Rêveries

Chapter 20.

August 3rd 2018, Jules would've turned 29 today. In one year, he would've turned 30 and I probably would've bullied him for being so old. I wonder if he'd be married by now. Maybe he would've had children by now. Imagine if he would've had his own family with a wife and children. I would have a sister in law and nieces or nephews. I'm kind of sad about not being able to be the cool aunt.

I woke up because the sun was shining in through the window at me. I can't remember the last time it rained on his birthday. I'm happy to see the sun didn't cancel on me this year either. I'm a bit surprised I wasn't woken by Charles, Pierre and Arthur storming my room and pushing me around. I turn to see if Evie is still sleeping, but she's missing. The side next to me is empty. I look around the room and then at the clock. It's only 11AM so I'm surprised she's even awake.

I step out of bed and look for a big hoodie I can hide in for the whole day. I don't really know what I can handle today and I expect them to leave me alone to die today. I guess that's why Evie didn't wake me up before getting out of bed. I begin to dig through my clothes in my closet and find the hoodie that Charles let me borrow in France. He hasn't asked for it back yet so I guess it's not that important to him. I put it on.

It's empty downstairs too. It's Friday so Pascale is at work. There is no noise coming from anywhere. The kitchen is empty, the backyard is empty and the car is gone from the drive. I sigh and get a glass out, filling it with water and sit down at the kitchen island to drink it. I avoid my phone as much as I can during his birthday because I know people will post about him and it will make me cry. But it's buzzing next to me. I sigh when I look over and see it's my mom calling me, probably to make sure I'm not in my room crying all day.

"Bonjour maman," Good morning mom, I try to sound happy to hear from her, but not today.

"Chérie, comment vas tu?" Darling, how are you? she asks and I pinch the bridge of my nose, trying to avoid a headache. I know what she wants to hear so I just shake my head and suck it up.

"Je vais bien," I'm alright, I say but then let a few seconds before replying with the rehearsed answer, "Il ne voudrait pas que je sois triste le jour de son anniversaire, alors j'essaie de ne pas," He wouldn't want me to be sad on his birthday, so I'm trying not to, I sigh and I can almost see it in front of me how she puts a hand on her chest and smiles.

"J'ai les garçons avec toi pour te remonter le moral," You got the boys there with you to cheer you up, she says and I cock my eyebrows as I look around the empty house I'm sitting in, "Achetez des fleurs, si vous trouvez le temps d'y aller," Buy flowers, if you find the time to go.

"J'y vais ce soir, je pense qu'il y a peut-être des journalistes dehors pendant la journée," I'm going tonight, I think there might be journalists out during the day, I tell her as I look outside at Charles' grey ferrari driving into the driveway.

"Cela semble intelligent," Sounds smart, she agrees.

I manage to end the conversation with my mom and hang up the phone just as the four of them walk through the door. I hear them shushing each other before walking into the kitchen. Charles stops and stares at me and when Pierre walks in and sees me he cusses about it. I raise my eyebrows, because did they expect me to not be here, or? My eyes fall to what they're holding and I see them both holding a bag each, flowers sticking up out of both of them. Evie and Arthur walk in too and they also begin to cuss.

"We thought you'd still be asleep," Charles says, putting the bag on the kitchen island and fishing the bouquet of blue orchids and white lilies out of the bag. It was insanely beautiful. I was looking at them rather than at him. They must've been specially made, because it's rare to make bouquets out of orchids.

He handed the bouquet to me and I smiled at him while trying not to tear up, but everything is probably going to make me emotional today. He pulls me into a hug and kisses my cheek before he turns back to the bag. Evie pushes past Pierre and hugs me without even showing me the bouquet of flowers she was holding. She just hugged me tightly, swaying side to side. She then lets me go and hands me a bouquet of bright, yellow sunflowers mixed with smaller daisies. It looked summery and happy. She smiled widely as she handed them to me.

"I felt like you might need some extra sunshine today," She said. I laughed at it and put the two bouquets aside. Pierre also had flowers with him and he handed them to me with a casual smile before pulling me in to hug me, messing up my hair a little before letting me go again.

