Four months.
Who knew that in four short months, your life could change so much?
Life is like a ticking bomb. The seconds keep ticking down, never stopping no matter how much you beg them too. And one day, the bomb is going to go off, taking everything you've ever had with it and you're going to be stripped down to nothingness.
Unfortunately, my clock had ticked out and that bomb went off a little too soon than what I was prepared for.
Sighing, I wrapped the white knitted scarf around my neck and slipped into my tan Uggs. "Olivia." My soft voice called out.
In just a few short seconds, little feet patters drifted across the wooden floor boards of my little house.
The house wasn't much, but after Brandon had registered in the military and we moved to Rochester, New York, I had decided that it was best to maybe downsize and get my own house for my little family. Olivia was still a baby at the time, so Eleanor had moved in with me for the months that Brandon was gone in order to help me get some sleep and just help with the house keeping.
That's how my life worked for the course of the year and a half. Brandon would go off to war, I'd go to work, and Liv would have food in her belly and a house over her head.
However, June rolled around and suddenly it was the second Sunday at 10 in the morning that a folded American flag was being carried to my door with the one letter I'd never hoped to receive. Since that morning, nothing has felt the same.
Not the house. Not my bed. Not my heart. Not my mind. Not my family.
Nothing felt right without him here.
But for the sake of Olivia already losing the two most important men in her life before she's even old enough to understand, I had to continue on. I had to fight to stand up and I had to push myself to move, but for the sake of her, I was going to do the best I could and continue living every day.
"Momma." She giggled and wobbled straight into my legs. A smile was brought to my lips as I glanced down to see my baby girl staring at me with big, vibrant blue eyes. She fell backwards onto her bum, giggling with her mouth open as she fell onto her back, her curly, light, brunette hair falling around her shoulders.
"Are you ready?" Squatting down into a crouch, I held her little boot out and helped slid her small foot into the shoe. I did the next foot before reaching my out and helping her stand back up. Her thin, pink lips puckered into a kiss and I grinned widely before pressing my lips down onto her slightly slobbery ones. Her small arms wrapped around my neck and I pulled her small body into my embrace in a tight hug while I growled in her ear a little.
Liv giggled and pulled away, laughing harder as I started to tickle her sides. Her laugh was so contagious. Like music to my ears. It was the melody that I could listen to every day, all day long, and never get tired of hearing it.
"Pa'k?" Her eyes light up as she looked up at me.
"Wanna go?" I asked, rested my forehead on hers as she held into my cheeks. Liv nodded and I smiled before picking her up. "Alright, let's go!" I kissed her cheek and grabbed my purse before walking out the door and locking it.
She giggled all the way out to the car and was brightly smiling as I buckled her into her seat.
That was one thing I absolutely envied about my daughter. She had an attitude just like her father. She was always so happy and always smiling. I mean the poor girl tripped down the bottom four steps of my parent's stair case and was still giggling. Nothing ever seemed to break her giggly mood and rarely ever did she cry or act up. She was so quiet and she found joy in entertaining herself. She thought everything was so funny and she looked at the world as if it was the most pure and beautiful thing she's ever seen. Olive Jane had the most beautiful mind and I was almost scared to let her grow up because I didn't want her to lose her purity of sight.
As we made our way down the road to the park, I had to smile at the sight of the sun peering down from the sky, illuminating the fall sky in a bright baby blue. The dark road was lightly dusted in colorful leaves; the trees lined in rows along the side, covered in vibrant colors.
"We're here, baby girl." I grinned and parked the car in the small parking lot before glancing back to see Liv half asleep in her car seat. "Olivia..." I sang, catching her sleepy smirk as she stared out the window.
Hopping out of the car, I gathered my purse and the small bag filled with little snacks and diapers before walking to the back to pull the big, black stroller out of the trunk.
I placed the bags in the bottom before getting Liv out of the backseat and putting her little body into the seat. I grabbed her blanket, throwing that in with her before making our way over to the little kid play set.
A few kids and parents were already here, so I decided to sit on the small metal bench and let Olivia get out and play with them. She was a very friendly little girl and loved to play and talk to everyone.
