
"I can't wait to tell everyone in 10 years about how you took me out to 7/11 on our 10 year anniversary." I say over enthusiastically.
"Hey!" Niall shouts defensively. "This is what you wanted, you don't have a right to laugh at it."
"I know, I know." I say honestly. "I just like seeing you flustered."
"Sometimes, I wonder why I put up with you." He says under his breath.
"Because, you looooove me." I say, batting my eyes at him.
"Yeah, and I have no idea if that's a blessing or a curse." He remarks.
I scowled at him and hit his arm lightly, him giggling.
Soon, we got to 7/11 and we walked in shamelessly. The person behind the cashier looked at us weird, which I totally understand. We just pulled up in a limousine and we were both sporting some quite fancy clothes. Niall and I split up, we were just grabbing all the junk food we could get our hands on. When we met at the cashier we both had arms full of crisps and candy and pastries. The cashier didn't bother looking up at us; but I honestly would be the same. I would probably end up saying stuff I shouldn't say.
We walked back to the limousine with four plastic bags full of junk food and handed a pack of candy to the driver. Niall and I just sat there, talking while munching on Cool Ranch Doritos. After 2 bags of chips and 3 & 1/2 bags of candy Niall sprouted an idea. He leaned over to whisper in the drivers ear and the driver nods before turning on the engine and driving down the road.
"Did you finally figure out where we should go?" I ask, cleaning my hands off.
"Bitch, you guessed it!" Niall shouts, referencing some internet meme. "Hoo! You's right."
"Stop, I will literally jump out of this car and you will never see me ever again." I say jokingly.
"I'm surprised you haven't tried doing that yet." He says, laughing.
We pull up to the place and I look up to see where we were. In big, bright, blue, and yellow letters I read 'Ikea'. I turn to look at, an un-amused look on my face. He smiles and starts laughing.
"Ikea? Really?" I ask monotonously. I wasn't mad or annoyed or anything along those lines. I'm just wondering, of all the places, a furniture store. A God damn furniture store.
"10 years ago I brought you to an Ikea as a date and you loved it." He says as a matter of fact.
I thought about it and smiled when the memories of that day flooded back into my mind. We were so young and stupid, not knowing what the future had in store for us. At the time, I had this wall put up between us. I was so scared to let Niall in, especially because at the time he was a bit of a player. And Niall also had this wall between us, he wouldn't let me see the real him because he was scared that I will just leave him. It took so long for Niall to open up to me, but after he did everything went uphill for him. He got the weight lifted off his shoulders and he opened to the boys, too. They understood and hugged it out. Niall then started seeing a therapist and taking pills for his depression and anxiety. I'm so proud of how far he has gone. He hit rock bottom now he has his head in the clouds.
I grab the bag of Funyuns and scrambled out of the car with Niall. We walk into the Ikea, ignoring the stares we were getting. We were both very much dressed up, my high heels making loud noises every time it meets the floor.
As we were passing the cabinets section a song by 5 Seconds of Summer came on and Niall turns in his heels, grinning at me like a maniac. He never got over his love for that band, he still loves it to this day.
Niall then starts swaying his body side to side while intensely making eye contact with me. He then starts dancing the hustle, pointing side to side diagonally; like how they danced in the 70's. He then continues to do a bunch of dances that were in during the 60's and the 70's. I was laughing, watching him, and clapping my hand like a seal.
What a dork.
I slip off my heels and put them aside. I look at Niall in an enticing way before raising my hand and gestured him to come over to me with my pointer finger. Niall smirked and dramatically made his way towards me, making me let out a small laugh. Niall wrapped his arm around my waist as I dramatically arch my back, leaning on Niall's arm for support. He tugs his arm back quickly, making me stand back up. My face was nearly touching his, our eyes intently looking into each other.
I raise my pointer finger up and tapped his nose. "Boop." I say, giggling.
Niall smiles and lets go of me. I scan the room, rocking back and forth on my feet.
"Ooh!" I perked up, spotting one of those pre-made apartment rooms.
I start running over and I turn around to see Niall holding my high heels whilst he was holding his tuxedo jacket that was thrown over his shoulder. I signaled him to come faster and he smiled and rolled his eyes. I run in and wander through the living room and into the bathroom. I hide in the shower and wait for Niall to walk in.
I hear Niall's dress shoes hitting the floor and I hold my breath.
"Ashley?" I hear him call out.
A couple seconds later I hear him stand in front of the shower. He couldn't see me because the shower curtains were closed, but I can tell he knew I was in there.
"Ashley Johnson." I hear him say, sounding annoyed. "You're twenty-six-years-old, not six."
He pushes the shower curtains open and I quickly grabbed his tie and pulled him forwards, pulling the shower curtains closed afterwards. I, immediately, wrap my arms around his neck and connected my lips with his, closing my eyes in the process. I hear my heels hit the floor followed with his jacket. I feel Niall's arm wrapped around my lower back and I smile, standing on the tip of my toes. He parted his lips and so did I, our tongues circling each other. It turned into a full blown make out session in the middle of, a very crowded, Ikea. My hands were now tangled into his hair, his hands resting on my bum and on my waist.
We pulled away, both very out of breath and giggly. Niall opened the shower curtain and we both exited the shower. It felt like it was 10 degrees colder outside the shower, damn that must've been one hot make out session. I look to my right and there was a couple staring at us in a kind of disgusted and annoyed way. They pulled along their 3-year-old daughter and left.
"What was that?" Niall asks.
I turn to look at him and my eyes widen and I gasp, I start laughing at how he looked. He had my red lipstick smeared on his face and some on his neck, his hair was also messy. He then starts laughing at me, too. Pointing at me and hugging his stomach. I turned to look at the mirror and laughed even more. My lipstick was smeared around my mouth, as if I was doing a very poor impression of Miranda Sings. Somehow there was also lipstick on the tip of my nose and my hair was slightly messy.
"Here, let me fix your face." I say, still trying to calm down from laughing.
I then made a bad idea of trying to make my hands wet with the sink that wasn't functioning. I turned the tap on and wondered for a second why it wasn't working and start laughing at myself, Niall laughing at me as well.
"You're a mess." He says, shaking his head and chuckling.
I licked my fingers and started to rub away the lipstick from Niall's face and neck. Soon, we were both done fixing each other and looked more situated and continued on walking. I spot the room for the little kid in the pre-made apartment and smiled. I think it was so cute that in pre-made apartments that Ikea makes there's always one for a little kid. It was all cutesy with a general theme. This one was made for a little girl and I was swooning at how adorable it was. It was pink and girly.
I always wanted to have a little kid, a little girl specifically. I imagine her in little cute dresses with pretty, curly, brown hair and beautiful blue eyes. My family argues with me that it's too late to have a child, but I'm just 26 years old. I'm only in my quarter life. There's plenty of time for me to have a kid. Every time there's a family get together I get bombarded by questions about my love life and my plans, even though it has nothing to do with them. Every year, same damn questions and same damn answers and same damn reactions.
'Oh, Ashley, are you and your boyfriend married yet?' 'No, Auntie.' 'Honey, you're getting old. Better get married soon and have kids.' 'Okay, Auntie.'
Can't they mind their own business?
Niall and I are perfectly happy the way we are, married or not. I don't mind if he bends the knee at 34 or not at all. I love him and he loves me, I think it's perfectly fine that we're not married. Love isn't defined by a marriage certificate. Who cares if I have a ring on my finger or not? We'll get married when we want to and have kids when we want to, we don't listen to your rules.
As I was in my train of thought, Niall steps beside me and wraps an arm around my waist. I let him pull me close and I giggle as he plants a kiss on my cheek.
