My Little Secret // Michael Clifford

The End.

•10 Years Later•

"Marley! Madison! Matthew! Let's go, we're going to be late!", I say rolling my eyes. Today is the first day of school. Marley and Madison are both 16 and in high school. Matthew is 10 and a 5th grader. "Smile!" I say as I take their annual back-to-school picture.

Michael and I got married 7 years ago & we could not be happier with where we are today. We had a couple of miscarriages & found out after our 3rd that we are not able to have any more children. I took that as a sign that our family is complete. Michael and I have definitely had some rough patches, but what couple doesn't? There were times it got so bad that I considered divorce. Marriage isn't easy, especially in the first few years, but when you look at your family and how happy everyone is everything just seems to go away. The problems, the sadness, the anxiety, everything. I am just so happy and I couldn't imagine life without my kids and my husband. Life isn't perfect, but mine sure does feel like it is.

Michael is currently on a farewell tour with 5sos. The guys are all still best friends, but they just mutually decided it was time to end the band. 5sos has come such a long way in the almost 20 years they've been a band. They've won countless awards and made many #1 albums. I couldn't be prouder of them. Michael is taking the whole thing really hard but he knows it's for the best. It's not easy raising kids and being in a band. It got to the point where he felt guilty for leaving me to tour, write or record for the band. They've been on tour for about a month now and have a month and a half left. The kids and I spent the rest of the summer with them on tour and came back for school. It's definitely going to be hard without Michael here, but it's such a short amount of time that he will be gone. I know I can do this for just a month and a half. It will get easier and i know it isn't bad since the kids are a little older now and can pretty much do everything for themselves.

Marley helps me out so much around the house. I always find her randomly doing the dishes or laundry. She even cooks dinner sometimes without me asking. She is such a smart, kind and outgoing girl. She wants to apply to nursing school when she graduates from high school. She's been so passionate about it ever since she was 11. I have my full faith in her, too. She gets straight A's in school, never misses a day, and even stays after school to get extra credit. She also volunteers at a local nursing home in hopes to get some experience, but also because she just loves going everyday and kind of getting a peak into what her future could be like.

Madison is still a little quiet and keeps to herself at times. I think she is still traumatized by what happened to her birth mother. She always tells me stories about her and I absolutely love it. Madison is such a smart and sweet girl. Like her sister, she gets straight A's, never misses a day at school and participated in extra curricular activities. She wants to go to music school to be a choir teacher. She loves music, like Michael. Even though she isn't our biological daughter, she has the strongest bond with Michael. They always write songs together and sing together, it's so sweet. I love how she's so into music and is so passionate about it.

Matthew is the total definition of a mommas boy. He's so sweet and always comes up to me to tell me he loves me at random times of the day. He is Michael's actual twin and it's the craziest thing ever. He's so smart and is always building something new everyday and runs up to me to show me how it works and asks what he should call it. His imagination is so huge, it's astounding. Matthew has come such a long way since the day he was born. For the first few years of his life he had some complications due to being born early. With the proper medication he was fine and ready to go in no time. I am so so thankful for him because every day I was sitting in the NICU with him, I was preparing myself to lose him any minute. He was and still is such a fighter and I'm so proud of him.

I don't know what I would do without my kids and my husband. They truly saved my life. I was in such a dark place before I had Marley and then for the first few years of her life, it got bad again. When Michael and I reconnected, that's when everything started to fall back into place. Madison and Matthew were the missing pieces to our family and the moment they both came into our lives is the moment I knew that everything would be alright.

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Sorry this kind of sucks but I literally just wrote it in like 10 minutes lmao. I hope anyone who reads this fan fic likes it. I know it's not great but 🤷🏻‍♀️ anyways thanks so much for reading it ilysm!❤️