Pride {l.s.}

66- Doris and Ernest

The Story So Far:
Louis plans on going back to his childhood home with Harry to see his sisters again and confront his mother. This is the town where he was in "therapy" for his homosexuality and where people including his parents ridiculed him for his sexuality. He met Lottie, Fizzy, Phoebe, and Daisy, but he learned that there is another set of twins that he never met.

PLEASE READ AUTHOR'S NOTE AT END OF CHAPTER.

I am somewhat surprised when I step into the living room and see other little Tomlinson's. Ernest has long blond curls that frame his cute chubby face while Doris has red curls that are similar to Ernest's. Once I sit down on the ground, Ernest climbs right into my lap with a book.

"What book do we have here?" I ask him. I do my best to act normal, but I have two siblings that I never knew about. I look at him in awe; he's already accustomed to me being here, and he doesn't even know my name.

"It's The Cat In The Hat," Ernest says. His voice is the cutest little thing. I wish I knew about him sooner.

"I used to love this book when I was little," I tell Ernest as I flip it open to the title page. I freeze for a moment. There is a note written on the inside of the book. It was a Christmas present from my mother to me when I was Ernest's age. She wrote in the cover Merry Christmas, my little Lou. Love you always.

Why did she stop loving me when she learned I liked boys?

"What does that say?" Ernest pulls me out of my thoughts. He points at my mother's loopy handwriting.

"Merry Christmas, my little Lou. Love you always," I read and let out a shaky breath. Coming home brings up a lot of emotions inside of me. It leaves me dazed and confused, but then I see my siblings. There is no confusion there. I love them. I already love Doris and Ernest. I just don't know where my parents and I stand.

I feel something brush my arm, and I look beside me to see Harry sitting down with Doris in his lap. He offers me a smile, but he can see the pain in my eyes. I look up to see that my other sisters are spread throughout the room. Daisy and Phoebe are talking while Fizzy and Lottie sit on the couch together watching us.

"Who's Lou?" Doris asks as she reaches over to the book and points at my name.

"That's my name," I tell the twins. "This was my book when I was your age."

"Did my mommy give it to you?" Ernest asks. He looks up at me with wide eyes. I can see the innocence that small children have in just that look.

"Yeah, she did. She's actually also my mommy, too."

Doris and Ernest don't reply for a moment as they both look at me in confusion. The room seems to freeze. No one knows what their reaction is going to be to the fact that they have an older brother. I don't even know if they exactly understand what's going on.

"So you're my brother?" Doris finally asks.

I nod my head. "Yeah, I'm your older brother."

"Does that mean you can take me to the ice cream store and buy me ice cream?" Ernest asks with excitement on his face. My body relaxes in relief as I wrap my arms around Ernest and press a kiss to his mop of curls.

"Would you like it if we went out for ice cream right now?" I ask Ernest. I pull my phone out of my pocket to check the time. It's a little bit after lunch time, so at least they're not eating so close to dinner time.

"Yes."

"Yes, please," Lottie corrects him with a motherly look in her eyes from where she sits on the couch. It makes me wonder how much responsibility she's had to take on since I've been gone especially with so many kids on the house.

"Yes, please," Ernest says immediately after.

"Is that okay with you guys?" I ask the other twins, Lottie, and Fizzy.

"You better be paying," Fizzy replies as she hops off the couch. "You've been gone long enough. The least we deserve is some ice cream."

I smile in agreement. "I'll pay."

Harry and I help get Ernest and Doris into shoes which proves to be a lot more difficult than I thought it would be. As I hold Doris while Harry slides her sandals on, our eyes meet for a moment. No words are said, but he's thinking the same thing I am.

I'm home.

***

I learned very quickly that I should not have taken Ernest out for ice cream. He is a mess. He chose chocolate ice cream, which has proven to be quite a problem. The chocolate covers almost the entire bottom half of his face, and his hands are completely sticky.

"Is it normally like this?" I ask Lottie as I take a wipe from the bag she brought to start to wipe him off.

"You should see him when we eat spaghetti," Lottie replies with a laugh. "He's almost as bad as you were."

"I was not this bad!" I try to defend myself, but I know that there's no use.

"Remember that time you spilled a little bit of soda on your crotch when we were at Disney World?" Lottie asks. Of course I remember that day. "You decided you wanted your pants to be the same color so that he didn't look like you peed yourself. Your solution was spilling all the soda on you, so that your light brown pants were now completely dark brown."

I smile at the memory. "I was pretty bad..."

"But Lou?"

"Yeah, Lottie?"

"Mom comes home from work in about an hour," Lottie explains to me nervously. "Please give her a chance. She's changed. Some things happened while you were away, and things have changed."

"What has changed exactly?"

"Mom got remarried," Lottie says quietly as she lets Ernest out of her lap. Once he's clean, he runs off to play in the park with his sisters, including Harry.

I'm surprised that she got remarried. Even though he was a crappy man, I never thought that she would have the guts to leave him. She needed his financial support for all the kids, but maybe the fact that she found someone else isn't a bad thing.

"What's he like?" I ask curiously as I watch Harry push Doris on the swing. I can hear her giggles from the bench I'm sitting at.

"His name is Dan Deakin. Mom took on his last name," Lottie explains as she looks out at the kids. "I like him a lot. He takes Phoebe and Daisy to the store for new clothes when they need it. He takes Ernest and Doris to the park to play soccer. He hopes that they play on a team when they're older. He's a sweet man."

"Good," I reply with a firm head nod. "Mom deserves that."

"She'll accept you, Lou. Don't worry."

"I hope so," I mumble in reply as I look out at Harry with my siblings, wondering what is going to happen when I see my mother for the first time in years.

A/N

So I have have completed Thirteen Reasons Why Not, but I am going to start posting a short story called Love Is Real. It is based off of "Clark Gable" by The Postal Service. It would be awesome if you guys could see some of my other works.

Thank you for your continued support.

xoxo raindropkiss1