Falling In Love With You | cth

Epilogue

epilogue | new start

"Its okay to cry, you know?"

"I rather not, I will cry the whole day and have a child run after me."

"You don't always have to put on a mask and pretend is okay, this is not okay. He left you."

"I know," she sighs, pulling her hair into a ponytail, putting her shades back on, "But I don't have time to cry when I have to pay rent and take care of my kid in the middle of summer."

"You know Cassidy and her mom will always let you stay with them for a while," Estrella tells Grace, rubbing her shoulders, "We know that you have no one to lean on but us, we're here for you."

"Don't worry, you'll find someone way better," Taylor tells her.

"I hope he's the opposite of me," sighed Grace.

"Blonde girl said what?" Nirvana asked, almost dropping her plate.

"I always wanted to date someone who isn't like me," Grace said, fixing herself a sandwich, "Jack was a goody-goody like me, well at least I thought he was, but I wanted to date someone more of a...erm a bad boy."

We giggled at her, Grace automatically blushes, trying to avoid facing her face entirely towards us as she continues to make her sandwich, "I'm serious!I've always wanted to date someone who was perceived as bad, but is genuinely nice."

We continued to laugh at flustered Grace, looking back at the water, Wesley and Damien were throwing Max back and forth carefully in the air, Max smiles widely, not knowing that his dad had left them.

Towards the end of the school year, Grace occasionally calls me, telling me about her relationship, how she and Jack would always argue, and always end with Jack leaving for almost a week. When summer back started and we were out of school, going to celebrate at her place, it was the day Jack had packed up and left while Grace was working and Max was at daycare.

Instead of our initial plan of hanging out at her place for a bit before going out to celebrate, we stayed there the whole night and even slept over. She has no one to turn to, her family had kicked her out when they found out she was pregnant, Jack's family was supporting her, but now they're ignoring her since Jack left.

No matter how hard she tried to hide it from Max, eventually, he finds out on his own, noticing things that Jack favored had disappeared.  Only being three years old, he's quite smart, but for his age, kids tend to forget what happened as he continues to play with Wes and Damien; meanwhile, the girls and I were taking a break from volleyball and started on making lunches for all of us. 

"This will probably be the best summer we'll ever have," Taylor says, "I can't wait for Nirvana to transfer to our school."

"We'll be together at lunch, no matter what!" Nirvana cheered.

Nirvana is transferring to our school since she doesn't want to graduate with people who don't care about her, Damien and Taylor made it official that they were dating. Now that they're exposed, they practically make out in front of us while Max is asleep and while us teens talk or drink.

Though it's been two months since that horrible incident, I've been spending my time at the hospital, first was to take care of my mom until she was able to walk again and return home, but now is to visit one of the girls from orphanage, Oakley, she was recently diagnosed with cancer, though she already has supervision, I always visit her on my free time from the studio.  Going on with the kids from the orphanage, Kenny and Jenna were adopted during February and moved to New York, leaving Chris and Oakley behind; however, the friendship never broke through, they all made sure to continued to keep in contact and to hopefully visit once a month.

As for the bullying, it all died down since before Christmas break, that's something I forgot to ever mention, it just slept my mind as I was gaining a new friendship with them. Plus once every student started to notice that the Reject Girl was with hanging out with the most known musicians at our school, they stopped with the bullying. As for them, they had released their debut album, though, with the backlash of his mistake, they were able to go through it, being very successful.  Though they were already in the road to music ahead of me, it seemed that they forgot all about me, I wish they would at least text me, especially Luke who was the only one to contact me the most.

The day started to die down and the night was live, we decided to have a bonfire at Wesley's. his parents were out again, but on their anniversary. We had ordered food as Faith and Estrella run to the nearest store to buy the things to make s'mores since Nirvana claims announced that Grace never allows little Max to be exposed to the sweet side and we have to show him the joy in eating sweets when happy or sad. She was obviously talking about herself. 

After eating, we all gathered around the bonfire, singing and laughing together. I notice that Angelina was spacing as she stares back at her phone. She looked conflicted, she harshly turns off her phone and stands up her feet, she seems very determined. 

"Alright, alright!" Angelina yells lightly, holding her Sprite can in her hand, "Obviously we all have gone through a lot of crap this past year or recently. But let's forget that, am I right?" We cheered at Angelina, she grins in satisfaction. She motions us to lower our cheers, with her chin up, it boosts her confidence. "Grace cover Max's ears real quick. -Thanks. hun. Now, fuck everyone, this is our life, we create our path, our book. So now, here's a toast. A toast to new changes."

"New Resolutions," cheered Estrella, pumping fists in the air.

"New family," said Grace, smiling, grabbing hold of Max.

"New surprises," said Faith, throwing her arm around Estrella's shoulders.

"New challenges," sighed Dalien, wrapping his arms around Taylor's waist and putting his chin on her left shoulder.

"New stories," said Taylor, kissing Damien's cheek.

"New experiences," said Wesley, hugging me, putting his chin on my head.

"A toast to a fresh new start," I said smiling.

With that, we all cheered, taking a drink our of own dividual drink, and came together into a group hug. Yeah, a fresh new start. Stop living from the past and start living in the future. Hopefully, I will have a tranquil life with these people forever. 

End.