"Stop stealing my make-up Elia!" – "I didn't steal it I don't care about that! I don't need it tio be pretty!" – "Shut up and give it back to me! Mom!" Lightning closed her eyes. She stayed on the toilet a few more seconds while her two girls were still arguing about stolen make-up, her thumbs reaching her temples to massage them carefully at the next wave of insults. "Just look inside your own bag Rhea and give it back!"
"I don't have it stop annoying me!" – "MOM!" She sighed heavily as she stood up to flush, taking all the time in the world to wash her hands the next second before going outside the bathroom to reach the other one located a little further away and pushed the bathroom door with anger, spotting the two girls holding toothbrushes as weapons, her arms folding across her chest at their sight. "Mom tell Elia to give it back to me."
"Mom I didn't do anything she's lying!" Lightning looked at her two daughters back and forth, her teeth slightly grinning against each other while the two girls were slowly putting their weapons down to look at their mother starting to get annoyed by the constant arguing every single morning.
"Listen to me both of you. Rhea, you probably left your make-up at Mum's place, Elia, if you have it simply give it back before I get angry. I've had enough of you two arguing for such futile things. If I hear another word, I will make sure make-up is the last word coming out from both of your mouths. Clear enough?" she observed the two girls nodding painfully before stumbling out of the bathroom with her fists tightly clenched and made her way back inside the kitchen to finally finish her coffee before going to work for her long day.
She sighed heavily, wondering why on earth these girls were always pushing her buttons so soon in the morning, even before enjoying her morning coffee completely. She sighed again, slowly making her way back inside the living room to look at the two teenagers pouting at the table, casting a look at both of them with a shake of the head. "We're leaving in fifteen minutes."
Rhea, the older one nodded and brought her mug closer to her lips to enjoy her own coffee. She scratched her forehead, placing her blond hair away from her face to tie them up in a pony-tail while Elia was simply drawing circles on the glass table with her fingernail, discreetly cursing between her lips. The older one was 17 years old and was in the last year of high-school while Elia was fifteen, meaning that the two girls were always arguing about non important things better than focusing on their homework's or simply studies. "Mom? Are you seeing Mum today or not?"
"I don't know yet, why?" Lightning waited patiently for an answer, the frown she had for the past ten minutes getting only bigger as Rhea was slightly opening her mouth to speak up. "If this is about your make-up Rhea…" – "What? No, no not at all. I just wondered."
"It's not planned at all." She responded as her eyes were narrowing to stare at the ground, the feeling of anger she had ever since the morning refusing to leave her mind but was only getting worse by the second. "It's not planned. The last time I saw Fang was when I picked you up from her place."
"Mom? Are you ever getting back together?" Lightning lifted her head up to lock her eyes with her daughter's, her eyebrow arching in surprise and confusion for such a question since Fang and her had divorced more than two years ago. She kept the eye-contact a few more seconds before sighing loudly with a shake of the head, not needing any words to express her resentment towards the woman she had once loved. "Okay."
The pink-haired woman tried her best to smile but simply turned around to grab her bag from the counter, avoiding the long eye-contact her older daughter had been throwing at her for the past seconds without even blinking and sighed heavily as she turned back around, quickly casting a look at the clock above the TV. "2 minutes girls." She observed the two bobs of the head as the girls were standing up from the chairs to go back inside their respective bedrooms to grab their own bags, Lightning's eyes narrowing at the sight of small heels Rhea was wearing and shook her head in despair.
She shrugged in defeat, thinking that at the age of seventeen, she was probably the same with her own parents and grabbed the setoff keys from the table in order to already go inside the car to start the engine on. She opened the front door, surprised by the cool wind brushing the tip of her nose before starting to make her way towards the black SUV parked in front of the house, her thumb already pressing on the keys to unlock the doors. As she sat down behind the wheel, Lightning began to think. To think about how things had actually gone south like this with her ex-wife, ex-wife she had loved and which whom she had shared so many years of her life. We stayed together twenty fucking years.
She brought both her hands to cover up her face, her head slightly shaking from left to right in defeat before sharply focusing her attention on the two girls coming her way with frown on their faces, this facial expression only showing Lightning that her two daughters had argued again for stupid things but wasn't going to interfere this time, simply waiting for both of them to enter the car so she could finally take them to high-school. "When are you going off from work Mom?"
"Uh…my last appointment is at 5PM, so around 6. When are you getting out of school?" Lightning asked as she drove of the driveway to reach the road, listening to Rhea telling her was going off at 3 whilst Elia was over at 4:30PM. "Okay. Rhea, you can use your free time by, I don't know, let's say going to the driving school don't you think?" the woman quickly casted a look to her right, observing the pout on her daughter's face at the mention of driving school before looking in the rear-view mirror, Elia hiding her proud smile as her sister was being pestered about it again and didn't hesitate to tackle her too. "And Elia, I believe your mother and I registered you to a homework aid, why don't you do there for an hour?"
