Stay With Me (Zalfie)

10 Years Later

I arrived at the Butler household. Niomi and Marcus' weding photo greeted me at the doorway and so did their daughter Elizabeth; crawling along so I scooped her up and brought her to her parents.

"Alfie!" Louise screamed as she hugged me and Darcy joined in, her hair went to her waist and she was the height of Louise's shoulders. Matt shook my hand and I threw my bags into the living room as the doorbell rang so I ran to go and get it.

"Heya Alf!" Tanya cheered as Jim struggled with bags of christmas presents while Tanya carried their new born in her arms- she was called Zoe. Behind them the Saccone Jolys huddled in out of the cold. Emilia and Eduardo had gotten so much older and Emilia squeeled at the sight of Darcy and they ran to go and gossip in the other room.

10 minutes later Joe arrived with Gabby; they had been living together for over a year now and I was really happy that they had eachother.

"How yah doing man" Joe whispered in my ear as we hugged. I shrugged. I still lived in my flat on my own. I took frequent visits to the sea because it reminded me of...it doesn't matter.

We sat around the huge table for our pre-christmas dinner that Niomi made with the help of Louise and Matt.

Afterwards I sat and watched as all of the families laughed together as we watched Elf on the screen. I remember I used to always watched Elf with...oh yea.

For the first time in a whole year when I had managed to get my life back together a tear rolled down my cheek. Everyone had a family. Everyone had someone. Zoe could never have a family like these. She alwas wanted to have a little girl and her own beautiful house and an amazing wedding. But she couldn't. Everyone else had. Everyone else had someone.

I had no one.

I still made Golden Grahams for breakfast. I still frequently walked down to the beach. I still sat with the guinea pigs on my lap as I watched the SacconeJolys but just without...Zoe.

I coughed to hide my little meltdown.

"Alfie?" I hadn't realised that Joe and Marcus had left the room.

"We all chipped in to get you your christmas present." Louise said as she grinned from ear to ear. With that Marcus and Joe walke in and in Joe's arms was a tiny, black pug that was barely the size of my hand.

"Here you go Alf" He passed her to me as I sat on the floor cross legged.

"Thankyou so much." I tried to hold in my tears still but I laughed. I hadn't laughed in so long.

"What are you going to call her?" Darcy asked as she gingerly petted her head.

"Nala." I said without needing to think.

"Narla?" Eduardo said but his voice broke making him sound hilarious. We all couldn't hold in our fits of laughter as his cheeks went pink.

"Nala. N-A-L-A" I corrected.

That's when life started to get a bit better.

The End