"I love you." He whispers into my ear.
"I love you, too." I say back.
We leave Ikea and go back to the limousine.
"Driver, to the zoo, please." Niall says to the limo driver as we got back into the limousine after our little adventure in Ikea.
"Zoo?" I asked, turning to Niall.
"We have never gone to the zoo together before." Niall mumbles. "I said a long time ago I'll take you to the zoo, but I never did."
I thought about it for a couple seconds and confirmed his statement. We, in fact, have never been to the zoo together before. Which was weird because I love the zoo and I think Niall does, too. I mean, who doesn't like the zoo?
We soon arrived at the zoo and got out of the car, shivering at the cold temperatures of Brighton.
Niall and I moved in together after being together for a year. We lived in Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA for about 2 years, then we moved to New York for about a year and a half, then moved to London for about 3 years. We just recently moved to Brighton, UK. Which is just two hours south of London. The group agreed that we're not allowed to move too far away from London. We agreed that it shouldn't take longer than 5 hours to get to London. Nathaniel lives in London with one of his old mates, Ally also lives in Brighton, Emily lives in Cardiff (Wales), Louis lives in Doncaster, Liam lives in Wolverhampton, Zayn still lives in London, and Audrey (Venus' past best friend from Missouri) and Harry along with their 8-year-old child live together at Cheshire.
Niall and I walked to the entrance and I rocked back and forth in my bare feet as I waited for him to pay for the tickets. I really wish I had brought a jacket with me, it was awfully cold. The stones beneath my feet felt icy cold and the chilly air made goosebumps raise from my skin. Niall turns to me and hands me my ticket, I smiled at him and took it. He takes my hand and looks at me, suddenly looking concerned.
"Are you cold? Your hands are freezing." He asks, worriedly.
"Yeah, I'm really cold." I say, shivering and sighing.
"Here." He says as he starts taking of his jacket.
"No-no-no-no-no-no-no," I argued. "I don't want you to get cold."
"I'll be fine." He reassures as he rests the tuxedo jacket on my shoulders.
Almost instantly I was hugged with warmth. I didn't bother arguing after that. It's difficult changing Niall's mind, especially when the deed is already done.
I walk through a bunch of exhibits, both Niall and I being too excited for people our age. Everyone around our age were with their children and didn't really care much about the animals. They were all just talking to their children to get them hyped like 'Jimmy look at the bears!' 'Sammy don't come too close, the lion will eat you'. Man, why can't you enjoy the animals yourselves?
"Ashley!" Niall shouts, taking my attention away from the monkeys I was looking at.
"What?" I ask, turning to look a him.
"They have a penguin exhibit!" He cheered excitedly.
"Really?" I ask, smiling widely.
"Let's go!" Niall says, grabbing my hand and pulling me along with him.
I giggle as I follow the thrilled grown man to the penguin exhibit.
Niall runs over to the tank and presses his face and hands against it, peering at the small cute penguins.
"Ashley!" He says, a bit muffled by the glass.
"Hmmm?" I say, standing beside him.
"Look at those two down there! They're swimming and chasing each other!" He announces enthusiastically. "They're so cute!"
"Really?" I hear a voice come from a small little girl ask.
I look down at her and she had on a little dress. She looked up at me with curious blue eyes, pushing her brunette hair out of her face. She looked around the age of four.
"Yeah." Niall says to the little girl, I look at him and smile. "Do you wanna see?" He asks her.
"Yes!" She says, her eyes lighting up. She's so cute. Niall looks up at her parents for approval and they smile kindly at him.
"Come here." Niall says, opening his arms to her. She runs into Niall's hands and Niall lifts her up. He gently pushes her against the window at a taller height so she could see.
"Oooo!" She awed.
"What's your name?" Niall asks the little girl.
"Ashley." She says.
"Huh?" I ask, furrowing my eyebrows. How did she know my name?
"My name is Ashley." She says, turning her head to look at me.
"Oh." I say, chuckling and smiling at her. "That's my name, too."
"Really?" She says, smiling and her eyes widen. "That's so cool! Will I be you in the future?"
"If you want to be." I say. What a wonderful little girl.
Niall puts her down on the floor and Ashley turns to her parents, a wide smile on her lips.
"I like Ashley and the other man." She declares to her parents who lowly chuckle.
"My names Niall." Niall says.
"Shut up, you're just a random man. You're not important enough." I tease.
Niall squints his eyes at me before wrapping his arms around me and tickling me.
"N-Niall!" I manage in between laughs. "Stooop!"
"Only because I love you." Niall says before letting me go and patting my head. I pout at Niall and he laughs. "You're cute." He says before kissing my forehead.
I look down at lil' Ashley who was staring at us in awe.
"I wanna be Ashley when she grows up." She declares. "I want to be like you when I grow up. With the man of my dreams." She coos.
"You're very lovely, I'm sure you'll find your knight in shining armor when your older." I told her, kneeling down to her size.
She runs over and hugs me really quick before running back to her parents.
"You're a wonderful couple." Ashley's mum says to Niall and I. "Do you have kids your own?"
"Err, no." Niall says, giving them a side smile while scratching the back of his neck.
"We're not even married." I say, nodding.
"Well, that's a shame. You two look very much in love." Ashley's dad says.
"We are." Niall says, smiling and him looking like he's in a trance.
Ashley's mom looks up from her notepad and rips off a page before handing it to me.
"I'm Claire and my husband's name is John. Here's our home number. Call us whenever you need something or you make a little playmate for Ashley." Ashley's mum, Claire, says to us.
I found my cheeks heating up, but I took it and smiled at her. Make a playmate for Ashley? Well, isn't that a statement.
Ashley and her family walked away before I turned to Niall who was already looking at me.
"Let's go grab something warm to drink." He suggests. "It's freezing."
"Okay, lets go."
We walk to the food court of the zoo and we both order cups of hot chocolate. We sat at a table at the edge of the balcony and just watched the sunset, sharing a giant pretzel. We just quietly sat there and watch the beauty of nature unfold.
"Hey Ash?" Niall spoke up.
"Hmm?" I hum, not taking my eyes off the sunset.
"I-I was thinking that I'm really content and happy with my life with you. Being in love with you was the greatest thing that ever happened to me ―"
"I agree. I think this is the happiest I've ever been in my life. A―"
"― Ash let me finish." Niall says, a little breathy.
"Sorry, keep going." I blush, feeling rude that I cut him off on accident.
"I've fallen pretty deep in love with you. It's almost scary how much I love you. Like, wow, I would do anything for you. I've already traveled across a sea for you, risked my life and happiness for you, got in fights for you, d―"
Pitter - Patter - Pitter - Patter - Pitter - Patter - Pitter - Patter
Rain.
Great.
"Shit." Niall cursed.
"It's alright!" I say, being optimistic. "Rain is good."
I stood up from my chair and pranced around and did a twirl, hearing Niall giggle.
I turn to look at him, extending my arm towards him. "Dance with me."
Niall let's out a sigh before taking my hand and standing up, dancing with me. We danced to the sound of the rain, ignoring the wintry water that hit out bare skin.
Pitter - Patter - Pitter - Patter - Pitter - Patter - Pitter - Patter
We stopped and looked into each other's eye before kissing passionately. We pulled away after about 5 seconds. Niall looks stares into my eyes and let's out a smile. Next thing I know he's on one knee and I look down at him, eyes wide.
"I was going to say something long and romantic, but fuck it." Niall says, pulling a box out of his pocket and I gasp. I cover my mouth in shock, tears already gathering in my eyes.
Pitter - Patter - Pitter - Patter - Pitter - Patter - Pitter - Patter
"Ashley Marie Johnson, will you marry me?"
