PROMISE - S. CLEARWATER

𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐏𝐓𝐄𝐑 𝐒𝐄𝐕𝐄𝐍𝐓𝐄𝐄𝐍: 𝐎𝐍𝐋𝐘 𝐋𝐎𝐕𝐄

𝘖𝘕𝘓𝘠 𝘓𝘖𝘝𝘌 𝘊𝘈𝘕 𝘏𝘜𝘙𝘛 𝘓𝘐𝘒𝘌 𝘛𝘏𝘐𝘚
𝘔𝘜𝘚𝘛 𝘏𝘈𝘝𝘌 𝘉𝘌𝘌𝘕 𝘈 𝘋𝘌𝘈𝘋𝘓𝘠 𝘒𝘐𝘚𝘚
𝘖𝘕𝘓𝘠 𝘓𝘖𝘝𝘌 𝘊𝘈𝘕 𝘏𝘜𝘙𝘛 𝘓𝘐𝘒𝘌 𝘛𝘏𝘐𝘚.

- 𝐎𝐍𝐋𝐘 𝐋𝐎𝐕𝐄 𝐂𝐀𝐍 𝐇𝐔𝐑𝐓 𝐋𝐈𝐊𝐄 𝐓𝐇𝐈𝐒, 𝐏𝐀𝐋𝐎𝐌𝐀 𝐅𝐀𝐈𝐓𝐇

━━━━━━♡♥♡━━━━━━

I smile as Claire jumps into the shallow waves of the ocean. Quil does the same, though his smile is accompanied by a laugh as well. She really is the cutest thing in the world. Selfishly, I hope she never grows up and just stays small forever. I know Quil would be entirely against this, but it doesn't matter to me. I just want something to stay good forever.

    "How are you doing without him?" Quil asks softly. There's no one I want to talk to about this - save for Emily, and even that's debatable - but I most definitely don't want to talk about it with Quil. He's already made his stance on Jake, Seth and Leah's little abandonment clear. I don't want to pick a fight, but he's the one opening the door for it to happen.

    "Barely."

    He nods and looks back at Claire as she jumps up and down in the water. "I don't know what I'd do without her all the time. How did I ever do anything?"

    "You didn't even know she existed. And for a while, she didn't even exist yet."

He smiles at me and comes over to sit next to me on the rocks. It's not normal for him to want to be closer to me than Claire, but maybe he's finally decided to get over the fact that Seth left and I can't do anything about it. "Seth always existed while you existed. What did it feel like before him?"

I sigh and pick at the dry skin on my knuckles. "I don't really know, honestly. I didn't know it felt wrong without him until I had him, and then it just felt like he filled a void I didn't know was there before."

    "So...weird? But only after?"

    "Yeah, exactly. Because I didn't know about any of this, and I guess I had a pretty shitty life before you guys found me, everything kinda just felt how it felt. I didn't realize it wasn't normal until I had Seth and Emily and the rest of you guys."

    "And now it's okay?"

    I grin. "It was okay until my boyfriend and future sister-in-law and...Jacob decided to leave me here where they can't talk to me anymore."

    He nudges my shoulder with his own and pokes my calf. "You still have the rest of us, even if everyone seems like they're mad at you. You're part of our family now. Families disagree sometimes, but we all still like each other."

    "Thanks, Quil. I'm glad you don't hate me yet."

"I won't hate you. You're my little sister, just like Seth is my annoying little brother."

    "He's not annoying!"

Quil kicks my shin. "That's an opinion, not a fact, Willow."

    "Everything I say is a fact if I believe it enough, Quil."

He shakes his head but is quickly distracted by Claire running over and jumping into his lap, covering him in wet sand and salty water. I smile, but when he tells her to come give me a big hug, shriek and hold my arms up in defense. She's so small that she sneaks under and wraps her little arms around my neck, getting the entire front of my shirt and pants soaked and dirty. She doesn't realize that Quil told her to climb on me to get me dirty, so instead of hurting her feelings, I hug her back and glare at Quil over her shoulder. He gives me a lopsided grin and shrugs.