Alive

Epilogue

TW: Implied underage drinking, mentions of court

"I can't believe you're turning eighteen. It feels like just yesterday you were starting school." I laugh, trying to move away as my mother licks her hand and tries to 'fix my hair' with it.
"Okay, okay! I get it!" I chuckle, moving over to answer the doorbell which just rang.

I open the door to Patton, Logan and Roman, who smile and each give me their own greetings. Patton is the first to excitedly run inside - his shoes clicking on the oak wooden floor.

"Oh my goodness! I love how you've decorated the place, Miss Seeley!" He chirps, doing a half-lap around the table before stopping.

The seven of us helped my mother move into this house. It's quite a distance away from the house that my father is still living in, and after finalising the divorce, she reverted back to her maiden name.

I've thought about taking her last name aswell, but decided that if I will do that, then it's more of a thing to think about in the future. I probably will eventually, maybe when I've grown a bit more (both emotionally and physically) and feel less connected to my dad.

"Thank you, Patton. But I shouldn't get all of the credit," she laughs, flicking the kettle on. "Virgil and Remus helped where they could. The colour of the living room was their joint effort."
We painted the living room a subtle sage green, with a lilac coloured feature wall that we cleverly coordinated with some purple flowers and candles. We had an agreement with my mum that we'd get free reign over one room of the house, since we do both live here.

Remus felt a little guilty about 'leeching off my mother' and moving in with us to begin with, but it's been a few months, and we're all pretty happy.

Speaking of Remus, much to his dismay, Janus moved a few hours up the country for college, so that he could go do some higher education and catch up on the things he missed. He promised he'd both visit and move back here when he's finished with his education, which is why I'm expecting him to show up here at some point today, like he said he would.

"Yes, I can tell that room wasn't designed by an adult." Logan comments, looking into it and smiling slightly.
"Hey! He is an adult now, Lo." Roman says in a bit of a sing-song, running a hand through his hair.

"Yes. Unfortunately enough. Although I will continue to struggle with the concept of him doing things like taxes." He moves as if a shiver has run down his spine at the idea. My mother laughs, grabbing some mugs from the shelf.

Then, some footsteps sound from upstairs, heading down the stairs. "Lindsay! You might wanna look into getting a new showerhead, it got br- oh. Hey guys!"
Remus' hair is still slightly wet, and he has half a jacket on, stopping on the second-to-last step. "I thought you lot weren't coming until twelve."

"It's twelve-o-five, Remus." Roman feigns, looking down to his red and white wristwatch.

The younger twin then bounds off the stairs and into his brother, latching onto the older for a hug.
"I missed you, you know."

Roman ended up living with Patton's family, but it's only temporary until he starts at that fancy college he got accepted into next month. He would've lived with us, but there are only three bedrooms here, and I doubt the twins would have wanted to share.

"Oh, I missed you too, Ree." Roman replies, surpridesly.
Patton then walks over to the table, pulling out a chair and sitting cross-legged on it.

The doorbell rings again, and this time, my mother goes to answer it. Around ten seconds later, she walks back into the kitchen-dining room and is followed by Zariah, and both Remy and Emile.
Zariah runs over to me and hugs me, pulling away and holding my shoulders, sniffling fakely.

"Gosh, they grow up so fast. It's like just yesterday you were learning to walk." She frowns, eyes tearing up, clearly putting it on for comedy reasons.
"Haha, funny." I reply, sardonically.

My mother shakes hands with both of the doctors that she came in with. "Nice to meet you two, you're Zariah's..?"
"Uh, parents? Guardians? We feed her and put up with her 'young adult that craves rebellion' stuff." Remy smiles, looking over to her.

After the court date, and after Zariah had finished her communtiy service, she'd been out of a place to live, considering that her dad is serving life, and her mum was never in the picture. Remy and Emile had confessed that they'd wanted a kid, or teenager, or whatever, but could never adopt one becuase of certain laws. So, I guess it just kind of fell together

The three more weeks that I had to stay at Westbreau actually went really quickly, and it was months ago now. Sure, Mr Tondene and Nurse Beckett were not happy with me at all, which they did express through some choice words, but I put up with it. It was worth it to see the looks on their faces when I told them that the court had mandated that I was able to leave immediately after the three weeks was up.
I didn't even have to do much treatment because I got on the good side of that one doctor that did my electroshock stuff.

"I know what you mean. I'm hoping that behaviour will subside soon, I can't have any more spontaneous 'going on a walk and not coming home until 5am, smelling slightly of alchohol' adventures." My mother says, giving me a dissaproving glance.

To be fair, it was only one evening. And it was Logan's eighteenth, what did they expect us to do? We're only young once, and I was the only one who wasn't eighteen yet. I think it's a little unfair that I'm the last to join them in their adulthood, but whatever.

"Yeah," Dr Picani says, a laugh lacing his voice. "Well, where are you guys heading to today?"

The question is inturruped by the doorbell ringing again. This time, Remus lauches out of his seat and to the door, opening it and immediately wrapping his arms around Janus, who smiles at the contact, hugging back.
The boys exchange a quick kiss before reentering the room the rest of us are in. Janus takes his time hugging each one of us, before taking the last seat at the table.

The three adults are now leaning against the counter in the corner of the room, having their own little conversaton.

"So! How is college going?" Patton asks, hands wrapping around the mug of tea that he's holding.
"Really good, actually. Has anything significant happened down here?"

"Oh my god, yeah. I can't believe we haven't told you yet! Dr Sanders went to prison." Remus says, smiling extactically.
"What?"

It's true. Everything said in court is public information, and Dr Sanders may or may not have said something which opened up and investigation into how he illegally drugged Remus and I about ten months ago now. They had me and Remus go to court to testify against him and everything, as well as Dr Inuitis - the guy who inspected us to begin with.

He was given five years after it came out that he did that, because the same investigation brought up some fraud that he'd also committed in order to keep his hospital open for so long.

Needless to say, we won't have to worry about him for a long while. He was super angry with us during and after the trial, and knowing that we won made me almost forget about everything that's happened in the last year.

"Don't worry about it, Jan. We need to get going! It's like, half past!" Zariah smiles, looking excited.

I guess we're going into the real world now, which is scary, but we have eachother.

Fromt the corner of the room, my mother looks up from her conversation. "Be home before midnight. You're all welcome to sleep here for a night if you find that you don't have time to get to your houses."

"Wait a minute," Remy chastises. "You guys didn't tell us where you're headed yet."

I smile, standing up from the table with the others.
"We don't really know yet. We're just gonna see where the wind takes us." I tell them, grabbing my jacket from the coathangers.

And, I guess that's the plan for the next few years atleast. I'm not that worried about my future in hindsight. We all have so long to think about that kind of stuff. We're just going to finally seize the opportunity of being young.

So, as we leave the house, shutting the door and conversitting happily, that's what we do.

We see where the wind takes us.

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1507 words