Save ourselves- One Direction

Avery & Roxanne & Daisy

Avery

I was woken up the next day by the kettle loudly fulfilling its task in the kitchen. It took me a moment to realize that I was home again. Not in my bed, though, but on the couch next to Harry. He was still asleep and had one arm wrapped tightly around me. He enveloped me so comfortingly with his warmth that I would have loved to fall asleep right away. However, the realization that the kettle was doing its job made me realize that the next day had obviously dawned and there would be a lot of unpleasant questions and answers today. Carefully, I disentangled myself from Harry's embrace and rolled carefully off the couch. In my pyjamas, I trotted into the kitchen where my mother was standing, apparently making herself coffee. When she saw me, she looked up in surprise.

"Morning."

"Good morning, sweetheart. Do you want some coffee too?"

I nodded hesitantly. My mother poured the hot water into the filter holder filled with coffee powder and let the hot liquid drip into a pot.

"How did you sleep?" she then asked.

"Not too bad," I replied.

"I saw you sleeping on the sofa earlier and thought I'd let you sleep a bit more. Sorry if I woke you up."

"It's okay, it's anyway better if I get up before Dad sees us on the sofa together."

Mom chuckled softly and then smiled warmly at me.

"Well, he seemed to take it pretty well last night. At least I didn't hear a single bad word about Harry last night," she said, amused.

"Do you think he likes him?", I asked.

"Well, if he stays long enough for Dad to get to know him, probably yes. But I guess that paternal protective instinct will always stick around."

"Even 20 years from now?"

"For the rest of your life or his. Parents are like that."

I thought of Daisy's parents. Her dad obviously didn't seem to think so.

"Most parents," I therefore corrected her.

Mom looked at me for a moment with raised eyebrows, but then nodded. The coffee was done. She filled two cups and handed one to me.

"Do you want to drink it on the balcony?"

I nodded and we sneaked quietly into the living room past the sleeping Harry and quietly opened the balcony door that led outside. The street was already buzzing with activity and we watched boats on the canal in silence for a moment before I finally asked the question that had been on the tip of my tongue for so long.

"Why didn't you tell me about Lucy's illness?"

Mom took a deep breath, set her cup on the small table, then turned to me.

"I understand if you're angry about it, even though I didn't have any bad intentions, it wasn't until after the incident that I realized how stupid it was. Lucy was diagnosed with multiple personality disorder when she was 17. She had been exhibiting very strange behavior for a few years before that no one could explain. One moment she was sweet and kind and the next aggressive and uncontrollable. But it took quite a while to find out what the real problem was. And because the treatment options weren't as good as they are today, it also took a long time for Lucy to get her illness under control. Her other personality, she called her Andrea, was manipulative, aggressive and uncontrollable. Lucy herself was actually a kind, careful and loving person, but her illness put a lot of strain on our whole family and it was often not easy to get along with her. And then when I married Mark and got pregnant with you, we had a terrible fall out."