Sweetened || HS AU (COMPLETED)

• EPILOGUE •

| Harry |
| Three years later |

"Today marks the third anniversary of the death of Jailen Saldana, the wife of billionaire Harry Styles. Her tragic passing was the result of a horrible car accident. To this day, there's no detailed evidence of what happened that night and Styles still refuses to discuss it. There's been no sign of him whatsoever since that day. I can't blame him, though. It's never easy to deal with something so tragic. Wherever he is, we hope he is well-"

I shut the TV off, blinking at my reflection.

On top of my head sat a pink party hat, the number 4 slightly hanging off it. It would take weeks to get all of the glitter out of my hair, not to mention the feathers from the boas. Zayn was right, I should've cut my hair years ago. It was too late to go back now. I was committed and the girls liked it just as much as their mother did. I've lost count of how many nights ended with Hayden braiding my hair.

I turned around, facing the mess of birthday presents and discarded plates of cake. The decorations had begun to fall off of the wall and I sighed heavily. I was exhausted considering it was almost 11 pm, it was time for bed.

I made my way down the hall, cursing when I tripped over yet another Hot Wheels car that was supposed to be put away.

"Hayden!" I called out to her, grabbing the toy off of the floor and making my way up the stairs, "I told you to get your stuff up, munchkin! We're supposed to be cleaning, we can't leave our stuff on the floor!"

I made my way down the hall, my ears perking up when the bass coming from Hayden's room made the walls vibrate. I knocked on her door before opening it, unable to keep from smiling as the lyrics to Closer by Neyo filled my ears.

Hayden and Josie danced around Hayden's room, her LED lights were set to strobe mode and flashing a series of colors. Hayden still had on her dress from the party, her tutu spinning whenever she moved and a cowboy hat on her head. Josie, however, was wearing Hayden's dinosaur costume, the sleeves hanging off of her arms as she nearly tripped over her feet.

"What do we have here?" I asked, chuckling when they screamed.

Hayden turned towards me before gesturing to her sister, "Josie's a dinosaur," She said, her voice flat as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.

I looked at Josie, who waved at me as I walked further into the room. I kneeled so that I was at eye level with her and when I was close enough, she growled.

I gasped, faking my fright as I pushed the dinosaur hood off of her head, "It's bath time, little dinosaur. And you," I looked at Hayden, "You up for a sleepover tonight?"

Hayden hummed, "Maybe, maybe not."

I stood to my feet, Josie in my arms, "Tell you what, if you can have this room cleaned and ready for a sleepover by the time I'm done giving your sister a bath, we can go for ice cream every day this week when you get out of school."

Her eyes widened excitedly and I was hardly able to finish my sentence before she was picking her toys up off of the floor. I snorted out a chuckle, turning to leave her to her cleaning.

Josie's bathtime was smooth sailing compared to normal. Usually, her bathtimes would end with puddles of water on the bathroom floor as well as my clothes being soaked. I was thankful that she was old enough to participate in the swim lessons with Hayden now. Since she was a baby, she loved swimming.

I was delusional and even though I was never one to believe in fate or magical coincidences, I was convinced that it was all related to how Jailen died. I was convinced that Josie felt connected to water as a way of being connected to Jailen but when I would say it out loud, I sounded like fucking insane. Jason agreed, though and so did Nick and Zayn but I couldn't allow myself to think about it too much, otherwise I'd be searching for signs that weren't there.