Life after (Solangelo Story)

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(A/N This story is told in Bianca's POV. Will is Papa and Nico is dad. Just so it's less confusing. Enjoy!)

The first clear memory I have of my family is my fourth birthday. Papa and Dad sit together, as people I don't know crowd and take pictures. Four year old me doesn't care, I just want the cake and presents sitting on the table behind them.

After, Dad told me that those people were my aunts and uncles. I didn't really want to know how I had so many at the time, but now I understand. I always understand when it's too late. Anyhow, I'm sat in my highchair and someone picked me up.

I look up and see Papa, holding me high up and laughing at something Daddy said. I realize how fortunate I was now, to have a whole, wonderful family. I have never in my life come across someone as in love as William and Nico Solace. People afflicted with close mindedness would disagree, but I know my dads.

I took normal for granted.

—————

At dinner that night I brought up Imma, not thinking about the consequences."Immas' mom says you're bad."

Earlier at school, my fourth grade best friend Imma Castell had leaned over and behind her closed hand she whispered,"My mommy says your daddies are bad for being married." She looked me over and her nose wrinkled."She said not to be friends with you. I might turn out like them."

I left school in a daze, not really comprehending that I had just been docked a friend. It had been on my nine year old brain all day, like a song stuck in my head but worse, and I had to let it out somewhere.

Dads fork stopped in midair and Papa choked on his water. Dad narrowed his eyes and his fork lowered slowly to his plate of salad."Do you think we're bad?" I froze, and Papa in a stern voice chastised."Nico, don't!" Daddy looked me in the eyes.

Papa cleared his throat, and in a soft voice,"Maybe we shouldn't be friends with Imma anymore." I remembered what else she had said, and added," Imma said her mom already told her not to be friends with me." Daddy looked down at his plate and whispered,"I'm sorry." Papa sent me to bed, and as I lay under my covers, I could overhear their conversation in their bedroom.

"Will, I feel so bad!" His voice was shaking, and I could hear tears thick in his throat."Neeks, it's not your fault! She's not normal anyways, it was bound to happen sooner or later!"

   As I lay in bed that night, thinking, I didn't understand. Why wasn't I normal? Was it because I couldn't read very well, or I was Asian, or because I had two dads, or because no one wanted to be my friend? I didn't understand anything. I do now, but I wish I still had my innocence.

——Two years later——

By the time I was in sixth grade, I had heard many more concerning conversations through the thin walls of my bedroom, and I was full of conspiracy theories. Dad and Papa talked about a camp place they were thinking about sending me to.

The conversations were strange, and I never grasped the concept of what was at the center. I didn't really want to. But on the first day of sixth grade, which also happened to be my birthday, I found out. On my birthday, Dad gifted me a bronze knife before I went to school. He showed me how to fold it until it resembled a lipstick tube.

I had thought it was extremely strange that my dad gifted me a knife on my twelfth birthday, but when I tried to put it away, he closed his hand around my wrist."No! Carry it with you always, but don't tell anyone you have it." I was uncomfortable with the thought of carrying a deadly weapon to my first day of middle school, but I did as he told me. I trusted him.

   I sat in Language Arts that morning, listening to the usual first day of school lecture about supplies and syllabus'. My ADHD was working double time, and my leg wouldn't stop bouncing. The girl across from me cut a sharp glare in my direction."Cut it out, seizure freak." She hissed under her breath.

I swallowed the urge to punch her and instead curled my fist into a ball and bit my bottom lip so hard it dented. As Mrs. Celine droned on about dress code, I thrust my hand up in the air. She looked sharply at me.

"Yes miss..." She looked at her seating chart,"Solace?" I cleared my throat."May I use the restroom please?" She sighed and motioned to the blue pass hanging on the door."Be back soon." I grabbed the pass and set off at a brisk pace. I didn't really need to get to the bathroom, but I needed to get out of that classroom.

When I was in the middle of an empty hallway, I felt eyes on me. I whirled around to find the girl from class standing at the end of the hallway, grinning with a demented look in her eyes. I backed away slowly, my instincts screaming."Uh... Hello?"

She said nothing but advanced until she was five feet in front of me, and finally broke the twisted silence."Too bad you won't get to live. You're sssssmart." Her s' we're drawn out like a snakes hiss, and her eyes looked strange, yellow with almost reptilian slits in the middle.

She was legitimately scaring me now, and I shoved my hand into my messenger bag, feeling the small cylinder that contained my knife. Then she began to change. Her legs morphed into scaly green tails, and her tongue grew two prongs, like a forked snakes tongue.

She hissed at me and bared her fangs."Your mother wouldn't be proud." And she lunged at my face. I did the only thing that came naturally, and ducked. I rolled in between her snakes tails, and came up standing holding my bronze knife. She lowered her reptilian eyes at me."Of courssse."

She advanced quickly, and I had to do some fast thinking. I slashed up and disconnected the string from the hall pass around my neck, swinging the rectangular card on the end like a lasso. She laughed."Do you think that will stop me, puny mortal."

I was freaking out inside, but my body just knew what to do. I swung the makeshift rope around her neck, drawing her in. She clawed at me, but I persisted, earning a nasty gash on my forearm. I grimaced through my blind terror, and raised my knife, stabbing upwards through her chin. Her yellow eyes widened and she imploded, showering me in a fine golden dust. I stumbled away from her, collapsing and clutching my arm.

   I was terrified out of my mind, but my body was humming with adrenaline. I sprinted out of the school, earning a few shouts from the secretary, and made for home. Thankfully, I lived close, so it wasn't a far sprint. I arrived to find no one there, so I curled up on the couch, wrapping my arm in a rag and closing my eyes.