The Pink TuTu - chapter outtakes

Permanent

Taylor makes a realization that crushes him.

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November 19th, 2016

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*Montgomery-Hastings*

Its Saturday.

It's been 5 months since Rosie vanished into thin air from the Rosewood Zoo.

It's starting to get cold now.

Fall is here and the temperatures are no longer in the 80s and 90s.

Jeans, sweatshirts, tennis shoes, these are all the things that Rosie would have loved to put into her closet. Because ever season, Spencer and Aria would let her have a Fashion Show of sorts.

Rosie would try on her winter/fall outfits from the year before, to see if they still fit.

They would put on music and have a strobe light in the living room, where one parents would sit with the camera, while the other parent would stay in her bedroom, and help her change clothes.

Everyone would show up – Hanna and Caleb (with Mason and his clothes), Emily and Alison, with Taylor and Natalie, and Mike and Lucy, with Ronan and his clothes.

Every one of the kids would participate in the Fashion Show.

It would take hours to get through all of the shows, there would always be at least one timeout initiated, and more times than not, at least two of the kids would be in tears once or twice.

But it was always fun.

Always.

It's a funny word, isn't it?

One of the synonyms is permanent.

It should be permanent fun.

Family should be permanent.

Little kids, running around the house, laughing, squealing, arguing about who gets to use the red cup for lunch, or the blue plate for dinner, tattling about so-and-so is looking at me, Mom!

Life...

Life should be permanent, to a fault.

Little kids should get to grow up to be surly, grumpy teenagers, who grow up to be lazy, uninspired pre-adults, who turn into wonderful adulty-adults.

There are many things that can be permanent in life – a house, granted nothing dramatic happens like a tornado, a car, a treehouse, a childhood bedroom...

... the ability to lay in the floor and laugh until your blue in the face because your 18-month-old finds mommy sneezing to be hilarious.

Many other things are always.

Decorating the house for the different seasons – leafs and pumpkins for fall, trees and wreathes and red and green for winter, pinks and purples and flowers for the spring.

Sometimes, that permanent feeling being yanked away doesn't take hold until months after the traumatic, life-altering episode.

Like now.

Alison and Emily would love to say that their family is handling the disappearance of their 5-year-old niece perfectly.

There was explaining of what was going on, there was crying, and days where they prayed so hard, and for just a one, teeny-tiny little second...

They thought it might have worked.

There were times where they held their daughter as she cried because of the haunting, never-ending nightmares.

There was times when they told Taylor it was ok to not be strong. To cry. To scream and yell.

They thought everyone understood it... when Taylor was so mad because they didn't set out Rosie's pink and purple cup and plate for the "first day of school family dinner".

When Natalie stomped off to her bedroom, to slam the door, because she no longer allowed to walk to the park alone.

They thought everything was getting to be ok again.

But that permanent feeling that they all wished they could still have? The one that was yanked away in a split-second 5 months ago?

It finally snuck up on him.

It finally hit him that his baby cousin was gone and no amount of praying or looking or wishing will bring her back.

It hits him, on the second Saturday of November, when he is out with his sister and his mothers. When they are buying new Fall decorations for the house.

It hits him when he sees it.

The tablecloth for Thanksgiving. The one that can be colored and drawn on.

The one that his aunts had last year.

The one that Rosie was so excited to show him. The one on which he and she played tic-tac-toe and all of the other games.

It's where Alison finds him after sending him off to get something and him not coming back and her worrying and going to look for him.

It's there, in the middle of the table-setting isle, that she finds her 12-year-old son, stock-still, staring at that damned tablecloth.

She approaches him slowly, not wanting to scare him, but...

"Tay? Are you okay, sweetie?"

He doesn't turn towards her. He seems not to have heard her, and she goes to panic, but then...

"She's not coming back, is she, Mama?"

And he turns to her, and the look in his eyes breaks her heart, and she understands in that moment that, no, everything has not been fine these past couple of months.

He finally breaks then. He breaks in the middle of Target, in the kitchen section.

He sobs and it hurts her so much and the only thing she can do is... hug him. And shush him. And tell him I know, baby. I know.

It would be so nice if things that were supposed to be permanent would actually stay permanent, wouldn't it?

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There are so many things we wish would stay permanent. Wouldn't life be so much easier if they did?

Please comment and let me know what you thought. 💚