Old Friend

The Strongest Person I Know

1 week later

Delilah's POV

I wake up to a day I dread each year. The anniversary of my mom's death and one of the worst days of my life. Each year I head back to Milwaukee and lay her favourite flowers Lilies on her grave. As much as I want to do this alone, I know Jay won't let me go alone and will want to come with me. I wake up and pull the blanket back over my head. I lay under my blanket for five minutes before I turn over and look at the photo of my mom. Jay kisses me on the forehead before rapping his arms around my waist. "Are you going up?" He asks. "Yeah, I've got to, as much as I hate the place, I've got to see her." I say solemnly wiping away a tear. "Well can I come with you; I don't want to overstep but I don't want you going alone either." Jay says. "Okay." I say and he kisses my forehead. "When are we leaving?" Jay asks. "In about 20 minutes, so we can be home by three for Brin." I say "Okay, we should probably get ready." Jay says. "And I'm sorry if I'm being really blunt today, I don't want you to feel like you did something because you didn't, you're amazing I just can't with today, too many bad memories and built-up anger I guess." I say. "You don't have to explain anything to me, it's okay I get it." Jay says and I kiss him before quickly changing into some warm clothes. "Let's go then." I say when we are both ready.

Stella's POV

I wake up and remember what day it is, I know it's a hard day for Lilah. I grab my phone and call her knowing she'll probably be on the road, but she doesn't answer just texts me saying "Can we just text please x." "Yeah of course." I say. "I'm assuming Jay's with you then." I say. "Yeah, I just wanted to say Jay's going to find out this today and I think you deserve to know too and so does Brett so when I get back can we all please talk, I really want to do this in person x." Lilah says. "Yeah of course, but just to let you know I am now super curious." I say. "Don't get your hopes up, it's not exciting." Lilah says. "Okay, I won't." I say. "Anyways I'll talk to you when I get back, bye x." Lilah says. "Okay and I'm always here if you need to talk x." I say. "Yeah, I know x" Lilah says.

Delilah's POV

"Who was that." Jay asks. "Stella, she was just checking in." I say. I'm having an argument with myself on whether I should tell him before or let him figure it out when we get there, but then I decide he should here it from me. "Umm babe can we talk about something." I say. "Yeah of course." He says. "Well, there's something you'll see today that I've never really told you about. There's a grave next to my mums and it belongs to my daughter, my first daughter, I miscarried when I was 18, I wasn't supposed to get pregnant, and the dad was my high school boyfriend who I wanted to break up with before I left for Chicago but then when he found out about the baby he proposed." I say taking a breath trying to hold back tears and Jay grabs my hand. "But then a few days after the proposal I miscarried her. Umm and I called off the engagement and left for Chicago because Milwaukee had so many bad memories and I wanted to start over." I say. I open my mouth to say something, but Jay says, "You know you don't have to tell me things like that, it makes me sad seeing you upset and knowing your upset because of me babe, that's harder." "I know but you deserve to know, and I always want to be honest and be an open book to you, I don't want there to be any secrets because it's me and you babe." I say and Jay smiles squeezing my hand tight. We arrive in Milwaukee half an hour later. As soon as we begin driving through the neighbourhood memories come flooding back to me. Some good but the ones that are occupying my mind are the reason I don't come back unless it's important. We pull up at the flower shop where I pick up some lilies for my mum. "You know these are why I was almost named Lily." I say looking at the lilies. "What else were you almost named." Jay asks. "Well my mum and dad had a name each neither of them were actually Delilah but my mum wanted to call me Lily and my dad Delta so they compromised and called me Delilah." I say and Jay smiles. We drive the last few minutes to the cemetery passing my elementary school on the way. When we arrive, we head through to my mom's grave and I lay the flowers into the holder, I pull one out of the bouquet and hold onto it. I look over at the next grave, my daughters. "Willow, that's a pretty name." Jay says and I smile. I then turn to the grave on the other side of my mum, my sisters grave. "She died the same day as your mum?" Jay asks. "Yeah, my mum was pregnant with Daisy when she was killed, she stood no chance." I say wiping away my tears. Jay puts his arm around my shoulder and kisses my forehead and cheek. "When my mum died, she knew she was going to die so she wrote a letter for me, she told me about everything, what my dad did and that's the day I realised just how amazing of a mum she was. I knew she was the best but she protected me from so much, all the sports, after school activities, all of it was so I could be in the house as little as possible and not only me but Stella too, she paid and rescued both of us, she told me that day to just leave a relationship if your gut tells you something doesn't seem right because that's her biggest regret, she stayed for too long, ignored all the signs and red flags and I remembered that the day I called off the engagement." I say and jay smiles. "She sounds like the best mom." Jay says. "I just hope I'm doing close to as good as she did, because she did me pretty damn well." I say. "Brin and this little one are so lucky to be able to call you their mom so don't for one second think you are a bad mom because you are the best mom." Jay says. I kiss all three graves goodbye before we begin to walk. "You know the day my mom died wasn't just the worst day for me because I lost my little sister and my everything but because of what my dad did." I say tearing up. "Hey, hey breathe. If it's getting too much you know you can stop, I understand babe." Jay says kissing me on the head. We sit down on the bench and jay puts me on his lap and hugs me tight. I wipe my tears before saying, "He kidnapped me and took me to a warehouse where he raped and tortured me until the cops came and saved me. He wanted to know who I told about my mom's death, Stella, I told Stella and she saved me, she was the one who called the cops, told them everything and did everything to save me and I'm ever thankful. My dad later died in prison, and he got buried in the same cemetery but nowhere near my mum like I requested." I say and Jay kisses my cheek. "You're the strongest person I know, you know that." Jay says. "You say that and still I'm crying right now." I say. "Crying is not a weakness it's just called being human." Jay says and I kiss him. 

AN: I hope you enjoyed this chapter, I hope you've had a great start to 2022 and Thanks for 10k reads  x :)