She didn't have a large vocabulary yet, but she liked to babble and pretend she was saying something really important.
"She's adorable." A young woman smiled as she sat next to me. I smiled and sat straighter, watching my little girl pick up all the sticks in the sandbox and put them in the grass next to it. "How old is she?"
"Thank you", I smiled. "She's almost 17 months."
"How precious, she seems so well behaved." I laughed softly.
"She is. Very happy and mannered girl." The smile radiated off my face. "Olivia Horan, don't you dare put that in your mouth." I scolded as she started to raise the stick to her lips. But instead, a soft, bubbly laugh dribbled off her lips like a soft drum. She walked back over to me, glancing up at the woman next to me. "Can you say hi, Liv?"
Her small hands raised as she waved, looking at the girl like she was the first woman she'd ever seen besides me. That wasn't true of course, but one would never be able to tell.
The lady smiled and waved back. "So Olivia Horan." I glanced to the lady, kind of weirdly, may I add. "You wouldn't happen to be Khloe Sparks, Niall Horan's ex, would you?" I raised my eye brows, how does she know that?
"It's um-" I cleared my throat. "It's Khloe Fierra now, but how do you know that?"
The woman smiled. "I don't mean to freak you out or anything, but I'm Ashley. We met freshman year at GSU."
My eyes went wide. Oh my... She looks and acts nothing like what I remember. Instead of bleached blonde hair, she was a lightly dusted brunette. Her smile was pure and not filled with hatred. She'd gained a small amount of weight and actually looked healthy. And she was so... Nice?
"Ashley, ashley? Like you used to sleep with Niall and you hated me?"
"I envied you, actually." She spook quietly, before smiling down at Olivia who'd gone back to playing in the sand. "You don't know how long I was trying to get Niall's attention—more than just sexual attention. And then you walked in and in less than a day you had him drooling about you to everyone. He seemed so happy with you, and that's all I'd ever wanted at that time."
I didn't know what to say. I was speechless.
"But, as the years went on, I started to realize that everything happens for a reason and that time keeps moving forward, ya know." She glanced to me. "Some things are just not meant to be. If it happens, it happens. There are always better days ahead." I smiled and nodded, looking up at her.
"Wow, you've really changed." I smiled.
"I have. I've just learned, I guess, that life's not about what you have and don't have, but about what you make of it, ya know. It's so tiring trying to be better than everyone because there's always going to be someone bigger, better, prettier, more successful, etcetera, ya know." I nodded, taking it all in.
"Yeah, you're right." I smiled.
There was a slight pause as the mood shifted. "I'm sorry about your late-" she glanced to me silently asking what Brandon and I were.
"Fiancé." I finished for her. "And thank you. The only reason I actually changed my last name was so I felt like I still had a piece of him, but, yeah. We were never married."
"I'm sorry to hear that. He had a great obituary, though, and he seemed to think the world of you and Olivia.l
I nodded. "He did." I sighed. "But like you said, there's a reason for everything." I smiled and glanced to the play set, trying to spot Olivia.
My eyes widened and I felt my heart start to pound harder as I looked around for my daughter.
She was just in front of me...
I stood up, moving to find my little girl. "I'm sorry, Olivia is missing." I panicked, leaving my spot to go look around.
I noticed Ashley jump up at my side, moving around a few kids to see if she could help me.
"Olivia?" I glanced around, feeling my heart go into a panic as it started to desperately pound in my chest. I glanced around the slide, up on the play set, and over by the swings, but there was no sign of my little bubbly girl in her small pink dress. "Liv?" I whipped around, hearing her laugh in my ears.
There she stood, a few yards away on the sidewalk under the draped cape of orange leaves hanging from the tall oak trees, talking to a tall, broad man in a navy blue suit. He was crouched down to her level, his dark brown hair was shortly quiffed at the top, showing off his beaming smile.
I felt the breath hitch in my throat as I quickly walked over to them. I caught Ashley staring at me from the side, but she didn't seem to move.
