Finding Peace

The Epiloge

"Yes! I win! Again." Brooke burst into an overly proud smile and laugh. Yes she had won. Again.
Arita and her family were gathered around their large wooden kitchen table, all annoyingly throwing down their unused uno cards. The fifth game in a row no one but Brooke had one.

"That's it, I'm done." Michael threw his cards down and got up, walking to the fridge, Arita figured he would eat out of annoyance.

Arita laughed playfully, "good job Brookie, another win for the queen." She teased.
Brooke gave a proud smile then started to put the cards away.

Arita got up and moved to the other side of the table where her dad sat. He put his arm around her and smiled down into his beautiful daughters eyes.

The past week has been a lot harder than the family had expected. Her fathers cheeks had been stained with tears, along with her step-mother's cheeks. Arita had cried herself to sleep every night, and woken up to nightmares of her previous brother crying into his death. But they were getting progressively better. Last night she had slept all the way through the night with only little tears crusted in her cheeks. It was sign things would get easier.

If you looked very closely into each person's eyes of her family, you could see the pain and tears that had been shed. But also the joy and love that was being spread slowly, day by day.

"How are you sweet heart." Arita's father asked gently.

"I'm alright, slowly getting better, how about you, dad?"

He paused for a moment, leaving her eyes, then spoke. "I'm getting there."

She nodded and looked at him. His eyes were lined with small bags and his forehead lined with stress. The long years were wearing on him and Arita felt sad for him. But she also saw life in his face, that he wasn't going to live his days being sad, even if he still had to work on being perfectly happy. Arita knew he never would be entirely joyful.

She snapped her self out of feeling sad for her father and threw a small smile on her face, "on a more happy note Brooke and Michael are official."
She grinned from ear to ear and her father gave a surprised and happy look, then they both looked over to the fridge where Michael and Brooke were giggling and playing with the whipped cream.

It made Arita happy to see that her friend and brother were happy together. Knowing that something good came out of their journey after so many bad things, it was almost a relief to know it wasn't all for nothing.

"Well good for them." He smiled.

"Sweetie?" A light voice came from the living room, "the DVD player isn't working right, could you come fix it?"

Arita's father smiled softly, kissed Arita on the top of the head and walked into the living room to his wife.

Arita followed him into the living room and leaned up agains the door frame, crossing her arms she watched as the two crouched down near the DVD player laughing to themselves trying to figure out what was wrong.

She then turned her head into the kitchen, where Brooke now had whipped cream all on her nose and was laughing with Michael. Arita smiled at the cute couple.

She looked back into the living room to see that her parents had fallen onto the floor laughing, and all she heard in that moment was laughter. And happiness overflowed inside of her.

And in that exact moment, a light bulb went off in her head. Sure, her mother was still in the ocean, and Arita probably wouldn't ever see her again, and sure she lost the best step-brother she had ever had. But she had a family here. A family that had been through a ton of crap that none of them deserved. She realized she had a family that cared, that concurred, that loved when things got hard, and laughed when tears were buried underneath.

Even though she might live with the nightmares and pain for a while, her whole family would. But she new in that moment, that no matter what life threw her way, she would have a family right by her side. Dead, alive, on the land, or in the ocean, she had a family. And right then, as she watched her family laugh and love, she new, that she was finally at peace.
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It's over!! Wow! Well I hope you enjoyed it! I had fun writing it when I did hahah. So I'm planning on starting a new book! ' Falling in Love With My Best Friend' but I don't think I'll publish it until it's done or half-way done. Just so I don't have to worry about you guys and not having it written in time or something. So if you wanna read that, stay updated on my page! I think I'm deleting the other book I started, it's not going well, sorry to anyone who was reading it! Thank you so much for reading this one though! Love you guys <3
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