-
It's been 15 years since that wonderful day and so much has happened.
I got married to Niall, Niall and I had three children, Audrey and Harry adopted a child and had another child, Ally (She goes by Allison now) moved to Australia (she visits once or twice a year) and got married to a boy named Thomas and had two children and 10 years later had a divorce, Emily's acting career blew up and now she's a pretty well-known actress, Louis got married to a girl named Blue, and Liam sadly passed away from a weak heart.
As for Ashley, the little girl from the zoo, she's not a little girl anymore. She's nineteen-years-old now and she just started university after taking a gap year. When Ashley was 10, her and her parent's got into a car accident; her parents died, but she lived. Audrey and Harry had adopted her and she's doing well. She goes by her middle name now, Hope.
Niall and I got married about a year after getting engaged. I got pregnant during our honeymoon in Bali, 9 months later out comes a healthy baby boy. I wanted a little girl, but I didn't mind having a boy at all. We named him Matthew, but he just goes by Matt. When Matt was four-years-old I had another boy and we named him Jason. And when Matt was six-years-old and Jason was two-years-old I had Nichola, a girl. Since Niall and I have the same features, they all have our blue and brunette hair. Though, Matt dyes his hair blonde, like his father. Matt is fourteen-years-old, Jason is 10-years-old, and Nichola is eight-years-old.
Hope turned out to be a tomboy despite her being girly for the first five years of her life. When I had Matt they became the best of friends and Matt turned her into a tomboy. They've been best friends ever since Matt was born, despite the age gap.
Jason's the more responsible child despite being the middle child. Jason's his own person, he has no role models and looks up to no one. Which is not exactly a bad thing since Jason aspires to be a unique individual.
Nichola is a girly girl. She's into ballet, fashion, and makeup. Not to mention her favorite color is pink and absolutely loves barbie.
Allison has a little girl named Kyra and she's twelve-years-old and a fourteen-year-old teenage girl named Jade. Kyra is buddy-buddy with Jason and Nichola. But, we all suspect that Kyra has a crush on Matt and that Jason has a crush on Kyra and that Matt has a crush on Jade. We'll see how that goes down when they get older.
Audrey and Harry's youngest is a boy and his name is Jeremiah. He's sixteen-years-old. He's buddy-buddy with Matt, Jade, and Hope.
The oldest kid is Audrey and Harry's kid, Jasper. Audrey and Harry had Jasper when Audrey was 18 and Harry was 19. They both rushed to have a shotgun wedding and they're doing just fine. Jasper is twenty-one-years-old. He's currently in university. He usually brings his girlfriend, Amy, of 3 years to our framily (friend/family) gatherings and is usually talking with Amy and Hope.
There's so much kids it's hard to keep track.
It's Christmas time and we were all going to spend it together at Zayn's new house that he purchased just for our framily events. It's much bigger than Zayn's regular house where he lives during his everyday life, the framily house is a mansion. The framily house has 8 bedrooms, only 7 of them get occupied whenever the framily visits. 3 of the bedrooms have 2 beds for the bigger families. My family, Audrey and Harry's family, and Allison's family occupy them since we all have kids. The other 4 rooms are just one bedroom for the ones without children. Zayn, Emily, Nathaniel, Louis & his girlfriend occupy those rooms. The last vacant room was for Liam, but as I have mentioned he has sadly passed away. Sometimes, I wonder how Zayn can afford all this stuff, but then I remember that Zayn was a famous musician and his parents own a big company.
Allison's already at the framily house and I'll be getting in the tube in about half an hour's time to go to London so we could start cooking. It's currently just the 23rd of December. We're a big framily so we have to cook a lot. Niall and the kids are staying in Brighton until tomorrow because Niall still has work and the kids want to finish their winter break homework before coming to London. Audrey, Harry, and their kids are coming this afternoon.
I sling my backpack over my shoulder before leaving the bedroom. I walk to Niall's office in the house to say goodbye. He looks up from his computer and smiles at me.
"You leaving already? I thought you were leaving at 12? It's only 10 A.M." He asks, standing up from his desk.
"Figured I should get there before afternoon. It takes like 2 hours to get there by train so I'm going to leave sooner." I say, nodding.
"Well, be safe." He says. He walks over to me before planting a kiss on my lips and hugging me tightly. We hugged for quite awhile before pulling away. "I'll see you tomorrow, I love you."
"I love you, too." I say back.
I left and took a cab to the train station. I go to London a lot, so it was a breeze getting my ticket and getting into the right train. I took my seat, settled with a cup of hot tea and a nice book. I'm old now. I'm 41, I'm physically getting older, and I'm learning to love the little things in life. The view I get whenever I get to London is always so beautiful.
I get off the tube and get on a taxi to the framily house. I rang the doorbell and giggle as I hear Allison shout 'I'll get it!'. Allison gets super excited to see us every time we have a gathering since we only really see each other once or twice a year. Allison throws the door open and I'm immediately engulfed in a big hug. I chuckle as I hug her back.
"Hello, Allison." I say before she pulls away.
"Hey, Ashley!" She says, looking at me with a big grin. "Good to see you!"
I nod and we both walk into the house, Kyra was sat at the couch on her phone along with Jade. She looks up at me and her eyes widen, Jade kept her eyes glued to the TV.
"Hey, Aunt Ashley. Where's Matt?" She asks sweetly.
Allison and I smirk at each other, knowing that Kyra has a crush on Matt.
"He's still back at Brighton, he'll be here tomorrow." I tell her as Allison and I start walking to the kitchen, Kyra following along.
"Why didn't he come with you today?" She asks as she takes a seat on one of the counters, watching me and Allison.
"He's doing homework." I say as Allison points at a piece of paper where a recipe was written down.
"Oh, that sucks." She mumbles as she takes out her phone.
"Kyra, do you like Matt?" I ask, dropping the bomb. Allison gasps, smacking me lightly.
"Ashley!" Allison says in disbelief, me shrugging.
"What? It needed to be asked." I reason.
I look back at Kyra and she's looking at me in shock. Her cheeks were getting more and more pink by the second, her eyes staring at me widely, her mouth slightly open; this girl definitely has a crush on Matt.
"N-No." She stutters, vigorously shaking her head no. "Jade does."
My mouth dropped open in shock, I look at Allison who's mouth is also dropped open.
"Kyra!" I hear Jade shout from the kitchen door. I turn to look at her and she's blushing, looking absolutely furious. "You weren't suppose to tell them that, you little bitch!"
"Hey!" Allison shouts. "Watch your mouth."
"Come here you little shit!" Jade shouts, ignoring what her mother said and running towards Kyra.
"Oh, fuck." Kyra says before running away from Jade.
"I said watch your mouth!" Allison shouts after them as they run out of the room.
I chuckle and shook my head, kids.
"Do your kids also curse?" Allison asks as she starts cutting the vegetables.
"Matt does, I try to stop him but he won't listen." I say, shaking my head.
We finished cooking two meals before taking a break. It's around 3 p.m. now and Audrey, Harry, and the kids should be arriving any time soon.
Allison and I were just sat at the breakfast table, it was just a little table that held four seats. The dining room was another room over. We were just sipping our tea and talking about life, catching up.
"Has Niall been causing you trouble?" Allison asked.
I shook my head, chuckling. "It's all been pretty smooth. Occasionally fighting here and there, but that's fine. We aren't perfect."
Allison nods. "Niall's trouble days are over."
"Finally." I say, sighing and chuckling. "It was hell for the both of us."
"How was it hell for Niall?" She ask, cocking her head to the side.
