We love you (so please don't go)

Chapter 14: Reflections

TW: Mentions of bl00d, d3@th, gvn$, [sewerslide] and slight g0r3.

A/N: This chappie centers around Essie as she reflects on how she fared during the event as well as the d3@th of her first cousin twice removed and her dedushka's mentality. This is written entirely in Essie's POV in first person.

Something I forgot to mention is that; Penelope can see the past and future (even as far as events that happened before she was even born and/or will happen 3 centuries away) simultaneously while Essie and Affie can only see the past (even as far as the time of Greek gods and goddesses) and Melody can only see in the future, but (unlike her mom, aunt and cousin) with limits and can only foreshadow events when conscious and only an hour before it happens.

Once my sister closed the door behind her, I laid back down on the bed, chuckling as my daughter clung onto my arm, drooling on it as she slept.

I don't mind, though. She drools in her sleep and is snuggled up to me every single night, so I'm used to it at this point.

I looked up at the ceiling as I reflected on the 'nightmare', or rather, 'vision' me, Affie, and Penelope had.

The bl00d gushing out of my first cousin twice removed and getting all over dedushka as she bl3d out and hugged him.

"I never regretted helping you in tending to your injuries whenever my parents would 'punish' you for 'defying them'." My cousin said to dedushka in her dying breath. "I never regretted going against mama and papa's orders to cut all ties with you after they kicked you out of their house. I never regretted writing all those letters and making and taking all those telephone calls. I never regretted sneaking out to see you and spend time with you in secret. I still don't, and I know brat doesn't either."

"So she had a brother and was one of the children of dedushka's aunt and uncle who @bv$3d him for five years..." I muttered. "And they deliberately decided to disobey their parents just to keep in contact with dedushka.'

My lips twitched into a small smile. "That's sweet."

"I've said this once, and I will say this again; my parents, if you could even call them that, were too hard on you." My cousin said.

"After all they did, I don't think they even should've been parents in the first place." I muttered. "If the phrase; 'Every child deserves a parent, but not every parent deserves children' were people, it would be them."

"You're amazing JUST the way you are." My cousin said to dedushka. "You didn't need them to change you. You didn't need them to make you 'perfect' because you already were and still are."

"That is true." I pointed out to nothing. "It's sad that dedushka can't see that."

"Me and brat always knew our parents never truly loved us and just had us because it was required of them and so that they could mold us into what they wanted us to be and not what we wanted to be." My cousin said before taking her last breath. "I spent a lot of my life thinking that brat would be the only one who would ever genuinely love me, and I am extremely grateful and happy to have been proven wrong by you and our friends."

"It's sad that she d!3d brvt@lly and unexpectedly at the age of 20, but at least she d!3d knowing that she was loved by people other than her brother." I muttered to myself.

My eyes trailed over to the digital alarm clock on the nightstand.

2:10 am

I sighed. I shouldn't be thinking about this at 2 in the morning.

My mind then wandered to the event I had went to earlier.

Thanks to dedushka's reassurance and some pointers from prababushka beforehand, I managed to survive and interact with the other guests without slipping up even once.