Way Back When (Elizabeth. O)

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Mia's POV:

February 16, 2005. (Elizabeth's Birthday)

"Okay Elizabeth, it's time for gifts!" Her mother yells, and slowly, all of the family pours into the room. It's a lot of people, seeing as her family isn't exactly small. There's me and my mother, Jarnette and David Olsen, Ellie's parents, the twins, Trent, Jake and Taylor. Jake and Trent are the brothers, and Taylor is the youngest sister. So all in all there's 10 of us all gathered in the living room.

Unfortunately for Lizzie, it was a school day so me and Elizabeth walked home from school together. My day was okay, it actually sucked but seeing Lizzie happy and lively was enough to cheer me up. Once we got home we all waited for her parents to come home from work, mine too, and then here we are.

We all watched as she picked up the first of the gifts. I did end up getting her the necklace. It was pretty even for me and I didn't wear jewellery. It was a slim silver necklace with small Cuban links. At the end of it was a little silver heart with the initials ML & EO. It was in a little blue box and was wrapped neatly in red wrapping paper that Esther did before she left for work this morning. I rushed home and got it then I put it with all the other gifts in the sitting room. 

"Okay, what one shall I start with?" She asks her mother, who is a really nice and caring person, even if her and David had gotten a divorce.

"Save the really little one in the red wrapping til' the end." I say from my squished seat on the sofa next to Mary-Kate and Ashley. She flashes me bright smile a reaches for the biggest box there is.

She opens the all of the gifts and does leave the littlest one until it's the only one left. All of the other gifts were from her direct family and grandmothers and fathers. None of them were as personal and thought out as mine however.

Mom and I went to the jewellery store and spent about 30 minutes just picking the necklace and heart that I thought she'd like the most.

She carefully takes off the wrapping and unveils the little blue jewellery box. She slowly opens it and her face lights up when she sees it's contents. I instantly feel a weight lifted off my shoulders, a release of a breath I was clinging onto. She turns her smile from the box to me, and if even possible, her face lights up even more.

"Mia, I- I don't know what to say..." She stammers, clearly both surprised and happy with the gift I'd given her.

"What's in the box?" Taylor asks and goes to take it from her but Lizzie swipes it away from her hand and holds it close to her chest that makes my heart jump a little.

She lowers it so that the little one can see, when she does she looks confused, but then she sees the smile on both mine and Lizzie's face and is less confused.

"Let's have a look Lizzie." David says and she hands over the case, albeit cautiously. I smile at her reaction and the way she seems so protective over it. Esther is watching this whole thing play out with a toothy grin, almost as wide as mine.

"Эй, я думаю, мы приняли правильное решение. Думаю, ей это нравится." (Hey, I think we made the right decision. I think she likes it.) I say to my mother in my native language, Russian. Both MK and Ashley look at me in awe, as speaking Russian is foreign to them. Literally.

"Вы выбрали это. Я просто плачу за все и делаю все красиво." "You picked it. I just pay for everything and make everything look pretty." She says and it makes me laugh, she's not wrong. I do work sometimes after school at the local shop so I didn't have pennies to the dollar when it comes to that necklace.

"Mia, this is beautiful." She says and walks over to me and pushes her sisters out of the way so she can get to me.

"I know, that's because I picked it." I say and she places a small kiss on my cheek. I'd have preferred to have her lips on mine, but her whole family, including her mother and father, were in the room so I understood.

"Can you help me out it on?" She asks and pulls her hair into a loose pintail and wraps it around her neck so it draped over her collar bone. I pull the side with the heart around her front, and the clasp around the back of her neck and buckled it.

She dropped her hair and picked up the heart with the inscription on it and inspected it thoroughly. She smiled and I can tell by the look on her face that she's already grown attached to the pendant.

"I love it. This is the best gift ever..." she says and pulls me into a tight hug, and I never feel like letting go.

"Even better than the bike we got you a couple of years ago?" MK asks and everyone looks down at me and Lizzie to see her reaction.

"Yes, easily." She laughs and everyone moans and groans at our fluffiness. I don't care that her whole family was in the room, I kissed her on the lips. It was only small but they all saw and looked from one to another in awkwardness.

"Okay, time for cake." Janette says and we all get up from our positions on the couch and in the room and flood into the kitchen. It was a large, multiple story chocolate cake that would easily feed the large family, plus me and my mother.

She then avoids me for the rest of the afternoon, but I can tell she doesn't mean to be mean or rude in any way, but I doesn't mean I'm not a little hurt. But any time I look at her she's either smiling brightly at me, or clutching the necklace so tightly that you'd think if she'd let go it'd disappear. It warmed my heart in the way her company or... well, maybe not her touch, but it's really reassuring.

This is all great. It's calm. Lizzie's happy, I'm happy, but there's a sickening feeling in the pit of my stomach that I just can't seem to shake. It's a feeling I've only ever had once.

When my mother told me about my father.

And how he left me and mom. How he had me, and then when I wasn't what he wanted, or when he got bored, he jumped ship. He left me and mom to fend for ourselves while he was fucking some whore from the street. With any luck he got a disease and died.

But I can't seem to understand for the life of me why that feeling I have now, and the feeling I had way back when, has any correlation. And I'm going to find out, because whatever it is I need to stop it. Because I am not leaving Lizzie and I refuse to believe that there is any way that she'd leave me.

So believe me when I say, no one is going anywhere.

A/N: Oooooh, dramatic irony. What do you think of this one?