"Well, you know, the whole depression thing." I nod. It was no longer a sensitive subject, but it's Christmas time and it's no time to talk about sad subjects
"Aah, that is true." Allison agrees, bringing the cup to her lips.
The kitchen door gets thrown open and both Allison and I jump. We turn to look at the door and there stood a very happy Audrey and Harry.
"Allison! Ashley!" Audrey cheers out, hurrying over to us and wrapping us in hugs.
"Audrey!" I say joyfully.
"And Harry!" Harry adds on, making us all chuckle.
"Shut up, Harry. You're a loser, your name doesn't start with an 'A'." Audrey teases playfully.
Harry pouts at his wife. "Why do you have to make this so personal?" He fakes a hurt voice.
Audrey laughs before giving Harry a quick peck on the cheek and patting his back.
"Now, go find Zayn. Maybe he cares." Audrey tells him.
"Maybe I will." Harry says before letting out a 'hmpf' and walking away.
"Hope! Jasper! Jeremiah! Come say hi to your aunt Allison and aunt Ashley!" Audrey calls out. "You, too Amy!"
A couple of grunts and giggles can be heard in the other room. Hope comes running in happily, followed by Jasper who was happily holding hands with Amy, followed by Jeremiah who was slumped and obviously didn't want to stop talking to his friends to say hi to us.
"Aunt Ashley!" Hope hollers, running over and hugging me. She pulls away and smiles at me. "It's so good to see you! It's been sooo long. Missed you so much."
"I missed you, too, Hope." I say, happy to see her. Hope's pretty attached to me considering I'm the only person who's known her since she was a wee little toddler, alongside Niall. I'm like Hope's other mother.
"Where's uncle Niall?" She asks after scanning the room for him. "I haven't seen him yet."
"Still at Brighton, doing work stuff. He'll be here tomorrow." I informed her. She nods before going to Allison.
"Auntie Ash." Jasper says, wrapping me into a hug. "How have you been?"
"Good, good." I mumble into his torso. Jasper inherited his father's tall height and stands at about 6'0". I'm rather small, about 5'3".
Amy quickly gives me a hug, mumbling a 'hi'. Amy is just a year younger than Jasper. She's quite shy and quiet. Jasper isn't quiet nor is he loud. Jasper is kind of an awkward guy, he mumbles a lot and avoids eye contact subconsciously. But, they're both very nice people.
Jeremiah gave us half-hearted quick hugs before turning back to his phone, looking rather annoyed.
"Can I go now?" He asks Audrey.
"Jeremiah, lighten up. It's Christmas." Audrey scolds her teenage boy.
"I don't even want to be here." He complains.
Audrey gasps, lightly smacking him upside the head. "Don't be rude!"
I lightly giggle. "It's okay, I understand. I was a teenager once."
I remember how awkward and slightly annoyed I would get whenever an older person would say 'I was a teenager once'. But, now I just keep saying it.
The kids walk away and Audrey takes a seat with me. Allison comes from the other side of the kitchen with another cup of tea before handing it to Audrey. She takes it, nodding at Allison.
"So, how's wittle Audrey?" Allison asks Audrey teasingly. Audrey is a the youngest out of all of us, so we baby her even if she's just a year younger.
"Oh, give it up!" Audrey shouts, rolling her eyes. "I'm fucking forty-years-old. I'm not a baby anymore."
"Aw, Allison you upset her. You know how younger people take everything personally." I say to Allison who starts laughing, me laughing along.
"Haha, funny." Audrey says, annoyed.
I wipe a small tear from the corner of my eye from laughing. "I like to think I am."
We go straight to talking, telling stories to each other. Catching up. It's always wonderful seeing each other, it's like having a high school reunion with my best friends who feel more like family. I think it's amazing how close we all still are after around 25 years of being friends. It's not common, I've noticed that meeting other people and telling them 'My friends since high school'. They'll get shocked like 'you're still friends with the people you were friends with when you were in high school?'. It's a special bond that can not be broken.
We continued cooking around 6 P.M, it's 9 P.M. now and we're in the middle of baking. Harry was helping us bake since he worked at a bakery before and knows how to bake better than any of us girls.
Harry had just finished making the batter, Allison was in the middle of washing the baking pan, I was making dough for the pigs in a blanket we were going to make, and Audrey was watching Harry. Harry took out the mixer from the bowl and set it on the counter, heaving a sigh.
"Alright, the batter is done." Harry announces, turning to me and Allison and turning his back to Audrey.
"That's great." Allison says.
I watch Audrey swiftly stick her finger in the batter and put it in her mouth like a child, giggling. I gasp and laugh along, knowing that Harry was not going to like the fact that she just stuck her finger in the batter and ate it. Harry turn back around and finds Audrey with her finger still in her mouth. Audrey's eyes widens and looks up at Harry, knowing she's in trouble.
"Audrey, I told you not to stick your finger in the batter." Harry scolds her. "That's so disgusting, you just put all of your hand o―" Harry abruptly stopped talking as Audrey put batter on his nose.
"Take that, old grumpy man." She says in a taunting voice. "Live a little, it's just some batter."
I watch Harry dip half of his hand in the batter quickly and smearing it all the way down Audrey's face, Audrey's mouth opens in shock and anger.
"You did not just do that." She says in disbelief, obviously boiling with anger.
"What're you going to do about it?" Harry asks, smirking at her.
I watch Audrey briskly grab a hand full of batter, hitting Harry in the face with it. She then runs her fingers though his hair, completely coating it with batter.
"You little.. fuck!" Harry says, running over to the sink. "God, why did you have to put it on my hair?" He then frantically starts washing the batter out of his hair.
"Oh, my God!" I say, imitating a valley girl voice. "My hair! Audrey how could you do this to me? You know how much time and effort I put into my hair today! You're no longer invited to my sweet 16th!"
Allison was standing at the corner laughing so hard nothing was coming out of her mouth, Audrey was giggling to herself while continuing to eat the batter, Me smugly grinning and chuckling. Hope was in the middle of coming into the kitchen but stopped in her tracks, completely bewildered.
"What happening?" She asks, looking at us as if we're crazy. "Why is dad washing his hair in the sink?" She giggles, shaking her head.
"Hope!" Harry shouts. He got so excited he hit his head on the spout of the sink.
Allison lets out a loud laugh, echoing through the kitchen, making me burst out laughing, Audrey was hunched over from laughing too hard.
Harry dries his hair quickly before running to Audrey. He grabs her by the shoulders and looked her intently in the eye.
"HOPE WHAT DID YOU SAY?!" He shouts, his deep voice booming through the house.
"I―I was asking why you were washing your hair in the sink?" She asks, slightly afraid of his adoptive father.
"NO, THAT'S NOT IT." He shouts, shaking her. "YOU CALLED ME DAD."
Allison was now on the floor, hugging her stomach. "No more! No more!" She shouted in between laughs. "I'm going to die! I can't breathe! My stomach hurts!"
Audrey's laugh were coming out like screeching. My entire body ached from laughing so hard.
"Because you're my adoptive father, what else am I supposed to call you?" She asks, raising an eyebrow at him.
"You've never called me dad before." He says, excitingly. A little more calmed down now. "I'm so happy!"
"You're so silly." She says, chuckling. She wraps her arms around him and I gawk at how cute they were being.
"Awwwee." I beamed. "Y'all being so cute, my own children wouldn't talk to me like that."
"Because your children are still teenagers that try to be all cool and rebellious." Hope says, walking over to the fridge and opening it.
"Hey, don't talk about my children like that." I say in a threatening but joking voice.
"Fight me." She says, turning to me with a jug of milk in her hands. "Where's the hot chocolate mix?"
