I'm Meant To Hate You

30

The car door slammed shut beside me as Mel stormed around to sit in the front passenger seat, me and Emily in the back of their car looking everywhere but at each other. She was engrossed in her phone, her fingers tapping away frantically as she seemed to drift away, intoxicated by it.

I frowned as I watched Mel huff whilst looking through her music to connect to the car. "Something wrong?" My voice came out louder than I intended, startling Emily as she finally gave in and gazed at me. Our eyes met briefly before I turned away and focused on Mel once again.

"Nothing you need to bother that pretty little head of yours with, I'm sure you have your own problems to sort out." Mel glared at me through the mirror, her eyes trained on me before glancing at Emily and then conversing with Laurel.

"You know you have to talk to me at some point right?" I whispered to Emily, trying to keep it between the two of us and not so it can be overheard by Laurel or Mel.

"I don't have to do anything." She muttered, pulling a pair of headphones out and shoving them on, silencing me. How was I supposed to sort the problem out if she wasn't even going to give me the time of day to talk to her. I closed my eyes tightly and tried to get sleep to render me unconscious. I didn't need to spend the whole journey there trying to come up with an excuse for her as to why she is acting the way she is. I had no memory of anything that I could have done to upset her.

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My eyes slowly drooped open as I could hear Mel's voice getting louder. The excitement was dripping from her voice and she was harshly grabbing on to Laurel's arm, shaking it. She caught my eyes in the mirror and whipped her head around, smiling brightly as she pointed at the gates to the manor as they came into view.

The trees led the way as they seemed to cordon off the whole manor, the sun beating down on the white coat of snow that smothered the ground.

"It's been snowing here!" She squealed as she looked back when the gates began to open for us. "Oh. My. God. Why did you never fucking tell me how beautiful it is here?!" She muttered at me, smacking my leg as she leant through the middle console before turning back and ignoring my existence.

"You're now a city girl. Never thought you would have been interested." I murmured, looking over the white fields and the snow tipped trees in the forest that surrounded us. I heard a deep inhale beside me as a hand grabbed onto my arm, my head gently turning in her direction. Her eyes slowly opened as she looked out at the scenery from the window, the manor now in front of us.

"Woah." She breathed out, finally coming to her senses as her head turned to me and her gaze met mine. Her eyes snapped down to her hand that held onto my arm before she dropped it, pulling her hand away. "Sorry." She muttered, shy. I kept my mouth sealed shut, not wanting to say anything that will put us in the position where we would argue again.

"Come on you two, let's go say hi." Laurel said as she looked over us, offering a soft smile at the silence filling the car. She then turned to follow Mel, who had already got out and was already walking happily towards Jerry, Shannon and a small child. My eyes stayed focused on the child as I too got out, my legs dragging me in their direction. Shannon began walking towards me as Mel fussed over the toddler, conversing with Jerry and Laurel as the child looked over at me.

"Kiana, my darling. How are you? It's so good to finally see you again." Shannon's spoke in a soft voice as she pulled me in for a hug, forcing me to let out a sigh as her warmth calmed me.

"I'm okay Shar, how are you?" I mumbled as she squeezed me tightly before pulling back, her eyes looking over my shoulder. I didn't have to turn to know that Emily was behind me, the look on Shannon's face said it all. Emily was beautiful, anyone could see that. Shannon's eyes flickered back to mine, raising an eyebrow before going past me to greet Emily.

"You must be Emily. It's lovely to meet you, dear." She said as she brought Emily in for a quick hug. "I've watched one of your film trailers, you look amazing in it, it's a shame you stopped acting."I began walking away from them and towards Jerry, Mel and Laurel. My eyes couldn't tare themselves away from the sight in front of me. I couldn't stop the stray tear that left my eyes as Jerry came towards me with the toddler in his arms.

"Hey, it's okay. We always said we would, we finally did." He said, looking down at the young boy in his arms. "This is Kiana, Wren. This is who we talk about. You'll love her." He said as he placed Wren down to the ground and left him with me. I immediately dropped to my knees, offering him my hand to shake. Fuck knows why I thought a child would want to shake my hand, all the business meetings were finally proving something. That they were interfering with my personality. Maybe having this break was the right choice.

His deep blue eyes looked up nervously into mine, his small feet pattering towards me before falling into me, his small arms trying to reach around me in a hug. "Hey, Wren." My voice was barely audible. His brown hair held some curls, but not too many. His skin was tanned, which made his blue eyes more obvious.

"Kia." His delicate voice said. My arms enveloped around him as I placed him against my hip and stood up. The events of earlier that may have made me feel anything but happy were forgotten.

Jerry and Shannon had always wanted children, they had tried to have children on more than one occasion, but they were never able to. It had been brought up in discussions many times before that they could adopt, but they never chose to. Now they have Wren. It makes all the difference to them and to me. That they finally have a family.