"Olivia?" I exhaled, the panic in my heart finally settling down as she turned around and came running into my legs like she always does. "Oh my," I breathed. "Liv, baby, please don't run off from mommy like that." I lowered down to her level, pulling her tightly into my embrace. She hugged me back, giggling in my ear. I closed my eyes at the sound for a short moment before pulling away to stand and greet the man who was now standing in front of me.
I stood up straight, fixing my peacoat before looking up. My breath was suddenly ripped from my lungs, my mouth dryer than the Sahara desert.
"So this is her?" He smiled softly, beaming down at the little girl who was now standing behind my legs as if they were a shield while she peeked at him from the side. "What's her name?"
My eyes caught his deep, Caribbean blue eyes, his accented voice dripping like melted chocolate as he took so much concern in the girl below me.
"Um-" I cleared my throat, my insides burning with wild and viscous flames. "Her name is Olivia Jane Horan." I spoke just above a whisper.
Niall's lips broke out into a bigger smile as he crouched below me again. His fingers were held out towards Liv and I noticed her laugh shyly before moving her head between my legs.
"Olivia." He spoke softly, his fingers running gently over her small ones. "She looks just like you." He said aloud, glancing up to me just after.
As much as I wanted to be mad at him and tell him to leave my baby and I alone... I couldn't. Instead, I found myself shyly smiling. "I thought she looked like you."
"She's got my eyes." He smiled. "And my lips. She's like the perfect blend of us." Us.
"Yeah." I smiled. "She is."
Niall didn't say anything else, but he sat there and played with her, smiling as he played peek-a-boo behind his big hands.
The sight of them almost makes me wish that after having her I would've just got a plane ticket and flown us out to him. Forced him to see her and see if that would've maybe changed things. Maybe then, he could have watched her grow week after week. Maybe then, he would've seen her first roll over, first step, first word.
Maybe, if I'd just followed my gut over my head, we could've changed the situation between us.
"How old is she?" He finally asked after standing again.
"17 months on the 12th." I stated before reaching my hands out to pick her frail body up. Her head immediately buried itself between my head and shoulder and she brought her thumb up between her teeth, smiling brightly at Niall.
"She's so big." He mumbled, almost as if it was to himself.
"She sure is." I frowned before kissing her head.
I heard Niall sigh before peeling his eyes off our little girl and looking up to me. He sighed. "I heard about Brandon... I'm sorry."
I nodded and gave a gentle grin. "Thank you. It means a lot." Niall nodded. "How are things with you and-"
"Josie." He bit his cheek before continuing. "We've um... We decided to take a break."
"I'm sorry to hear that."
"Yeah, it was just that things were getting so complicated with our conflicting schedules." I nodded, understandingly. There was a bit of an awkward pause, both of us just staring at each other with nothing to say. "I, uh-" he paused before rephrasing his sentence. "Would- would you like to maybe sit down and get a coffee or something? Maybe just catch up?"
I folded my lips together, thinking for a second before I decided to slowly nod. "Yeah, I'd like that." I smiled. His smile illuminated his face. I felt butterflies fill my stomach as I moved to the bench to pack all of our stuff away and place Liv in the stroller. She cuddled her blanket, taking her sippy-cup from my hands and immediately drinking it.
I smiled as I felt Niall's hand rest on my lower back while we walked down the sidewalk, both of us just lightly talking.
It was moments like these in life that made me believe in fate.
It was moments like these that made me question where I was supposed to be in life.
Niall was gone for months upon months, and his void was filled by another presence. But now, I'm starting to believe that if two people are really meant to be together, the world will find a way to bring them together.
He was here, and I was there, standing next to him, with our baby in our arms.
Our family.
Although it's just the beginning, maybe this is the new beginning we both needed.
The fresh start.
I was the sensible girl with a pure mind and sassy mouth.
He was the heartless son of bitch with nothing but a frozen heart and raw sex.
Maybe we were meant to make an impact on each others souls.
Maybe we were meant to learn from one one another.
Maybe there's a reason we always find our way back to each other.
Maybe, just maybe, we were two broken kids in love who just happened to meet at the wrong time in life.
After all, people who are meant to be together will always find their way back. They may take a few detours, but they'll never truly get lost.
~Frozen.
2/1/14 - 4/1/16