𝐖𝐀𝐒𝐓𝐄𝐋𝐀𝐍𝐃𝐒 𝐎𝐅 𝐓𝐈𝐌𝐄 ━ five hargreeves

15│IN MEMORIAM

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❛ ᴡᴀsᴛᴇʟᴀɴᴅs ᴏғ ᴛɪᴍᴇ​​​​​​​​​​. ❜ ° . ༄
- ͙۪۪˚   ▎❛ 𝐅𝐈𝐅𝐓𝐄𝐄𝐍 ❜   ▎˚ ͙۪۪̥◌
»»————- ꒰ ɪɴ ᴍᴇᴍᴏʀɪᴀᴍ ꒱


❝ WHAT'S WITH YOU
& THAT BOOK? ❞

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"You're awfully quiet today," Five observed as they walked.

Lola shrugged, not caring to answer. The girl's silence made him frown in confusion as he was used to his companion's normally chatty personality. Taking a one-eighty didn't sit as well with him as he would've liked— she hadn't even vocalized an answer to his most recent statement, much less any of the ones before that.

She sighed, "I'm just. . . thinking."

"About what?" It was unlike him to be so nosy but again, he was unused to the persistent silence.

She shrugged again. "The past, my family. I realized I don't actually know that much about them. Sure, I lived with my uncle, mom and dad my entire life and we had a ton of memories together but I never knew about them— where they came from, my heritage, what they were like as kids— I was always focused on the present and interacting with them as my parents and my uncle that I never really hung out with them as I would a friend."

"So? I never hung out with my siblings like that."

"We were always a close family," the girl told him. "It was just the three of us. Mom didn't have any siblings and both of their parents died before I was born so I never met my grandparents. I suppose since you have a larger family and a different childhood than me it's not something you're as concerned about. It just seems like I should know the three most constant people in my life better than I do."

"I'm sure they understand why you never asked," the boy said with a surprising amount of thoughtfulness. "It's a parent's job to raise their child, not to be their friend. They probably wouldn't have expected you to ask them anything like that."

"Probably," Lola agreed quietly, "but that still doesn't change the fact that I wish I could know. I'll never know now if I'm fifteen percent Italian or twelve percent English. I'll never know how many friends my dad had growing up or who my mom's childhood crush was. My uncle won't be able to tell me why he and my dad were so close or why they decided to start a department store. I just know the basics and retold stories, like how my parents met or what happened when I was born. I don't know anything before that."

"Neither do I and I'm not too worried about it. I'm adopted so maybe that's a part of it but I was never too concerned about my birth mother or finding out where I was from."

"That's right," the brunette said with sudden realization. "You don't have a real dad, do you? All of the women that gave birth on October first weren't pregnant when the day first began. That is so weird," to his (unexpected) relief, her tone had lightened.

"I suppose it is a bit unorthodox," he admitted, "I've never been able to do a DNA test to see how that messed with my genetics but I expect that would be quite interesting. I think that's the only interest I'd ever have in my past, though."

"You are more concerned about the future, aren't you?" she teased him. The boy rolled his eyes in exasperation but let the question slide. 

"There's no point in wishing for what can't be," he told her instead, "it will only make you regret what you've lost and cause you to lose focus on the future. Anything that's happened up until this point has made you, you, and I don't see a reason to worry about it."