"You definitely don't need anymore flowers, but you definitely deserve them," he says and I laugh, because no, I don't really know what I'll do with four bouquets of flowers. His bouquet had rose-colored lilies and he chuckled when I took them from him, "I chose them because this kind of lilies are called Celine," he says and I smile even wider at it because even if he probably just found them by accident, it still felt thoughtful.

Arthur walked over with his bouquet. Light blue tulips surrounded by baby breaths. He handed them over with a wide smile while I wanted to cry because it looked amazing. He pulled me in and hugged me tighter than any of the others had. He lifted me off the ground and kissed my cheek three times before letting me go.

"Si forte," So strong, he whispers and once again my eyes water. I wipe the tears away before they manage to fall and then I turn to all of them. I'm about to open my mouth to thank them when Evie hands me something. I look down and see her handing me a gift with a red bow on top of it. I take it from her and then look between all of them.

"Guys, it's not my birthday, it's Jules' birthday. I'm not supposed to get gifts," I chuckle at them. Charles shakes his head.

"Well, it should be celebrated, and it's not like we can celebrate him, so we might as well celebrate his favorite person," he shrugs. After that, there is no stopping the water works. I really hope I actually was his favorite person, because he was certainly mine.

To distract from the fact that I'm crying already, I begin to open the gift Evie handed me. I untie the bow and rip the paper off. I'm holding a frame with a picture of two little girls with bright faces holding their medals. Evie and I have our arms around each other in the picture. She had lost one of her bottom teeth and the gap was so clear due to her bright smile. I look up at her and I cry even harder because, god, I am so happy she's still with me

"I love you, I love you, I love you," I tell her as I hug her and sob over her shoulder. She pats my hair and my back while holding me to her.

"I love you too, I love you too, I love you too," she tells me. I smile and she helps me wipe my tears when I let her go. I turn to the boys again, Charles takes the frame and they all look at the photo with sweet smiles. Arthur recognizes the competition, he was behind the camera when we took this photo. Charles was there, but was off with Max somewhere.

"Thank you, all of you, the flowers were all so beautiful," I say between my cries as I look at them. The sunflowers need to be on my makeup table. I need the two blue and white flowers on each side of my bed. The lilies I'm going to place in my window. I just need to find the energy to cut the stems and find some vases.

"We bought ingredients for a cake," Charles says, starting to unpack the bag.

"We are gonna make sourdough toast for you, because these guys told me that's your favorite," Pierre tells me.

"We bought balloons," Evie tells me, keeping an arm around my shoulders, "we should send him some balloons to let him join the celebrations. We are celebrating his birthday after all."

"If you want to go to..." Arthur says but he won't finish his sentence. No one ever mentions his grave and I don't know what's so hard about saying it, "there's a lot of people who'd take advantage of you today."

"I'm not going until tonight," I say, picking up the flowers from the kitchen island, "and if it's okay, I'd like to go by myself." I bring the flowers over to the sink and fill it with water so that the flowers can be hydrated until I have the energy to take care of those stems. Charles turns to me when I say that and first he just looks and then he nods with the rest of them.

"Just let me know if you want a ride there or anything," he says and then looks me up and down and I remember I'm wearing his hoodie. "Is that my hoodie?"

"Yes," I admit, looking down at it, "I forgot to give it back in France and it's big and depressing so I put it on and you're not getting it back until tomorrow at the very earliest."

"No, go change into something nice, we're celebrating," Charles says, beginning to push me out of the kitchen. Evie goes with me and she pulls me with her towards my room.

"If we're celebrating does that mean I can drink?" I yell over my shoulder.

"No, we don't drink away the pain, Cece!" Pierre yells back and I see Arthur hitting his arm, probably because he called me Cece. No one but them, maybe Evie, are allowed to call me Cece. It was reserved for Jules and the boys only. But today it felt okay to hear it. Jules started it and we're celebrating him today, so technically that should be the only thing they call me today.

We get up to my room and I grunt as I walk into my closet. I look through my clothes and come back out with a dress in my hands. She grabs it from me and shakes her head.

"No black, we're doing happy colors."