『 5 YEARS LATER 』
"GRAYSON, IT'S BATH TIME!" Olivia Connelly yelled from the kitchen, hastily washing her hands with the strawberry soap and wiping her damp hands to the kitchen towel. She had just finished cleaning the kitchen and although they won't be using it for the next a month and a half, she couldn't be bothered having to clean it the moment they come back from Crestmont.
She takes Grayson's newly-washed blue bear-hooded towel before walking up to the living room where her little boy was perched on the couch, giggling to a rerun episode of Adventure Time.
"Honey, you have to take a bath now." Olivia reminded sweetly, plopping down next to her son and peppering his face with kisses. "You wouldn't want us being caught in traffic when we come home to Grandpops, would you?"
"Would Uncle Noah and Aunt Lizzie be there?" the little boy inquired earnestly and when his mother nodded with a smile, he lets out an excited shriek, jumping off of the couch and racing upstairs and to the bathroom. Olivia lets out a laugh and ran after the boy, scooping him up from the ground despite the fact that her son was old enough to be carried.
The boy didn't protest, loving his mother's touch. He was growing up to be a big mama's boy, as Alex always said.
When Olivia was done giving him a bubbly bath, she carried him to her room where she had readied his clothes for their homecoming. Olivia had to run around the room to chase him down for he had raced around with his towel on his back like a cape, naked, and shrieking how he was a spartan. Olivia and Grayson were panting by the moment she caught him and it had resolved to a tickling match. Sucks for both of them, they were both a very ticklish person with just the slightest touch.
By the moment they were done, they were worn out and had no energy to move. It had always been like this. Mother and son. Olivia and Grayson against everyone else, alone and happy in they own world. Like how it was from the start, when she first had him inside her womb.
Grayson had refused to his mother's initiation to dress him, being the stubborn and troublemaker kid he is, demanded he could do it himself.
While Grayson started dresing up, Olivia went back to packing their suitcases while he watched and out of nowhere, he asked her a question that caught her off guard.
"Is daddy coming home anytime soon?"
Olivia halted momentarily, her heart jumping up to her throat for fleeting moment at the mention of the young man. It had always been like this for her whenever the boy brings him up and each time, she always freezes. She smoothly transitioned back to normal and assorting Grayson's clothes absentmindedly. "I'm not sure yet, honey, he hasn't called me again since Tuesday."
Grayson visibly deflated at the news and Olivia scrambled to cheer him up. "But don't worry, I'll call him later to see if he's coming home."
"Would he be back just in time for my 7th birthday?"
"Of course, he would, baby." She reassured. "Your Daddy doesn't miss any of your birthdays."
"Except for last year." Grayson noted. "He didn't come home in my 6th birthday."
Olivia sat down and held her child's small hand, placing a kiss on it. "But that was only because he was busy with his graduation and Daddy had to take care of his contract, remember? He came home a week after your birthday and brought you to the amusement park."
"Does that mean he's not coming home again?"
"No, no," she rushed. "No, I didn't mean it that way, Gray. I'm just saying, your Daddy was and still is busy with his career."
Grayson sighed before proceeding to ask, "How about Daddy Justin? Is he coming home with us back to Grandpops?"
And there it is. What she feared would happen. For Grayson to come searching for the void a person used to fill, for the absence of someone who used to be there. He was still too young to understand, that not everyone was meant to stay.
"I think he might not be coming home back to Crestmont until next month. He's busy with baskeball trainings." She explained carefully, wary with her choice of words to make sure he doesn't ask more. She hoped he would drop the subject once he got the answer he was looking for but instead, the kid had other plans.
"Daddy Justin haven't been coming around much anymore."
Olivia didn't know how to respond. How was she supposed to explain to a 6 year old kid?
"Mommy, can I ask you something?" he continued.
"Of course, sweetheart." Olivia answered, giving him his undivided attention, relieved with the change of subject.
"Do you still love Daddy?"
She froze, her body going completely still and she almost forgot how to breathe. She knew that one way or another, Grayson would start raising confusion and interrogate her for how things were as it seemed.
"Of course I do, honey." Olivia answered truthfully after a few moments of stunned silence. "What makes you think I don't?"
Grayson looks down on his toes, fumbling to put on his shirt before responding quietly. "All my friend's parents live in the same house. Even Aunt Lizzie and Uncle Luke lives under the same roof. You and Daddy live separately and my friend, Eli, says that if parents live separately, it's either they're already separated or not even together at all."
"That's not true!" She protested even if she knew that somehow, the boy was right. She was not expecting for Grayson's rampage anytime soon.
"Then why is Daddy living all the way across the globe? Why does he only 'visit' and not just stay here for good?"