I point to a cabinet and she scurries off to it. The doorbell rings and I peek my head out of the kitchen to see who it was since I didn't know anyone was coming tonight. Zayn runs down the stairs and opens the door.
"Hey, what's up man?" Zayn says to the person, giving them a bro hug. I couldn't quite see who it was, but once I saw the tattoos on the person's arm I already knew who it was.
"Nathaniel!" I shout, running towards the door and ignoring the looks I was getting from the young ones who were just chilling out in the living room.
I run up to Nathaniel and hugged him tightly. I can't be away from Nathaniel for too long, I miss him too much. I haven't seen him since August, which is an awfully long time considering we both live really close and I go to London like every week.
"Hey, Ash." He says as he pulls away. I help him bring in his stuff and I settle the presents he brought underneath the giant Christmas tree that we bought, possibly standing around 7 feet.
I go to Nathaniel's room, knocking before coming in. He was in the middle of settling in when I walked in.
"So, what have you been up to?" I say, laying down on his bed. "Catch me up."
Nathaniel finishes settling down and lays beside me.
"Well, Charlie left." He says, referring to his housemate. Well, past now apparently. "So, I'm the only one paying for rent and I'm all by myself." He shrugs. "I think I'm going to get a new apartment, It's depressing living in a 3 bedroom apartment all by yourself."
"Get a girlfriend." I roll my eyes.
"I'm forty-one-years old. That's almost impossible." He says, chuckling to himself apathetically.
"That's false." I point out. "Grandma found a new husband at fifty-three, remember?" I ask, looking at him as he stares up at the ceiling.
"I don't have the same charm as grandma." He says, raising his hands and looking at them.
"Dad had the charm and Cameron had the charm. I know you do, too." I encouraged him.
"The girl I'm developing feelings for surely isn't interested in me." He says glumly.
"Who?" I interrogated.
"It's dumb." He whines, covering his face in shame.
"It's okay, you're dumb so I don't expect smart things for you." I mock, smiling.
He looks at me with a deadpan facial expression. He shoves me slightly and I laugh.
He covers his mouth with the back of his hand and looks away "Ih uhishon." He mumbles in to his hand.
"Pardon? I don't speak idiot." I continue mocking Nathaniel.
"It's Allison, okay? It's fucking Allison." He says out loud, shoving his head in his pillow. I gasp and cover my mouth.
"You fancy Allison?!" I loudly whispered.
"Yes, okay." Nathaniel says, frustrated. "I'm just a lonely old bloke, don't blame me."
"I thought you were over that crush!" I gush. "Nathaniel it was, like, 25 years ago!"
"I-I can't help it." He sputters.
We were quiet for a couple seconds before Nathaniel lets out a yawn.
"I think I'm going to sleep, I'm really tired." He says, getting under the blanket.
I look at the time and it read '11 P.M.'
"Goodnight." I say as I get up to leave.
"Night." He mumbles back.
I leave the room and go to my bedroom. I opened the door and sighed, finding it quite lonesome that I was the only one sleeping here. A big empty room with two beds. I decided to be optimistic and reminded myself that my family was going to be here tomorrow.
I get under the sheets and closed my eyes, instantly falling sleep in exhaustion.
-
I wake up to the sound of loud footsteps running outside of my room along with laughter and the kids conversing. I grunt and pull the blanket over my head, not being much of a morning person.
"Shhh, aunt Ashley's still sleeping." I hear Hope say.
"It's already... half past 1, she should be awake." I hear Jade say back to Hope.
The door gets slammed open and I jump, the sudden action making my heart pound against my chest.
"Aunt Ashley!" Kyra yells while running into my room. Jade and Hope were standing outside the door looking disappointing and ashamed, Hope covering her face with her hands and Jade sighing.
"Jesus Christ." I say groggily as Kyra jumps into my bed and hugs me. "I'm old, you could've given me heart attack Kyra."
"You could've killed aunt Ashley, Kyra." Jade says disappointingly, obviously trying to give her sister a hard time.
"I'm fine." I assured the three.
"Well, it's half past 1. You should get up, aunt Ashley." Hope suggests.
"Yeah, I'm going to." I say, sitting up and running my hand through my face. "Merry Christmas eve." I try saying enthusiastically, but I just sounded plain tired.
"Merry Christmas eve." All three of them said in unison.
They all left me to get ready. I grabbed my clothes and wander the halls for the washroom. Once I found it I proceeded to shower and get dressed. I walk downstairs to find Louis and his girlfriend, blue, talking to Nathaniel and Emily. They must've arrived while I was asleep.
"Morning, sunshine." Louis says.
"Hey Lou, hey Blue." I say, waving at them as I reach the bottom of the stairs.
"Hey, Ashley." Blue says, smiling and waving.
I walk into the kitchen and found Zayn looking at all the food we've made so far. He looked like he just woke up as his hair was messy and he was in pajamas.
"Morning, Ashley." He says as he yawns and stretches.
"Morning." I say, smiling at him. "Hungry?
"Yeah." He says, chuckling.
"Me, too."
"Harry and Audrey made breakfast!" I hear Nathaniel shout from the living room.
"Oh." I whisper to myself as I start scanning the room for the food.
"In the dining room!" Nathaniel follows up.
Zayn and I walk through a door that leads to the dining room. Since we were a big framily we needed a dining room separate from the kitchen as it would take too much space. There's two dining tables, one for the adults and one for the teenagers and young adults. They were both around 8 feet long and 4 feet wide. Just enough space.
There were plates scattered around the dining tables with the traditional British breakfast. Zayn and I take a seat across from each other and my mouth watered at the sight of baked beans, sausages, bacon, poached eggs, hashbrowns, tomatoes, and mushrooms were laid in front of me.
"Bless our framily for having the skill to cook such good food." Zayn preaches, already going at his hashbrowns.
"Amen." I say as I start eating.
I like to enjoy my food while I'm eating and so does Zayn so we don't really make much of a conversation, we just quickly consumed our food as it was too good to stop. Halfway through finishing my plate I look out the window and I smile at the sight.
"Zayn!" I say excitedly. "It's snowing."
Zayn looks up and looks out the window also. Surely enough, there was a full blown blizzard outside. It was a beautiful sight as it doesn't snow that much in London, we rarely get snow above an inch. Zayn and I ate the rest of our food and go to the living room.
"It's a winter wonderland outside." I say, quoting the popular Christmas song.
Everyone turns to me and Zayn. The younger kids looking excited.
"It's snowing." Zayn adds, smiling.
"Snow?" Jade asks, the excitement in her visibly rising.
"We've never seen snow." Kyra says, shaking her head.
"Because you live in Australia where it's basically as hot as an oven." Jeremiah remarks, thinking he just said something extremely clever.
"And you live in London where it's constantly dark and cold, like your soul." Jade shoots back.
"Oooooh!" Hope shouts. "Damn, Jere, you just got fuckin' slaaayed."
"Burn." Jasper adds on, making Amy giggle.
"Language." Audrey says without looking up from her laptop that was laid out in front of her.
"Come on." Kyra says, starting to get up. "Let's go play in the snow!"
"Get suited up first, it's colder than you'd think." I yell after them as they run outside, ignoring me. I sigh, kids.
We all walk out to find the kids playing in the snow and taking pictures in them. I watch as Kyra throws a little snowball at Jade who was in the middle of taking a picture of her feet and the snow. Jade gasps as the snowball hit her.
"Kyra!" She shouts at her. Kyra giggles and hides behind Jeremiah.
We watch the kids for a couple minutes, none of us attempting to get in the snow. Old people just don't know how to have fun anymore, huh?
