Snow

Epilogue

How do you explain the feeling of complete and utter bliss, but more? How do you explain the way my life had gone for ordinary to extraordinary, just by the presence of my beautiful Batman? How do you explain the way losing three children, but always still having Willow, felt? How do you explain my love for the small family I kept so close? You can't, because the emotions were too much for me to think about, let alone describe.

All I will say is this: my life turned out completely different to what I'd imagined and hoped, but somehow, it was better than anything I could've wished for. And I was so, so grateful for the life I ended up with.

Willow's POV

Mom had always called me her happiness. From the moment I was old enough to understand what that meant until the day she died, she said I was her Willow, her joy. No matter how great her life was, she told me, she was at her happiest when she was with me. No one, she promised - not music, not her friends, not even dad - made her feel as happy as I did. And, really, I believed her. Because I remember every argument her and dad had ever had, and I remember the way she'd only smile when I was near. I remember, somehow, those months when I was a baby where it was just me and her. And I remember how sad she'd look when she was on her own, and how that sadness would lift the tiniest bit when she saw my face.

For dad, however, I was Kota. I was his darling baby girl, his only child - of course, I was mom's only child too, but she didn't like to talk about her lack of biological children. Dad had loved me, I knew, as a daughter, despite the fact that I was actually the kid of one of his best friends.

Mom and dad had explained my actual parents when I was seven and just about old enough to understand and not kick off about it. I'd been fine with it, but I'd grown jealous when mom fell pregnant only a few months later.

The poor women, she'd never managed to get through a full pregnancy - she'd only ever gotten as far as six months, that that was with her second miscarriage. I knew mum's inability to successfully carry a child hurt both my parents, and I'd always done my best as a child to act the perfect daughter, as though I was making up for their lack of actual kids. However, now at the age of thirty one, I can see how foolish I was to think that they'd love me any less because I wasn't biologically theirs. In every way that mattered, I was their child, and they were my parents.

Mom and dad had a way of being disgustingly adorable and yet completely beautiful as a couple. They were completely in sync, in that they knew what the other was thinking through literally a second of eye contact. Their matching tattoos were an example of them being disgustingly adorable; they had so many. Mom had explained the story behind each of them one time while dad was on tour, and dad had done it too, unknowing that mom had already told me. I knew they meant every word of it, because their stories and meanings matched perfectly. It was cute in a way that had made me retch at the time.

First of all, they had their 'Batman Biersack-Parke' and 'Lala Biersack-Parke' tattoos, with the little crown above them. They were definitely my favourite tattoos of their matching ones, and the story behind them was adorable; spontaneous, impulsive, and genuinely cute. Underneath those tattoos, mom had gotten 'Willow', and dad 'Kota', written with a cute little heart on either side. The first time I'd seen them was the first time I truly appreciated how much they loved me.

Under those, they had 'little lego' printed in a way that broke my heart every time I saw it. It was so small and there was a pile of building blocks drawn next to it, and the fact that they'd created a whole bedroom for this baby and then lost it broke my heart. I could've had three siblings, and yet they never managed to live past six months - 'little lego', whom they'd given the name Tristen, had lasted the longest at just over six months, but their third miscarriage was at four months. After their third baby was lost, mom got sterilised. She said she didn't want to go through that again, and that the fact that she'd lost three kids already was enough to show it just wasn't meant to be - and so they just had me.

The day they died, they were on their way back home from the villa they'd moved into in Hawaii just over ten years beforehand. I was twenty when I moved out of the house, and they moved to Hawaii only a year later - they were forty five and fifty at the time. Apparently, the story behind that was sickly sweet too, but they'd never had the chance to tell me it.

Onthe drive back to LA for their usual two-monthly visit, their car was struck inthe side by a lorry that had skidded off the road. They'd both died instantly,and were found on the scene clutching each other's hands. The pictures I'dlater seen left me crying and broken, but I was glad that they'd been ' K3T