The reaction was extremely rapid as Elia face began to be distorted by annoyance, her eyes quickly shifting to look by the window with a straight mouth. You really think I had nothing for you huh? Lightning smirked, proud of the reaction she had caused in both her daughters before turning the radio on, a sigh quickly leaving her mouth at the sound of Fang's voice presenting the morning music broadcast but kept the channel on, knowing precisely that both Elia and Rhea loved that show more than anything else on the radio. "Alright! This was Muse for those who didn't recognize because there are still livin' in caves! Ha! Jokes aside, don't forget to call, and maybe ya will be the winner of the awesome BMW! Let's continue now with the Fall out Boys, I don't care."
Lightning shook her head in despair, quickly pressing on the pedal to reach the high school so she wouldn't have to listen to her voice a single more second, her eyes scrutinizing her horizons carefully to find a parking space somewhere near the school while the two girls were both bouncing their heads and singing loudly in the car. She couldn't help but to smile, glad to see that they still had the same bond that they always used to have when they were younger before stopping the car all together. "Okay, Rhea, driving school, Elia, homework aid. Try to pay attention in class this time Rhea, if I receive another call from your principal you will wish to be dead."
"Yep! See you mom, have a nice day!" – "Bye mom!" Lightning smiled and waved at the two girls before starting the engine again, carefully leaving the parking space in order to reach her office in the center of the city of Angels. She slowly positioned herself on the left line in order to take a turn, not realizing that Fang's broadcast was actually still on. She figured it out the moment she heard a big and loud "Ha!" reaching her ears, her attention quickly focusing on the radio to turn the buttons in order to find anything else to listen to but simply turned the radio completely off in defeat.
After a few more minutes of driving in a complete silence, Lightning had finally parked in front of the office and was stumbling out of the car with her purse in her hands, her glasses quickly landing on the tip of her nose with a small smile. She grabbed the keys back and opened the front door carefully as she entered the building, automatically making her way towards the reception to greet her secretary before disappearing inside the big office on the right, her purse landing on the chair instead of her but so she could check if everything was in order, looking at the chair and her instruments before looking at the clock on the wall. 8:40AM. Okay, I still have twenty minutes.
Lightning nodded inwardly to herself as she grabbed the purse to place it back on the ground and sat down painfully in front of her computer, her fingers already typing on the screen to play music inside the waiting room and slightly closed her eyes, ready to spend the day taking care of women in her OB-GYN office.
She was sitting in the classroom with her pen in her mouth, listening to a boring speech on how the French handle the WWII, nothing that she really cared about since as she had always told, it was the past. Why care about the past if there's nothing you can even do about it anymore right? Rhea sneered at her own thought, her gaze quickly getting lost as she was actually thinking about more important things. More important like the fact that her mothers were on a war ground for the past two years, ever since the divorce had been settled and needed, with the help of her sister, Serah and Vanille, figure out a way to get them back together. tough luck I think.
"Miss Farron. Care to tell me the date of the landings?" Rhea lifted her head up from the table, her pen falling from her mouth to land on her desk and smiled in embarrassment, trying to figure out what question had actually been asked. "The date? Landings?"
"Oh, uh the 6th of June 1944" the girl responded with a grin on her lips, lucky to have talked about this with her mother the previous night and impressed by herself for actually having remembered something so boring. She looked at her teacher with a slightly arched brow before he finally decided to turn his attention on something else, her train of thoughts starting again inside her own brain to figure out the perfect plan. How could we? It's always the same, when I tell Mum about Mom, her face gets all tensed up, and the same happens with Mom. They don't even think about us!
Rhea frowned severely and began to steeple her fingers, a plan already starting inside her brain to try and make their mothers reunite, her hand quickly grabbing the phone inside her pencil case and selected the name Annoying sis'. "Elia, we need to make mom and Mum talk, or get back together. Meet me at 12PM for lunch! XOXO"She hid the phone back as her teacher casted a glance in her direction, the girl only smiling at his sight as she was feeling particularly proud of herself for the plan she had begun to think about. "Miss Farron, end of the WWII?"
"Uh, where?" she asked with an arched brow.
"In France and then Asia." – "Oh. 8th may 1945 in Europe and 2nd of September 1945 in Japan." The girl sneered as her teacher nodded extremely slowly and simply placed her pen back in her mouth to suffer through the next remaining hour until she could see her sister to scheme their plot.
At 12PM, Rhea was waiting in front of the high-school with a cigarette in her hand gently going towards her lips every so often while Elia was coming her way with a shake of the head at her sister's sight. "You know that you will be killed if they find out? Well especially Mom."
"Then they'll never know! Let's go, let's go!" the two sister's quickly made their way towards the other side of the street, Rhea crashing her cigarette on the ground in order to step inside of it with a grin on her lips as she spotted the two other people she had asked to come to meet them both under the pretext that Elia had had intercourse with her imaginary boyfriend. She tapped Serah's shoulder to make her turn around, the pinky frowning at both their sight as they sat down in front of them both. "Hey Serah, Van!"
