Returned// Stray Kids

-34-

"Why did I know that I would find you here?" Elio said as walked towards the girl with the tear stained cheeks.

"What do you want?" She asked as she tried to wipe away her tears with soft sleeve of her sweater.

Her older brother sat down next to the girl. He grabbed her free hand and held it in his. "You know we can't stand to see you cry."

His hand was warm. She missed her older brother. She missed being able to be around his comforting aura and feel all her troubles melt away.

She squeezed his hand before her shaky breath dared to ask him. "We?" Her voice sounded so small. Elio almost felt as though the two were warped back into the past when the woman Luna was now, was just a little girl.

"Hey kiddo." Her father said as he made himself visible from around the tall hedges.

"Go away." She replied as she stared at the ground not daring to look at him. She was so angry at him. He had no idea what she had been through.

She left home at the age of 15 and although it was her choice, she felt as though it was her only way out. She felt so alone in the large house that she used to call home. Her direct  family felt like the distant aunts and uncles that she would barley know the names of.

It messed her up.

She used to play with people's emotions in order to control her own. She toyed with whoever would be willing to be her toy in order to keep her mind off the pain in her heart and the voices in her head. She hurt so many people. They called her heartless.

She believed them.

Tears started to well up in her eyes once more. Her heart felt like it was ripping itself apart, slowly and painfully.

"I know you are not going to forgive me." He said as he took a step closer.

"You are Damn right about that." She responded in a cold tone without looking away from the vibrant flowers of her mother's garden.

"...What you said... it really hit me and it hurt." He responded as he took another step. He looked around the beautiful garden that he hadn't been inside of for years.

"Ditto." It hurt her to want to hate him so much. He was terrible sometimes, however she remembered when his shoulders were the highest place in her little world. Like it or not, he was still her father.

He took another step. "You remind me of her so much." His voice was soft as walked with his heart on his sleeve. "I know that I messed up. I let her go and I hurt her, but my punishment is never being able to get her out of my head, waking up to an empty bed, and missing her smile as though it were the sun in the sky."

At those words Luna looked up. Her father was standing right in front of her. She saw the pain in his eyes too. "You are my blood, but you are also one of the only people left of her's." Tears  were now streaming down the girls face as her father's tears started to fall too. "Reject me if you want to. Hell I would if I could, but please, I beg you, don't reject her."

The girl wrapped her arms around the man. She did not know what she was feeling and she knew that he had hurt her, but everyone deserved another chance to prove themselves. "Don't think that this means I forgive you...yet" She spoke into the hug. She knew that they had a long way to go but she was willing to walk down that path with him.

They pulled away and she looked at her brother and father. "It will take me a while to readjust both of you into my life again but I want to have you both in it." A smile made its way onto her lips as she said the words she hoped to say for a very long time.