A light, feathery touch on my face is what wakes me up in the next morning. I try to wave it off with my hand, but then I hear a small and a soft giggle and stop what I'm doing. I peak one eye open and see a brown—haired girl on her crossed arms on the bed next to me, her dark blue eyes are wide, similar to the wide smile on her teeth—crooked smile.
"Good morning," She smiles. "You sleep too heavy."
Her sweet and uneven words make me smile and sit up a bit straighter on my elbows. "Good morning."
Her grin widens even more and she sits on her crossed legs instead. "My name is Joelle, what is yours?"
The memory hits me of when Peter showed me the tattoos of his three children; Jane, Jeremy and Joelle. I smile softly at her. "I'm Tallulah. It's nice to meet you, Joelle."
She gasps and says, "I like your name!"
"I like yours, too." I laugh.
"My daddy says you're my long lost sister, is that true?" The innocence and the sincerity in her eyes makes mines soften.
Carefully, I raise one hand and tuck her curly hair behind her ears. "It is true."
She blushes. "I'm glad we found you, you're beautiful."
It suddenly strikes me that she is almost the same age as Cronan, and it hits me how much I miss him and his presence. It seems like a century has passed without me seeing him, when it really has been just a few days.
I ask gently, "Can I have a hug?"
I open my arms widely as she grins and literally throws herself in my arms, hugging me so tightly as she nuzzles her face in my neck. She is an angel.
After a few minutes of doing that, I pull back slightly and smile as I tell her, "Did you have breakfast?"
She shakes her head. "No, we are waiting for you."
"All of you?" I ask, wide—eyed.
"Yes, but Jane is not here," She scrunches her nose up in annoyance. "She is with her boyfriend."
I nod. "Okay then, let me wash my face and I will meet you downstairs."
"I will stay with you?" She offers with a smile.
"Of course."
She follows me to the bathroom and sits herself down next to the sink as she watches me brush my teeth. Washing my mouth, I notice the small frown on her mouth as her eyes settle on my face.
"What's wrong?" I ask.
"I'm mad at Jane," She replies honestly. "She never spends time with me and I miss her." She pouts.
I sigh. "Maybe she's busy?"
"No, she is always with her boyfriend, and I don't like him." She frowns deeper.
"Why not, baby?" I question carefully as I splash some water to my face and dry it off with a towel.
"Because he hits her, and she cries when he does that," She crosses her arms over her chest angrily. "He never makes her happy, and that's not what a prince does."
The nostalgia that hits me is strange, but I push it away. As I brush my hair, I look at her sympathetically and say, "No, that's not what a prince does."
"Then why is she with him if he's not her prince?" She innocently asks.
"I don't know," I answer truthfully, feeling weird about this whole situation. "Let's talk about that later, okay? Let's have breakfast now."
"Mmhmm," She hums and I help her down. As we walk down the stairs, she asks me, "How old are you?"
"I'm nineteen, but I'm turning twenty in two weeks," I tell her with a smile. "And you?"
She stops and holds her ten fingers out before telling me to hold mines out, too. She holds down nine of hers and count the rest. With her eyes wide, she says, "You're eleven years older than me."
She is nine, younger than Cronan. "I am." I smile, nodding.
She leads me towards the kitchen and says, "That means that you're older than Jeremy by nine years, and Jane by two years—which means you're our oldest sister."
I look at her with astonishment. I wasn't that smart when I was her age, holy shit. I'm far too consumed by her that I don't notice the dead silence and tension in the kitchen, and it's not until I look up that I see three heads in our direction. Peter stands behind the counter table, with a beautifully breath—taking woman next to him. Her curly brown hair is the same as Joelle, and her bright brown eyes are just as wide.
A small boy—the one who opened the door for me when I first came here—is sitting on the stool next to the counter table, watching us silently with his bright blue eyes that he has inherited from his father—just like me.
Not knowing what to say, I clear my throat and say, "She is so smart."
The woman—whose name is Kiara, as far as I can remember from the tattoo on Peter's wrist—is the first to smile widely at me and walks over to me. Her smile is so wide and beautiful that it blinds me.
"Hello, my dear," She begins, taking my hand between hers, sandwiching it. "I'm Kiara, I've heard a lot about you and I can't believe I finally met you."
The smile is impossible not to stretch my lips as I say, "It's a pleasure to finally meet you, Kiara."
She laughs lightly and looks down at her youngest daughter, "I see that you've met Joelle."
I smile down at Joelle, too. "Yes, she's remarkable. May Lyara bless her."
Kiara's head snaps up at me and she smiles before she whispers, "I know who Lyara is."
Letting out a breathy laugh, I shrug as I say, "Nothing but a statue."
She quickly ends the subject and turns around to the small boy. "That's Jeremy."
From the corner of my eyes, I see Peter with teary eyes as he looks at me conversing with his wife and other children, and I know how he must be feeling right now. I clear my throat and smile as I say, "Hi, Jeremy, I'm Tallulah."
He hides his face behind his mother's hip and mumbles, "Hi, Tallulah."