"Gray—"
"Why was Daddy Justin even in the picture? Aunt Lizzie told me he's not my real daddy then why were you with him and not with Daddy?" He demanded.
"Grayson, that's—"
"I never even heard you and Daddy say 'I love you' at least once." The boy noted, his face dawning with realisation, his familiar emerald green eyes watching her closely.
"Yes, your Aunt Lizzie was right. Your Daddy Justin was not your real father. That's a whole lengthy different story for next time." The boy gazed at her, his eyes starting to gloss over at his discovery and she added, "Just because you never once heard your Dad and I say 'I love you' doesn't mean we don't love each other any less." She amends but it was too late for that because the boy had set his foot down on the issue and stood his ground in his other side of the argument. His face was crumpled with the same all-too-familiar scowl she usually sees from Montgomery. The similarities still sends a small excruciating pinch in her heart.
"Yes it does!" Grayson stubbornly argued.
"You're too young to know and understand these kind of stuff, Grayson." She spoke, defeated. "It's not as easy as you think it is!" But the boy had already stormed out of the room, leaving her crestfallen and helpless. She knew that the time would come where he would look for answers about the truth, or why it is the way it is, but she didn't expect that the day would come sooner than she expected. Grayson is a smart kid, unlike other kids his age, he's actually mature for his age and somehow, that was an even heartbreaking thought; having to see her 6-year-old son figure things out for himself when he shouldn't put himself through that kind of difficulty.
Sooner or later, he's gonna find out in his own way. How complicated things was, and still is, and how — what Olivia feared the most— he'd blame himself for it. How long is she gonna go and make him live with lies about his father?
She sighed and walked up to her closet, her hand digging down to the deepest part of her clothes until it hits the hard lid of the box she'd kept through the years. She carefully set aside the pile of folded clothes aside and pulled the box out, staring at the soft pink ribbon on top and delicately running her fingers above it. There was no way of turning back now that the box filled with memories she'd kept was held in her hands. She lifted the lid open and stared down at the neatly stacked polaroid pictures on the side, the receipts of movies they had watched, concert tickets and even ticket receipts from baseball games he had forced her to watch with him, the thin compilation of short handwritten letters he wrote for her, everything that made her heart jump with joy.
Olivia picked up the photographs from the organized memory box and sifted through each of them, staring at it hard as though if she stared hard enough, she could dive right in and go back to that memory. Pictures of Montgomery, just 15, and Olivia, 16, having their very first picture together with bright grins and rosy-tinted cheeks, a pizza in each hand. Olivia brushing her hair while staring through a bathroom mirror with a young Montgomery holding the camera ridiculously with a charcoal face mask on his face. A polaroid of Montgomery, in his highschool baseball uniform, holding a championship trophy with one hand and holding Olivia with the other. Montgomery and Olivia in a sidehug with the cheeks squished together. Montgomery basking underneath the golden hour of the sun, the sunlight casting shadows and making him look more magical with his hand outstretched as it held Olivia's. A candid photo of them mid-laugh, their eyes so close to clogging with tears of hysterics. Olivia, in her dance uniform, with a frenzied team on the background, just a few moments after they were announced as champion, with Montgomery beside her looking happier than her that they'd won. Ridiculous selfies. Random candid pictures. Homecoming pictures. Junior prom pictures. Even picture while they're having sex. More highschool after-game pictures, whether Montgomery's team had lost the game or not, he still had the biggest smile on his face just with her by his side.
Although there were pictures of happiness, there were also pictures that made her crumble. A photo she got from Noah; the mini Barbeque party her Dad held 5 summers away with Olivia and Justin talking closely with Grayson held in the young man's arms and Montgomery, a few feet away, watching them. Montgomery staring deeply to the camera, a young Grayson on his lap. Montgomery and Olivia, unaware with the camera, as they laughed heartily with the little boy that made the connection between them stronger than ever. Grayson's party, where Tyler took a picture of them as a family, how proud Montgomery looked and how normal and fitting and perfect they looked together. Then a paper that got stuck between the photographs which happened to be the last handwritten letter she got from him, 'Please don't give up on us yet..'
Olivia angrily shoved everything back inside the box, slammed the lid shut and threw the object across the room. She curled herself into a ball because no matter how long it had been since the ancient history of the two of them, it still felt fresh and the guilt and regret still gnaws her insides, each day, reminding her that this was the choice she had chosen and the path she decided to take and there was no way of turning away from it. Because she's lost him already. And although she wanted to try and take him back, it was 5 years too late for that.
〓
welp that was sad. tell me guys what u think! and don't forget to vote xoxo
anyway can we just take a moment to appreciate this?????
JESUS FUCKK ????