more life / b.simmons (2)

47

TRIGGER WARNING: VIOLENCE

three months later

amari hangs up the last graduation photo on the wall and sighs in content. that's right, her babies did it—last week. they walked across the stage and tossed their caps the next hour and declared the next steps in their lives; adrian at kentucky and kyra at USC. amari was so excited that she went crazy and bought a ton of merch on the schools' official websites.

for the first time, the twins are on opposite ends of the map. while adrian seems excited about college and being on his own, kyra is not. she's afraid, afraid to be anywhere that far without her brother, let alone her parents.

the week of graduation was crazy. the seniors last day of school was a thursday and then graduation was friday, and most people had their parties that saturday or sunday (sunday for them). but kyra almost didn't graduate because she had a library book that she never turned in, from sophomore year, somewhere in the house, and they had to search both, just for it to be in her old backpack at amaris place.

and graduation day was even more emotionally tolling because of the fact that her first born she were now grown. the five of them were together a lot as a family that week, and ben saw amari cry more in those few days than he had on their entire marriage; but there wasnt much to cry about back then—life was good (and still is).

ben and amari saw each other a lot—because they had to—but it wasn't unpleasant. they both enjoyed spending time together, like a family, for the kids if no one else. there were no disruptions and random pop ups, and for that amari is grateful.

but ben knows why there was no pop ups, and that's because he has no idea where analiese is. the last time he saw her was a week after cameron's birthday, when she dropped arielle off and then quickly left. he thought it was strange, because usually she has more to say to him, but that day barely five words were spoken. she never told him that she'd pick her up in a few days, like she'd normally do, and instead thrusted their baby in his arms and speed walked back to her car.

he called her on their usual pick up day, and she didn't answer. he called again, and it went straight to voicemail, so he texted her—several times—and didn't get a response. after awhile, his messages stopped saying delivered. there was only one clear answer, and that she wasn't coming back. why she had their baby when she was just going to abandon the both of them doesn't sit right with ben, but he can't change it and now he's a co-parent and a single father.

it hasn't been hard, per se, being a single father, but arielle is mostly with his parents because he's busy a majority of the time, and the schedule that he and analiese had, worked. everyone just assumes that analiese is letting him see his daughter more, which isn't completely untrue, but it's not the case. she just abandoned a baby.

as for amari, shes been doing well. her and trey didn't last too long, but only because he got a job overseas and took it. due to the fact that he does global advertisement, he could be moved anywhere, and he applied for a job in thailand three times, and finally got it, so he was definitely going to take it and amari wasn't going to make him stay. he'd talked about getting a new job quite often, and amari knew how excited he was at the possibility. it was sad when he went, but the two of them spent his last night in the US together, and it was sweet.

and yes, they had sex again and it was way better than the fist time because trey took amaris constructive criticism to the heart and applied it.

but amari didn't have time to be too upset about him leaving—she didn't love him, but she liked him; not enough to mope over, but enough. so that's why she currently has another man sitting on her couch.