ENDS

8- kitchen

Iris's p.o.v.

" I'll get it" Megan says as she rises from her sitting position by my side to answer the door.

  I briefly wiped my tears and rose to my feet also. Megan's mom tried to hold me down a bit but I passed her a weak smile and stood.

" My goodness Bonita.. how are you!? Where's your brother and Brooks junior?" A sopranic voice rang through out the living room and I suspected it had to be their aunt Laurel.

  Soon, there was a clatter of voices. The exchange of pleasantries created a buzz of excitement through out the room as everyone here was familiar with her, including Edward, Cheryn, Claudette, Guillermo and Jenny.

Perks of living with Hunter.

  The rest of the family appeared jovially, with bright smiles on their faces out of their various locations to come welcome their sister/aunt. I think she came with her husband cause there was a bellow of barritones, filling the atmosphere.

  Feeling left out of the reunion, I sidestepped out of the living room into the kitchen to get myself some water to drink and moisten my dry throat.

  It didn't help that I had suddenly caught a cold after all the crying I've done. I literally had to sniff every ten seconds.

  I had to search for the refrigerator cause I hadn't been into any room asides from the living room since last night or should I say early this morning. None of us had even shut our eyes to sleep since then, meaning we couldn't even locate the bedrooms.

Everyone literally had to be exhausted. I know I am.

  I let out a voluntary cough to clear up my throat as I began walking towards the refrigerator.

  Opening it, I was thankful that the water was in cans as I took one out and finished it at a go.

  I cleared up my throat again and disposed the bottle. Having nothing else to do, I leaned against the counter and shut my eyes to take deep breaths and see if I could think my way out of this situation.

  Only God knows what they're doing to my baby girl right now.

  What if she's crying? I pray they don't hit her, she's just recuperating from an illness.

What if they really don't care about that and hit her?

God please she's so small.. they'd kill her...

I didn't know when another array of tears began flowing down my face.

I need Louisa here and now.

But I also need to be strong for this. If I'm crying what do I expect Louie to be doing?

  Wiping away my tears with my shirtsleeves wasn't doing much because as soon as I clean them, they got replaced quickly.

  Soon enough I gave up on trying to dry up my face and allowed myself to cry it all out.

  Slowly, my cries turned into sobs that I couldn't control. I became a mess.

" Iris your-" Megan's voice invaded my thoughts and I lifted my face to acknowledge her presence.

  She held her phone in her right hand and her face morphed into a crestfallen image when her eyes met with mine.

  From the way she was looking at me, I'm pretty sure I knew the words that we're running through her head.

Iris it's okay.

Her face couldn't hide how bad she wanted to make that statement but she couldn't because she knew the truth.