"I'm going to go make hot chocolate for everyone." Allison says as she starts going into the house. "Anyone want to come?"
"Oh, I'll go with." I say as I start to follow Allison.
I grab Nathaniel's sleeve who didn't even argue as he let me drag him with me. Zayn also decided to tag along with us. Allison starts boiling some water and milk as she knows that Nathaniel and I, being the 'freaks' we are, prefer our hot chocolate with milk than water. It tastes a lot better when it's added to milk, It tastes bland to us when it's water. Everyone else in our family likes it with water.
"I'll be back." Zayn says before leaving the kitchen, leaving us three.
"So, Allison, you never explained to me why you and Thomas had a divorce." I say. It's been two years since Allison and her ex-husband had a divorce so it's no longer a sensitive subject.
"I, err, I don't know how to explain." She says shyly. Nathaniel was on his phone, but I can tell he was listening.
"Just do it." I say, nodding.
"We kind of just fell out of love?" She says, the sentence coming out like a question. "He felt distant and I, uh, well this is quite shameful, but like.. I.. we―"
"Spit it out!" I call out.
"I started developing feelings for someone else." She says, blushing and sighing. "I-I know, I know, I know that's really bad. But, at least I didn't let it linger. I told him shortly after I realized and he agreed to get a divorce. It was pretty mutual."
"Did the girls take it well?" I ask. Allison groans and looks up at the ceiling in annoyance. I was scared I had pushed her, but it looks like she was just ready to rant.
"You have no fucking idea." Allison says dramatically, looking at me with open eyes and a sneer on her face. "Kyra doesn't care as much, just asks a lot of questions about his dad even though they see him like once or twice a month. Jade was mad"― she put the emphasis on 'mad' ― "She didn't want me to leave her dad at all. For a fr―"
Allison gets cut off by my phone and I jolt. I quickly got my phone out of my pocket and saw that the caller id was Niall.
"Hold on, sorry, it's Niall." I say before rushing out the room and answering.
"Ashley?" I hear Niall's voice, sounding flustered.
"What's up?" I ask, leaning against a wall in the empty living room.
"There's a problem." He sighs and I start to get worried. "The metro is shut down because of the snow."
"What?" I ask, devastated. "What do you mean?"
"The trains aren't working, they're not moving. We don't know when it's going to start up again." Niall said, sounding equally crushed.
"Do you know if you guys will be here by tonight?" I ask, hopeful. It's currently just 4 P.M.
"I don't know, Ashley, the snow is 3 inches thick and going strong." Niall says in distress.
"Oh." I whisper quietly, feeling extremely down. "So, what's going to happen now?"
"If we can't figure out another way to get there we might just have to spend Christmas here in Brighton." He answers, sounding pretty gloomy.
"Without me?" I ask, almost hating myself for sounding so pathetic. This just completely ruined everything.
Zayn walks out of the bathroom and sees me, acknowledging my misery immediately and walks over to me looking concerned.
"If worse comes to worst." Niall says.
"But.." I trail off, biting my lip to stop myself from crying. "I want to spend Christmas with you guys."
"I know, Ashley, so do we. But, we can't do anything." He says. "Please don't be sad."
I hung up without saying good bye and sighed, turning to Zayn with tears in my eyes threatening to spill.
"What's wrong?" He asks, engulfing me into a warm and tight hug. I lost it and started crying into Zayn's chest.
I just want to spend my Christmas with my family, my husband, my children, my Niall, my Matt, My Jason, My Nichola. It's only three inches of snow, that shouldn't cause the entire metro to shut down. Snow. How could something so beautiful be such a pain in the ass? I just wanted a nice and happy Christmas, is that so much to ask for?
"Can you tell me what's wrong?" Zayn asks gently after I pulled away.
"Th-The metro is shut down and Niall and the kids have no other way to get here." I ask, looking up at Zayn sadly and sniffling.
"Why is it shut down?" Zayn asks, puzzled.
"The snow."
"That's bullshit, 3 inches of snow can't stop a God damn train." He says, sounding annoyed. "I'm sorry his had to happen, Ashley. It'll probably be up and working in a couple hours."
"I just want to spend Christmas with my family." I say sadly, already loosing hope. I wiped the tears from my eyes and let out a breath.
"We are family." Zayn says, smiling at me. I smile back and hugged him again.
The others walked back into the house and I pulled away from Zayn.
"There's, uh, hot chocolate in the kitchen for everyone." I tell everyone. The kids all sped to the kitchen as the other adults followed closely.
"You'll be okay." Zayn says, patting my head. I groan and swat his hand away, making him chuckle. I roll my eyes and smiled a little.
"I'm going to go outside for a little." I say as I start walking to the front door.
"Where are you going?" Zayn calls out.
"Just going to be outside in the porch."
I walk out of the house and instantly I get hit by the cold air. My throat felt more and more dry the more I breathe in the piercing wintry air. My nose becomes cold and numb along with my lips. I sat down on a bench in the porch and observed the beauty around me. The bright white snow reflected bright light onto its surroundings, beautifully illuminating the streets. But, as it's beautiful it's just as grotesque. It was so radiant and bright it was nearly blinding, staring at it's beauty for too long could be painful to the eye. It was also dangerous, if you're not too careful a car you could end up in a hospital. It's also agonizingly cold, touching it for too long could sting your skin and can even cause frostbite.
Too much of anything can be bad for you.
The front door opens and I look over to see Hope coming out with two mugs in her hand.
"Hey, I didn't know if you wanted to be bothered or not but I kind of needed to since everyone was trying to steal your hot chocolate." She chuckles as she sits beside me and hands me a mug.
"Thank you." I murmur. I take it and set it down on a table beside me.
"Are you not going to drink yours?" Hope asks curiously. I shook my head no and let out a sigh, my breath becoming visible because of the cold air. "Why not?"
"I'm not up for hot chocolate at the moment." I answer.
"Are you okay, aunt Ashley?" She asks, tilting her head and looking at me.
"Not really, no. But, I'll be alright." I say dejectedly.
"Awe, aunt Ash." She says, hugging me. I just let out another sigh, closing my eyes. "What's wrong?"
"The train is shut off because of snow." I say quietly. "So, Niall and the kids can't come over here."
"W-What?" Hope asks in disbelief. "Can't they take a car o-or a cab?"
I shrugged and smiled at her sadly.
"Awe, I'm so sorry." She says, hugging me tighter. "At least you're with us."
We stayed quiet after that. The only thing you can hear is Ashley sipping her hot chocolate and snow crunching beneath people's feet. I can no longer feel my toes and my ears. Ashley left after a couple of minutes, saying something along the lines of 'I'll get out of your hair'. I watch people happily stroll down the sidewalk with their loved ones, wishing I felt the same.
I shakily take my phone out of my pocket, my hands weren't functioning the way they normally do since It's so cold and I've been out here for so long. I looked at the time and it read '5:30'. Sheesh, have I really been out here for so long?
I picked up my cold mug of chocolate milk which I never drank and walked back in, immediately becoming hugged by the warmth of the heater. Everyone looked up from where they were playing some type of game. I smiled at them and walked to the kitchen. I pour my hot chocolate down the drain and turned around to see Nathaniel coming in slowly.
"Zayn told me w―" He starts. I run towards him and wrapped my arms around him, just needing a genuine hug from him. Nathaniel sighs and wraps his arms around me tightly. Nothing better than big brother hugs (though technically we're the same age, he's physically bigger than me.)
I pressed my face against his chest; though I didn't shed a tear. I'm numb physically and emotionally, I can't cry if I wanted to at this point.
