take a chance (on me) | s. filan & westlife

𝚜𝚒𝚡

15th december 2019

this was the day that the whole filan family had been dreading but no one more than melodie. she had gotten the call during a uni study session from her older brother shane. since 2015 when mae, the matriarch of the filan family, got her lung cancer diagnosis, the murky shadow of the thought they could lose their mother to this disease terrified them. however, they never imagined that today would be the day that any of them would get the call saying their dear mother had passed away. especially melodie. and certainly not when she was at university with a few days left until the end of the unviersity year. even though it was a sunday, she was part of a study group for some of her classes - and certainly for the ones she had upcoming exams for.  

getting that phone call from her older brother that day would seemingly haunt the young girl the rest of her life. especially hearing just how distressed he was over the phone as another thing that would always haunt her. it had sounded as though shane had been crying for hours and was in desperate need of oxygen but couldn't get any. she couldn't have run down her uni's hallway quick enough to the front office so she could get signed out of the study session. only for her to find out that it had already been done for her just fifteen minutes before she got the call from shane. 

marielle's pov

i had just come back to my history study session from a quick lunch break when all of a sudden, i hear my phone ring relentlessly. thankfully, i had recently changed my ringtone from westlife's 'world of our own' to coldplay's 'viva la vida' otherwise that would have been weird having one of the songs of my own brother's band as my ringtone. but, besides that, why was i being called? i declined the phone call and went back to my history study i was doing. that was until a second and then third time my phone rang, pissing me off with me being actual seconds away from chucking it out of the window now that my face was red with embarrassment. 

that was though until my teacher who was in charge of the study session walked past my table with a comforting hand on my shoulder, whispering to me that it was quite important for me to answer the phone call. and hearing that sparked some sort of memory in my mind as to why my phone would start ringing during class. but, still kind of annoyed, i rolled my eyes but as soon as i saw who it was that was actually calling me, i just had to believe what the teacher was saying when he said it was important. 

ever since our mam got diagnosed with lung cancer back in 2016 when i was sixteen, mam and dad put the rule in that if any news was to be revealed out mam, good or bad and i was still at school or university and if it was shane that had called, i was not to ignore it. and thinking about it, the last time shane rang me whilst i was at school, it was to let me know that mam had been sent to the sligo north west hospice which wasn't good news so, this news can't be good either.

shay 

"shay, what's wrong? why are you calling me? i'm at school?"

"melodie, you...you *crying* you need to go to the front office now, gillian is waiting for you" 

"woah, what, why? what's wrong? why are you crying shay?" 

"oh fuck, is ma okay? shay is ma okay?!" 

"no babe, mam's not okay! please, grab your bag and go to the front office!"

"what...okay...umm, that's very ominous shay! can i have more information other than just 'mam's not okay'? did something happen to her? like, is she like, i don't know, breathing still? like, is she still alive?!"