4 Years later.
TONI POV:
I can't believe she's graduating high school. "I can't believe it." I say taking a picture of her in her gown. "Where is Cheryl?" I put my phone away. "She's busy with work she's going to meet us there. Remember." She nods. "Come on." She walks to the door. "JJ, MARY LETS GO, COME DOWN HERE I'LL HELP YOU GET YOUR SHOES ON." They both run down the stairs. "Come on." I pick up JJ as he runs and spin him around and put him on the couch and get his shoes on. "You look so handsome." He smiles. "And what about me mommy?" I finish getting his shoes on. I pick Mary up and put her on the couch. "You look sensational." She blushes. Damn she is really starting to look like Cheryl the older she gets. "Mom we're going to be late." I help Mary off the couch and we all leave. We get in side and see Cheryl. "Hey babe." She says as she walks over to us and picks JJ up. "I'm going to go find Clare." Rose goes and finds her girlfriend. "I can't believe she's made it to graduation." I smile and wipe her tear. I notice Mary try to run away. I quickly grab her hand. "We should get seats." I nod. "I love you so much." I tell her. "I love you so much." We go and get are seats.
"I'm so proud of you." Cheryl say to Rose. We ended up at Pops after. "Thank you for supporting me through everything." She says. "Anytime." I rap my are around Cheryl. I look over at her. "You ok?" I ask Cheryl. "Yeah, just to was kinda overwhelming and work was crazy." She tells me. "Ok." I look back at Rose who is more focused on her girlfriend. "I wish we were not doing the long distance thing." Rose takes Clare's hand. "I know but I can't go to your school." Rose takes a deep breath. "Don't you usually have siblings?" Rose laughs. "There with friends." I look over at Cheryl. "Hey we're going to head home you guys can stay as long as you want or don't." Cheryl and I get up. "Just be safe." Rose smiles. "We will." We both walk out. "There so cute kinda reminds me of us minus the trauma." Cheryl says getting into the car. "Remember when I took you here Love, Simon?" I ask as we drive home. "Yeah that's when I fell in love with you." I pull in. We both get out of the car. "I think we should binge watch the bachelor until we know Rose is home." I tell Cheryl.
About an hour later Rose and Clare come home. "Hey we're going to go bed." Rose says. "Ok have fun." Clare pulls Her upstairs. "Their totally about to have sex." Cheryl nods. "Oh yeah and we're going to pretend like their not because if we listen that would be weird." She places her hand on my thigh. "Cheryl not tonight." I look at her hand. "Ok maybe tonight." I pull her into a kiss.
The next day I wake up on the couch with Cheryl and a blanket on me. "Hey. Babe." She says voice still groggy. "Coffee. It's more important right now." I tell her slowly sitting up and grabbing my clothes. "I forget we're not in high school anymore after nights like that." She says getting dressed. We walk into the kitchen where Rose and Clare are already. "Hey girls." Cheryl says pouring coffee. "I remember when you came out as bisexual." Say sitting down. "Mom! It's embarrassing." Rose yells blushing. "Why because we don't care just as long as you're happy?" Cheryl says seriously. Rose looks down. "I don't want to talk about it." I nod. "Ok, I get it." Cheryl sits down. "I'm going to go pick up the twins in a bit."