"It'll be okay, Ash." He says calmingly. "Who knows, maybe you'll have a Christmas miracle." He chuckles lowly.
I smile and pull away from him. "At least you're here." I nod.
Our grandparents and parents have long passed and our younger siblings moved out of country and barely talks to us. Mallorie is some super model and is 'too' busy walking down Victoria Secret fashion shows to even give us a call, Cameron is a president and founder of a successful company, and Brianna is self employed and does a lot of things to make money. So, Nathaniel only really have each other.
Audrey comes running in, full sprint. Nathaniel and I jump in fright and got out of her way.
"THE BANANA BREAD OH MY GOD I FORGOT ABOUT THE BANANA BREAD!" Audrey shouts. She fumbles with putting on oven mittens.
Nathaniel and I laugh at her.
"You need help?" I ask her, but she ignored me.
"I can't cook, God damn it. Why do I even try?" She mumbles to herself as she opens the oven. Some smoke came out and Audrey shrieks and gasps at the same time.
I rush over to turn on the exhaust fan as Audrey struggles to take out the banana bread. She puts it on top of the stove, exposing a pretty burnt banana bread. If I hadn't known it was banana bread, I wouldn't have been able to tell what it was.
Audrey sighs as she takes her oven mittens off and turns off the oven. She shoved her head in her hands, obviously upset over burning the banana bread
"Man, if Venus was just here." She says quietly and sadly. "That girl could make some good food. Miss her sometimes, you know?" She giggles.
"I bet it would've been good if it hadn't had burned." I say, trying to cheer her up.
"Ashley, you think every banana bread is good." Nathaniel scoffs. "You love banana bread, you would marry it if you could."
"That's true." I laugh.
"That's why I tried to make it." Audrey says, smiling and scratching her head. "Nathaniel said you loved banana bread so I tried to make it to cheer you up, but I guess I'm just not cut out for cooking."
"Awe, Audrey, you're so sweet." I pout, hugging her.
"We still have a lot of bananas left." Audrey says, pointing at them.
"We can make another one, I'll make sure it won't burn." I suggest.
"Oooh, we should." She says, already starting to gather the ingredients.
The smoke alarm starts going off and both Audrey and I scream at the sudden noise. I race to grab a piece of cardboard and climbed the counter, fanning the smoke alarm vigorously to stop it from beeping. Audrey, in a state of panic, brought the scalding and smoking pan to the sink. She inhales in pain as she grabbed it bare handed. She turned on the sink to the coldest setting and set it cool down the banana bread and her hands.
Everyone was rushing in to see what was happening. They looked completely confused as to why I was fanning the smoke alarm, Audrey was drowning banana bread, and Nathaniel was hunched over from laughing so hard.
"What is happening?" Zayn asks first, obviously not knowing if he should be worried or not.
"Au-Audrey burnt-t the banaaana brrrreeaadd." Nathaniel tries to explain, still in hysterics. "And the sssssmoke a-haha-alarm went off and e-he-everyone starrrted panicking and ru-ru-ru―"
"RAH-RAH OOOHH LALA, WANT YOUR BAD ROMANCE." Louis interrupts, thinking it was a good time and good joke. A couple of us chuckled, but no one really found it funny.
"Sorry." Louis apologizes quietly, his girlfriend Blue giggling at him.
"The banana bread burnt and the smoke alarm went off." I summed it up. "I started to fan the smoke alarm to turn it off and Audrey went to cool down the banana bread under the sink, but hurt herself in the process because she grabbed it barehanded."
"Are you okay, mum?" Jasper asks his mother.
"Yeah, I'm good." Audrey says before taking her hand away from under the sink that was running cold water. Within 3 seconds Audrey yelps and puts her hand under the sink again.
"Wow, fuck, that hurt." She says under her breath. "Maybe I'm not okay."
"Does it feel like lava in your veins when you pull away from the water?" I ask, thinking that I knew what kind of pain she was in.
When I was 15 I accidentally poured hot water on my hands, it wasn't boiling but it was previously simmering. It felt severely hot and I immediately gasped in pain. I put my hand under cold water. I thought it was fine until I took it out of the cold water and it felt like it was burning from the inside of my hand, not the outside. Appearance wise, my hand looked pretty good. In fact, it looked perfectly fine; there were no blisters and there weren't any abnormally red spots. But, it felt like my skin was tight and there were lava in my veins. No exaggeration whatsoever. The pain was so bad that I started crying then and there, no dramatic crying more like silent weeping. I forced my mum to buy me burn gel since I could not take away my hand from the cold water.
It was not a fun experience.
"Yeah." She says. Harry rushes to her aid, obviously worried about his wife.
"Nathaniel," I say, getting his attention. He looks up at me from the counter. "Come with me to buy some burn gel for Audrey."
I jump down the counter and Nathaniel and I started to get ready and leave to go to the pharmacy. We get in the car and I sigh. I haven't driven a car in a decade, ever since Hope's parents passed. I've kind of been too scared to drive a car ever since so it's always someone else driving. Hope doesn't drive either, she depends on public transportation and other people driving her around.
Nathaniel drives to the nearest Boots and we entered the famous pharmacy. Nathaniel flees off to somewhere across the store and I start looking through over the counter medicine. I grabbed a tube of burn gel and pain relievers. I jog down the aisles, looking for Nathaniel. I found him looking at some shaving cream and I scoff. I stand beside him and looked up at him. Nathaniel had a beard, but it wasn't long or anything. He maintains it and trims it regularly. Every time he shaves he looks about 10 years younger and it's honestly the funniest thing because he gets all frustrated when everyone babies him.
"Don't even think about it." I say, trying to stop him from making a bad decision. "You look way better without a beard."
"Really?" He asks, looking away from a can of Barbasol to look at me. "Allison doesn't like facial hair."
"Who cares what Allison thinks?" I ask, raising an eyebrow at him and smiling at how silly he was being. "If you want Allison to like you then you should have her like you for who you are, not who she wants to you be. What's the point if someone likes you for being a person you're really not?"
"You're right." Nathaniel agrees, looking at he's feet.
"I know." I chirp, grinning at him. "Now, let's go."
I hook arms with him and drag him to the check out station where we bought everything we need, Nathaniel slid in some type of protein bar and a bar of chocolate. I knew Nathaniel was about to argue about paying since he always does, he always wants to pay even though it's all my stuff. Sometimes it's sweet, but most times it's just annoying. So, before Nathaniel could protest I slid my credit card though the reader and I can see Nathaniel's mood dropping as he was about to pull his credit card out to pay.
"Ashley!" He groans, slightly shoving me.
I giggled as I put in my pin code. "What?"
"You know I wanted to pay, what the hell." He says, slumping like a tired mom of 5.
"Yes, I know you did." I say, turning to look at him and bopping his nose. "That's why I paid for it before you could."
"Awe," The lady behind the register cooed. "Such a lovely couple, how long have you been together?"
Both Nathaniel and I grimace, turning to each other before turning back to the cashier lady and saying 'We're twins' in unison. The cashier did a double take and started to apologize repeatedly, even after we said it's okay.
We got back into our car and started to drive back to the house. The radio was blasting some overplayed song that they've been playing for 5 years perpetually. The snow had stopped dropping and it started to rain a lot. It scared me for the simple reason that snow + rain = ice and ice + car = dangerous and danger = accident = injury/death.
Yay me for ruining everything.
We get home and I hand Nathaniel his stuff (which he rudely snagged out of my hands, probably because he's mad I payed for it) and I walk into the house to find everyone doing their own thing. I walk into the kitchen and Audrey had her hand in a bowl of water. She was just casually talking to Harry who was finishing up cooking something.
