our troubled love ᵒˡᵈ ˢᵗᵒʳʸ

+~Epilogue~+

+~Violet~+

    I yelled in frustration when the tent we'd set up like, a hundred times fell apart again.

    "Dad, I'm telling you, you're doing it wrong!"

    My dad sighed and wiped the sweat from his forehead. "I don't know how to do this, Violet. Tell your mother to help you, this trip was her idea."

    "Talking about me, I see," my mom said, putting a bag of supplies on the ground.

    "Ji, this isn't working, I think the tent is defective." Yeah, that wasn't convincing my mom. She came over and did it herself, and in five minutes, the tent was up.

    Dad and I watched her with our jaws dropped while she casually walked back to the car to get more things, like she hadn't just convinced us magic was real.

    "Your mother is-"

    "Magic. Yeah, I know..."

    +++   

    That afternoon my parents' friends came to join us. They brought Thomas, my best friend. We hung out inside the tent while the grown-ups talked around the campfire. We played some games, and every time I won Tom said it was because he let me since I was younger. Eventually I got tired of it and quit.

    I stared outside, watching our parents "talk" as they called it. Really, they were just yelling jokes I didn't understand and laughing like crazy people. Because they were crazy people.

    But I loved looking at the way my parents held each other.. It was chilly out, but it didn't seem like a problem to them. They had each other to keep them warm.

    "What are you looking at, Vi?" Tom asked and crawled beside me.

"My mom and dad. They're really in love." I sighed. "I wonder if I will ever be in love."

    "How do you know you're in love?" Tom asked, like I had a clue.

    "I don't know," I admitted. "But my mom says it's when you care about someone a lot and you would do anything for them."

    "I'm in love with you, Violet!"

    I rolled my eyes and threw a pillow at him. "Shut up, love is gross. I never wanna be in love."

    I turned back to my parents, secretly enjoying looking at them. Maybe being in love wouldn't be that bad. Dad said I had to be patient and wait for love to find me, and Mom said I was still young to worry about it.

    I didn't know what love was or what it felt like, or when it would find me like Dad said. I just knew I wanted to be as in love as my parents.

    I hope they're together forever.