"Maybe we should think about it for her." I say sitting on the bed. "I just wish we could keep them in a bubble forever." I take her hand. "Cheryl I do to but we can't and besides it's not that bad it's not like we're," I pause for a second to think. "I don't know, we're getting her eyes checked its not bad." She looks down. I pull her closer, I don't know why she is over thinking it. Probably because its what she does. "Hey, It's fine. Take a deep breath." She slowly takes a deep breath. "It's going to be ok, why are you over thinking it?" She sighs and raps her arms around me. "Because as a kid, we would get are eyes checked and my parents made it traumatizing. Telling me that if I needed glasses I would be forced to get lazier eye surgery, because glasses are unattractive." She says the last part in air quotes. I shake my head. "Since when are we your parents?" She plays with my hair. "We're not, I just don't want her to find it scary or anything you know?" I nod. "Yeah but both your parents are dead we are not like them, they're gone. We promised each other that when we decided to adopt Rose we wouldn't be like your parents or mine. That's why we started a family so we could start new and not repeat history. And that's why you took my last name so you could not be your parents." She looks up at me. "I love you, you always know what to say." I smile. "I love you to, you aways give me a reason to tell you the right things." She laughs quietly. "Mom JJ is being mean." Mary comes running in. "What is he doing?" Cheryl ask turning around. "He punched me." She goes and runs after him. "JASON THOMAS TOPAZ IF YOU PUNCH YOUR SISTER ONE MORE TIME..." I forge his name is Jason we just have always call him JJ. I look over at Mary. "Come here." She runs and jumps on my lap. "Where did he punch you. She points to her arm. "Do you want an ice pack?" She shakes her head. "No, can you kiss it and make it feel better." She nods. I kiss her arm. She smiles. "When your done with time out your apologizing ok?" We never really punish are kids because of are past we usually just talk to them about what they did and put them in time out for ten minutes. Cheryl walks in clearly frustrated. "You ok?" Mary nods. "Where's Rose?" I look at Cheryl because she actually keeps tabs on are kids. "Shes with Clare." Mary gets off my lap. "I need to pee." She says. "Ok you know where the bathroom is." She looks up at Cheryl. "Can you help me?" Cheryl gets down to her leaving. "Just go, you can by yourself. You've done it before." Mary pouts. "How about this I stand out side and if you need anything I'll help you." Mary nods. Cheryl stands up and goes with her. I decide I should probably talk to JJ, I get up and go to his room. "JJ." I knock on the door. "Yeah?" He ask softly. "Can I come in?" I ask opening the door. "Are you going to yell at me?" I close the door. "No," I walk over to him. "But I am going to talk to you about why you shouldn't do that." He looks away. "She wouldn't let me use the iPad." Of course they fight over that. "Well it was her time to use it. If you were patient and waited she would have given it to you, and if she didn't Mom or I would have ok. Now you can't use it for today." He looks at me. "Mom already told me that." I play with his hair. "I know I'm just reiterating it. And you should punch anyone ever unless your a boxer or do karate, and last time I checked you aren't doing either of them at the moment. And we especially don't do that in this house to your sister." There is something bubbling up inside of him and it's more that him not getting the stupid iPad that is 5 years old and barely works. "Why especially not here?" He ask softly and clueless of what me and Cheryl have gone through. "Some past things that happened to mom and I that made us promise not to do anything like that or have are kids." I wasn't going to tell him about the abuse Rose had been through or the abuse Cheryl has been through or even me. "Oh." He turns his head sideways. "What's that?" He ask pointing at my serpent tattoo. "A tattoo." I look at. "Do all girls have it? I saw it on mom and Rose." Of course he saw it on Rose she sucks at hiding it. "How did you see it on mom?" I ask and regret that because it's in a visible spot on her shoulder. "Last night when she picked me up I saw it." I nod. "Not all girls have it." He looks confused. "Than why do you all have the same tattoo?" I laugh. "Don't tell mom I'm telling you this, you know that jacket with the snake on it? Mom has one in red." He nods. "Well I'm not going to tell you all because your to young but it's a group of people that help each other and you have to join to get that help and we all have tattoos to show that we are apart of that group." He nods. "Oh I saw Fogarty with that jacket is he part of it." I nod. "Yeah your middle name is after my great grandpa who started it." He smiles. "Really?" I smile at his smile. "Yeah don't tell mom I told you if she ask say we're a book club." I stand up. He gets up off his bed. "Why?" I pick him up. "Because she doesn't like talking about it." I lie. He nods and moves on. "What's for dinner." I walk out. "Food." He looks at me seriously. "I'm lying?" He shakes his head. "No." I laugh and put him down. "I have no clue ask mom." He goes and run to Cheryl. "Why are you being nice to him?"
Mary ask. I sit next to her. "Because he's my son." I realize he should apologize to Mary, I was about to yell for him when he comes back in. "I'm sorry for punching you." She looks up. "It's ok." JJ runs to ask Cheryl. I look over at Mary and realize how much she looks like Cheryl. And how much JJ looks like Jason. "What?" I shake my head. "Nothing you just look like mom." I get up and walk out.
"Cheryl what's wrong?" I say walking up to her. "You've been looking out the window for 20 minuets." She snaps back to earth and turns off the water. She turns around. "What happens if she needs are help and we can't be there?" I fix a strand of hair and put it behind her ear. "She'll be fine, she's not going that far." She puts her towel down. "Your right, it's just I worry about her sometimes, we couldn't leave her home alone up until a year ago." I take her hand. She always worries and it concerns me about how much she does. "She'll be fine, and if she's not than we'll help her when she isn't."