His mother ruffles his hair and smiles apologetically at me. "He is a bit shy."
"It's okay." I smile as Joelle takes a seat beside her brother.
"Let's have breakfast, then." She says and we all agree.
For the next hour and a half, we sit in the kitchen eating and talking. Kiara is such a sweet—hearted woman, she is bright, kind, funny and smart, and it is obvious why Peter has fallen in love with her. I'm already in love with her and her personality. Later, both Jeremy and Joelle leave for their schools and I'm left with Peter and Kiara.
I learn then that Kiara doesn't leave for work—or works from home, more precisely—and that she is working for an accessories company—a small one. She shows me some of the accessories that she made and she even gives me some. I also learn that Peter is an architecture—a very excellent one at that.
So, when half an hour later Peter leaves, I find myself actually quite comfortable around Kiara. We chat about a lot of things; my life in the village, how she knew Peter, her first heartbreak, she also tells me a bit about Jane, and she even teaches me how to make accessories with her.
The next day—Wednesday, while me and Kiara stand in the kitchen making dinner for tonight—we decide to make pasta with white sauce and chicken, and while we are at it, we chat for a little, and to my surprise, she opens a conversation about Louis.
"So, Peter told me that you have a very close love bird." She smirks as she cuts the chicken to small pieces.
I laugh nervously and blush, making the white sauce. "Did he?"
"Mmhmm," She hums and flashes me a wide grin. "Do you want to talk about it?"
I shrug to myself and think 'why not?' before I say, "Sure, what do you want to know?"
She laughs through a breath and says, "Oh, I want to know everything."
I chuckle slightly at her eagerness and shake my head. "Well... Uh... I first saw him about two years ago," I begin, telling her every single detail—details that I didn't even tell my mother or Peter, details that only Esme and Wren are aware of because of their existence during that time—and it doesn't surprise me how I open up about it.
It's not that I trust people too easily, it doesn't even revolve about this. It's all about how proud I am that I'm in love with him, how proud I'm of everything that I have done—even if some decisions took our relationship in the wrong path—I'm proud of everything that has happened between me and Louis, and it seems like that I will never get tired of telling people about it.
She smiles sweetly once I have finished and asks, "You really do love him, don't you?"
I sigh and look down at what I'm making. "I do," I say quietly. "So much."
I don't stop there, however, I tell her about our first and intense fight. I tell her all about it, what happened next with Conall. I let everything out, and it feels good, because she listens without interrupting me. She puts effort into relaxing me when I get emotional over everything.
"You know, Louis is close to us," She says once I have finished spilling out everything. "Not only did he tattoo Peter's skin, but he was a friend before that."
"How so?" I ask, eager to know how they met each other.
She places her palm under her chin as she says, "Peter and I went through a very tough time at first; he lost his job, our house was taken away from us because of the rent and I was pregnant with Jane," She explains and I feel my heart breaking for her story. She continues, "When we arrived here, we kept looking for houses, places to work until we met Louis."
"What did he do?" I smile softly, my heart breaking for him this time.
She laughs, "Everything. He did everything," I see her eyes turning red. "He got us this house—bought it for us—and refused to take anything in return. We tried so hard to pay him back but he never accepted anything that we offered. On the next day exactly, he hired Peter in his mom's company and Peter became her best architecture. Money poured on us like showers when his mom introduced Peter to her friends, and we got the best life. It's all because of Louis; we wouldn't be here without him."
The new information strikes me and surprises me. First things first; it strikes me and amazes me how kind—hearted Louis can be with someone that he doesn't know. It happened before though, when I got my first tattoo and he didn't let me pay for it—he might have refused because he already knew me then, but still. How can one be so kind and so selfless?
Then, the information about Louis' mother surprises me, and so is the information of him being able to buy people new houses for free. Is Louis rich? Of course he is; his mother owns a company as far as I know. However, he doesn't look like he is rich. He acts so normally, so down to earth—he didn't even mention it to me for Lyara's sake!
"I didn't know that he is rich." I finally say.
"Oh, he is. He is definitely rich, his father used to be a football player, I guess that's what made the whole family rich from the beginning." She tells me, shrugging.
Sighing, I run a hand over my face. "Oh dear."
Kiara asks, "What is it?"
"I don't know what to say to him, how to tell him. I want—so badly—to make everything go right and truthful with him, I just don't know how." I admit.
She shakes her head and smiles sadly at me. "You do know how, you're just afraid. You don't have it in you to tell him the truth because you fear that it might break you two apart."
Her words don't surprise me. I have heard them before from Sir Artair and I refused to believe them, but I do now. I do because there's no other excuse. It's so easy to tell Louis.
The truth is too easy and quick to be said, it is what lies behind the words of the truth that scares me. This is what's hard and indescribable.
Updating more often, yaaay! Tell me your story about your first crush (Celebrities are excluded, I see y'all)... My first crush was that boy who always took my pencils and sandwiches, he was hot though.
Hope you enjoyed it. Thank you for reading and please, don't forget to comment and vote :) x