Secret lovers encoded messages (Wattys 2017)

Chapter 12

He is smiling, a genuine smile. I am sitting right beside him, one of his palms on my thigh and the other hand waving towards his sister Trista who is running towards him. She came and jumped into his warm embrace. Soft giggling sounds filled the air and his melodic laughing is trying to take over with dominance. All I am doing is smiling like a fool I know and suddenly someone hugs me from the back. Well, just by the touch of the small soft hands I can tell that it is Jamie , his brother. He is the youngest of the Parker family. A cute ball of happiness wrapped with colours of joy, oblivious of the world. He slowly positioned himself on my lap and buried his face  in the crook of my lower arm and upper arm formed due to the bent position that they were in. “You know you’re the best brother and best sister that I could ever wish for.” I genuinely spoke, not to break the sound of tender giggling with the words, but to let them know what they mean to me. I don’t have any sibling but with time they became my own siblings. The best thing about being with them is that they are so pure in their thoughts and emotions. They can make you smile just by looking at you or hugging you. They don’t need to tell you words of consolation to make you feel better. Breaking my train of thoughts Trista hugged me and started “You know you’re the best sister too. You take care of us like mommy. You even take care of big brother. He is a baby with you. He always smiles with you. You make him happy. You make me happy. You make Jamie happy. I love you.”
“Aww baby, you are mine, you know that? The cute ball of sweetness.”
She snuggled closer to me.
“ Trista I am not really gonna let you go after you called me a baby and I take care of her too, Ash is my baby girl just like you are to me.” Saying this with a huge grin Tristan kissed my cheeks to which Jamie pouted and earned a kiss from the three of us. “Will you mally my big brother? Can I be your maid of honour?” I swear I have never blushed so madly at any question directed towards me by these little kiddos. Trista always asks the embarrassing  ones to me. Thank god Tristan saved me by coming to my rescue and answering but what he answered made me  blush even harder if that was even possible that is, human tomato. What he answered was “Of course she will marry me. As I said she is my baby girl. All mine.” He leaned in to kiss my neck but earned a hit from me. “Jeez girl it hurts.” He cooed faking to be in pain. “Stop it already Tris.”
“Hey by the way I wanted to show this to you Ashlyn, big brother says it was my mother’s and I love it.” She pulled a necklace out of her small top and showed me the glowing piece of metal. A beautiful necklace with a moon and star pendent. “I love it too Trista.”
“I will give it to you when you mally my big brother.” Oh god, these siblings have taken an oath to make my cheek burn today. “It’s getting late we should get going. The park us nearly empty.” Tristan said with a playful yet concerned tone and gave me a light peck and got up from the carpet of greenery we were sitting on.  He parked his car and told the two little cute nuggets to wait inside the car as he wanted to walk me home. “Ashlyn I think it’s right time that I tell you a thing. My mother died a year ago. Someday I hope I will be able to tell you the reason too but I can’t tell you now.” His voice was shaking, I suddenly felt so vulnerable I did not know what to say. It came just as a sudden lightning striking me. I cupped his face as he continued “That pendent, it is a part of me, it used to be a part of her, she was so fond of it, when she left us, I gave it to Trista, only she deserves to have it for now, she will probably forget our mother when she grows up and Jamie wont even have a slightest memory of her. I don’t know Ash why did this happen to us. I can’t, I just can’t. I keep telling Trista that the moon is our mother and we are the stars surrounding it and she is always there by us, but she is not. I myself am forgetting that she is by us. When i called your mom as mother, it was because she makes me feel that motherly affection which I miss. That’s why last year I was out of touch from you. After my mother’s death I ran away in the woods.  I told you I went on a vacation but I lied. I did not know what to tell you and how to tell you all the things. What I said today is only half of the story. I will tell you the whole story someday.” “ You have me and my parents, you have two little rays of sunshine, your mother would never want to see you broken, she is there beside you, she always will b there. I love you Tristan, she loves you, we love you. You still have a father, he is there for you.” “Only if I had a real father.” “Tristan...” He cut me off by hugging me and whispering near my right ear that “Ssshh.. I was so scared that you will get angry because i lied to you. But at that time i had no other option and right now i feel the best that i said you the truth. Ash, I love you too. I’ll call you, bye nut.”  I started re-thinking the whole thing, I was proud of him, I was in one way feeling bad that i was not there for him when he needed me the most. Those little kids, two soft little balls of happiness . Do they even know about what happened to their mom? As I opened the door I could already hear my name being called.
“Ashlyn... Ashlyn... Ashlyn.”
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Please keep reading. I am going through the worst of times. With everything that is going wrong, my mind got totally blocked, I cant think straight. I was having a writer's block which got me even more depressed. I am sorry that I took long to upload and i cant make promises of fast upload. But I will try. Thank you. Please keep reading and motivating me. Lets get it to more than 500 reads then the next goal will be 1k. I can only promise that I wont let any of my readers down. You mean most to me.