Chiara Daveys is living a good life in England - if you ignore her constant struggle with food, lack of a guardian and how she's constantly working to pay the bills.
At 17 years old, she's been unaware of her 6 brothers who have spent the 14 years o...
(AN- #SHORTERCHAPTERRRRRRR And you can't even complain, you were BLESSSED with a pretty much 2000 word hapter last time.)
Whilst writing this chapter and the last one, I've just had Waiting Room by Phoebe Bridgers going on and on in my head. So I put the song at the top bc I can.
It doesn't really have anything to do w the actual chapter😭 I just love this song
I feel like this chapter is so shit😭
PLEASE VOTE AND COMMENT.
Another chapter will be posted after this gets some votes and comments
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I listened carefully to Chiara's fairly confusing directions and eventually Noah and I found our way to Aimee's grave.
Aimee Daveys 1976 - 2022
The grave is well kept, as I'd expected, and there are fresh white flowers, obviously the ones Chiara had placed earlier today.
"She's really gone," Noah whispers.
The cemetery is quiet and it makes it easier to reflect.
Out of all of us, Noah most definitely has the least memories of Aimee.
I have the most, though.
Our mother isn't really spoken about much in our household, mainly due the decisions she made regarding our youngest sibling.
I love the woman who raised me for the beginning of my life, I really do. However, I can't find any love inside of me for the woman who decided it was okay to separate Chiara from her family, never making her aware of her brothers who have loved her even when we didn't have her with us for the majority of her life, searching endlessly to bring her home.
Standing in front of her grey headstone with gold lettering makes the bitter fact that we'll never see her again even more real.
As a family, we never expected that we'd see her again after she left. But there was always the possibility. She could open those doors and come home.
Now it's a cold, harsh fact that she really can't.
Our mother is dead. And I haven't seen her for fourteen the past years of my life and will never see her again.
I wouldn't say that she had much part of shaping me into the man I am today, instead it was her absence taking that role instead.
When I was only fourteen, I had to step up and help look after my younger siblings as my father was too heartbroken to do so himself.
I stepped up in her absence. And I grew up.
I breathe out a long sigh through my nose and close my eyes for only a second. Allowing myself that second to feel the sadness I'd denied myself to bask in for the past fourteen years without the comfort of a mother.
I open my eyes, press my fingers to my lips before gently touching her gravestone. I turn around and walk to the car, allowing Noah to stand and reflect for a little while longer.
If she never died, I wouldn't be taking my little sister home in a couple of days. I'd still have found her, sure, but there's no way I could've gotten custody of her and there's no way Aimee would allow her to come home.
So maybe it had to be this way.
Maybe.
Or maybe she could've stayed, and I wouldn't have had to search endlessly just to find my 17 year old sister, Noah's twin.
And maybe I could've grown up with the comforting arms of a mother.
