❝You're gonna be happy, ❞ said life, ❝but first I'll make you strong.❞
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A story of how a family reeling from loss and pain can come together and realize that there is beauty in the mess of life.
In the wake of their mother's death, five siblin...
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— Theo —
MY EYES WERE starting to tear up from staring at my phone screen for so long. Minutes ticked by as I rigidly hovered over my phone, staring so intently that I might've gone cross-eyed. My butt was starting to go numb from my unmoving position, not to mention sitting on blistering coarse sand was uncomfortable.
For the last ten minutes, I had been attempting to muster the courage to open the text message from April Grey — Riley and Julian's attorney.
She had just returned from maternity leave, which explained why it took a month to receive a reply. Yet, it was a creeping sensation of dread that kept me from just reading her response. I found comfort in the blissful ignorance I lived in the past month as I had thrown the situation to the bottom of my priorities.
It was easy enough, considering the amount of steadily growing arguments or issues that had arisen in the past weeks. I glanced back at the time on my watch, exhaling a tired breath as I noticed I only had ten minutes left of my break before I had to continue my shift.
The shift's I now spent with Vaughn, as Nova had called in sick for the past seven days since the drowning incident. It was Wednesday now and after my texts and calls had been continuously ignored, I had begrudgingly decided to just wait to hear from her.
I was worried after she had walked away from me at the dock. She had so much confliction written on her face and yet she had just squared her shoulders and brushed off my concern — like she was used to submitting to her unhealthy reasoning.
"Your break ends in five minutes, Theo. You don't have enough time to be thinking that hard so whatever's bothering you, deal with it after work," Malia said as she walked past me in a hurry as she ran her daily beach assessments.
"Leave the poor boy be, Lia. He looks like shit-I mean hell, when was the last time you shaved Theo?" Quinn defended me but did a double-take when she saw my appearance.
"I go to a cottage for one weekend and I come back and I almost didn't recognize you. God, you look like you haven't stepped foot into a shower anytime soon. Are the twins running you ragged? Or...is it because of a certain girl?" Quinn wiggled her eyebrows as she followed closely behind Malia.
"No, I think it might be because he's nursing a hangover for the first time in...I don't even remember the last time Theo stepped foot into a bar," Malia replied cheerfully as she circled back to my position.
"Wait! Elias took pictures of drunk Theo. Gimme a sec, I'll send it to you guys," Vaughn piped up from behind us.
I huffed in embarrassment but only managed to roll my eyes because Malia was right. Even after three days from when Elias and I had drunk until the sun rose, I could still feel a continuous throbbing in my head that reverberated painfully behind my eyes.