Audrey looks at me and smiles. "Hey, Ash."
"Hey," I greet. I took the pain killers out of the bottle they came in and took a pill out. I start to pour Audrey a glass of water.
"You're pretty great, Ashley." Audrey says, smiling at me kindly.
"Awh, shucks, don't." I gush. I walk over to her with the pill and glass in hand and she looks at it in dread. "What?" I ask.
"Oh, uh," Audrey starts laughing nervously. "I, uh.."
"Audrey has a hard time swallowing pills." Harry interrupts. "Which is weird because she doesn't even have a gag reflex."
I started choking on my own spit, starting to laugh at what Harry said. He looks at me innocently and confused, seemingly oblivious to what he just said.
"What?" He asks. Audrey was face-palming and laughing into her hand.
I was leaning on the counter for support, I was too weak to support myself from this laughing. I was laughing like some broken hyena.
I turn to Harry, still laughing. "Tell me, Harry, how the fuck do you know that?"
Harry blushes, knowing what he said. He closes his eyes, laughing at himself for whatever he just said. "I know that because she told me."
The laughs died down and I went back to Audrey's aid. Audrey got the pill down eventually ― and she did not gag, Harry's no liar.
I take the burn gel out of the box container and turned to Audrey. "You can take your hand out of the bowl now."
She looked apprehensive, but looked at me before she starts taking her hand out. "Okay, I trust you because I think you know what you're doing."
"Relax," I turn to look at the clock. "Your hand has been in there for like an hour, it wont burn that bad when you take it out."
I dabbed her hand dry before applying the burn gel onto her hands. The gel noticeably made it feel better when she relaxed and sighed. She thanked me before dumping all the water out of the bowl.
Zayn walks into the kitchen and looks at us. "Is food ready? It's 8 p.m. and everyone's hungry."
I frowned when I realized what time it is. I checked my phone for any updates from Niall, but only got disappointed when I didn't have any notifications.
"Yeah, the food is ready." Harry says. Zayn nods and leaves the room.
Harry and I set the table and soon everyone came piling in. I sat at the corner of the table, Nathaniel sitting beside me. Nathaniel knew I didn't have an appetite so he just started talking to me, asking me which food I wanted to eat. I felt like a shy little girl with the annoying aunt that wants everyone to eat everything. I watch as the food in my plate started piling up being that I nodded every time Nathaniel asked me if I wanted to eat the food he was pointing at and he would just put some on my plate.
Every conversation sounded like a blur. My mind was just set on my family, millions of questions running through my head. I started to feel disconnected to the group; I felt like the Grinch, being the only one that isn't so jolly about the holidays. Every word sounded like mumbled echoes, nothing more than a sentence I can't find the context for. One by one everyone started leaving the table and it was just me and Nathaniel.
I looked at Nathaniel who seemed to have been looking at me, as if he was expecting something from me.
"What?" I ask.
"We sat here for like 2 hours and you didn't eat or say anything." Nathaniel answers, frowning.
"I'm sorry." Was all I could mutter.
"Everyone is gathering at the tree to open presents, come on." He stood up and watched me slowly stand up.
I follow him into the living room where everyone was already settled with some peppermint hot chocolate and opening presents. Fire was burning at the wood in the chimney, making the room warm and cozy.
I sat down in the circle and watched everyone open the gifts. I felt bad because the gifts were still in Brighton with Niall and the family. Hopes comes to sit next to me and hands me her gift to me, cuddling up to me. Everyone finished opening their gifts and everyone got up to go to bed.
Nathaniel tried talking to me, but he just got up in left when I started answering with one or two words. It was now just me, the fire crackling, and my thoughts.
Is Matt, Jason, and Nichola having fun spending Christmas down at Brighton? I wonder if they liked their gifts. Niall better have tried to cook a decent Christmas dinner, not just some pre-made chicken from Tesco. Are they having a good time?
The grand father clock went off and I jumped. It's midnight already?
I groggily got up from my seat on the floor and plodded to my bedroom. I opened the door and sighed at the emptiness and lifelessness. If the kids were here they would probably sat somewhere playing some type of game or fighting. I get into my bed, wide awake and staring at the cold space beside me and the empty bed.
My hands were laced in my hair, subconsciously just playing with them. I was so used to Niall playing with my hair that I guess I just got into the habit of doing it myself when he's not there to do it for me. It was cold in the room, my hands were freezing and I was shaking. I wrapped myself inside the blanket, hiding from the cold. It's working, for now, eventually I would have to get up and persevere through the cold. If only I could hide under this blanket forever, away from my problems and the cold.
I got up from the bed, bringing the blanket with me like a child. I flipped on the light switch and I flinched at the sudden brightness. I searched the room for any signs of a thermostat, to my luck there was none to be found. I walk out of my room and down the stairs, the blanket still wrapped tightly around me like a hug of warmth. I walked into the kitchen and grabbed a mug out of one of the cabinets, I took out the milk from the fridge and poured it into the mug before putting the mug in the microwave to heat it up.
I leaned back on the counter and sighed, gawking at the sight of my foggy breath. This house is so big and cold, does Z even bother changing the thermostat?
I sniffled and checked the time '12: 48 A.M.' I would be asleep by now if I was back at Brighton, I used to be able to pull all nighters with ease when I was young, now I'm old I need more sleep to function like a normal human being that I used to be.
The microwave beeped and the words 'Food is ready' flashed. I opened the microwave and a small amount of steam came out, hitting my face and making it warm for maybe half a second. I took out the steaming mug of milk out of the microwave and set it on the counter. The kitchen was dark, I didn't bother opening the light and my only light source were the street lights outside and from the fridge door I left open.
I took out a packet of hot cocoa mix from one of the cabinets on the wall and mixed it in with the milk, stirring it slowly with a spoon and making slight clinking noises when the spoon hit the mug.
I put the spoon into the sink and grabbed my mug of hot chocolate and walked back into the living room. I sat in front of the crackling fire, thankful for the heat source.
I raise the mug up to my lips and sipped the warm and soothing liquid. I let out a sigh of relief and laid down on the floor, looking at the ceiling. It was relaxing for a couple minutes before I heard footsteps come down the stairs and the chandelier to turn on, I squinted and grunted at the bright light.
"Fuck, that hurt." I say, pressing two fingers against my temple. I sat up to find a sleepy Zayn walking towards the door. "What're you doing?"
"Someone's here." Zayn answers, yawning and stretching. He opens the door and Emma, a good friend of Niall, walks in.
"Hey, sorry I'm extremely late." She laughs.
"Hey, Emma." I waved.
Emma is Liam's late wife, before Liam died and everything. Niall introduced Liam and Emma and as Niall explained they just 'clicked'. Emma still spends some holidays with us.
I turned back to the fire and sipped my hot chocolate.
"Hey, sorry I'm, like, beyond late."
I turned around abruptly, the voice hitting home. I found Niall with a smirk on his lips, getting his suitcase into the house. I heart skipped a beat and I stood up right away and ran after him. He looks up in time from his suitcase to catch my hug.
"Hey, Ash." He says, chuckling as he hugs me tight and pulls me to the side.
I looked up at him and shoved his shoulders lightly, he chuckles and continues hugging me.
"Did you miss me?"
I smirk and chuckle, rolling my eyes.
"Maybe in your dreams, Pretty Boy."
__________________________
author's note [3/8/16]:
i feel like i say this in every author's note but sorry for not updating for so long?????????????????????????????
i had a really bad writers block im v sorry but, hey, this epilogue is at least decent right?
im going to save the rest for the afterword.
read it plss <33
i love you guys sm
jean chanty xx