"Rhea, you smoked. And Elia, what the hell?" the younger brunette sister raised an eyebrow in confusion at the looks she was receiving from both her aunts while Rhea was hiding her smile under her hand, the connection quickly being made inside her mind. "You had…sex?"
"What?! No! Rhea you suck!" the older sister laughed loudly in the entire Restaurant while Serah, Elia and Vanille were throwing concerned looks in her direction before she face the two women back again with an intense look.
"Okay, sorry it was just to make you come here; I thought it would be efficient." –"Well it was. Now tell us what's going on Rhea, and never again." Rhea nodded quickly; grabbing the menus the waiter was giving her without giving him a single look and looked deep inside Serah and Vanille's eyes.
"Okay. I want my mom's to be back together. It's so annoying, they never speak, when I talk about one to the other they get all angry and everything, but I know they still have feelings for each other! And I want them together, not like this…" Rhea had always been a good actress, competence that had gotten her out of many difficult situations with both her mother's as a child, and had continued practicing in her teenager's years, just for fun. But this time, the few tears reaching her eyes weren't fake ones, as her family situation was slowly destroying her from the inside.
"Rhea, listen to me…" Serah started with a broken smile as she observed the blond-haired girl hiding her face with both her hands, too ashamed of actually crying in front of everyone like a baby. "I know it's hard for you, I can't even imagine how you must feel. But I think that your mom's aren't on the same page anymore…" she continued while Vanille was nodding in pain under Elia gaze, watching the pain inside those green eyes. "They got a divorce because they weren't getting along anymore, and it's not something that can be fixed so quickly."
"Quickly? It's been two years!" Rhea said with a tone filled with disdain and anger, quickly calming back down at the sight of Serah and Vanille's gazes. "I just—it's too much! They're stupid! Both of them!"
"Rhea…" – "I want them to be together! They were always laughing and making fun of each other…they were…" she added, clicking her fingers together to find the perfect word to describe the relationship Fang and Lightning once had. "Complimentary! Right?" she said while casting a glance in her sister's direction.
"It's true. But they're not anymore…" The blondie slightly opened her mouth as she looked at her sister ducking her head in pain, unable to understand when her younger sister had given up hope of seeing their mother's together once more and couldn't possibly understand why she had ever thought that in the first place. "They're not anymore Rhea, you've seen them when one is picking us up. It's barely a hello, barely an eye-contact. They…they hate each other."
"No, that's not true Elia" said Vanille, speaking up for the first time in the conversation with a small smile. "They don't hate each other at all. I think that the little something they had when they both met slowly faded away, that's all…" Rhea shook her head in disappointment. She had thought her aunts would've been in favor to try and get them together at least once, the fact that her own sister seemed to think it was doomed to failure annoying the most. Why aren't you backing me up!
"Listen Rhea, the only thing I can do to help is to organize a dinner for Thanksgiving. I actually wanted to do it since I haven't seen Fang nor Lightning in a little while now. So I'm going to text them both to invite them. But I'm not promising anything, they usually avoid each other." Rhea nodded with the faint hope that her mom's would both agree to the dinner, her gaze fixing itself upon her aunt to make her type the message right away, her grin growing wider and wide as the seconds were passing by. "Not now! Tonight."
"Okay! Let's eat now I'm starving! Stupid History drained my brain." – "So you do have one!" Elia sneered loudly as she spoke up, but didn't expect the incoming slap in the back of her head and frowned heavily as she looked at her sister, Rhea now being the only one smiling from ear to ear.
"This is because you're mean to me; I'll let you know I received a B+ in Literature." Serah opened wide eyes and lifted her head up from the menu to smile at her niece, glad to see Lightning's tough education had the effect of making Rhea actually work for her tests before she dug her face back inside the menu to select her own meal, a small and pinched smile reaching her lips at the idea of her sister and Fang being in the same room for more than fifteen minutes, already thinking about the broken glasses and plates that might occur during the night.
Fang was sitting on her sofa with a proud smile on her lips, the pen she had in her hand moving on the white paper to create a drawing of a bird she had always found magnificent. Indeed, if there's something Fang loved to do, was to create her own tattoos to give them to Lebreau so she could then draw them on her skin for all eternity, precision being highly noticed in her movements as every feather was perfectly made, every emotion represented and every movement shown.
She had done the exact same thing with two other of her tattoos, one on her other biceps representing a dear in cubic form and another one at the end of her nape, a guitar formed with keys of G's and F's. It was always taking her time, but the result was always everything she had hoped for. If she actually had to think about, she would've loved to become a tattoo artist to be able to draw every single minute of every single day of the year, but since Lebreau had already had an office when they first met, she had decided not to steal her thunder, thing that, in her mind, could've happened otherwise.
She was so deeply focused inside her drawing that nothing would actually get her out of her thoughts. Well one thing actually could since her phone buzzing in her pocket was taking her away from her artistic creation, a frown quickly reaching her eyebrows as she grabbed the object to look at the text she had received. "Fang it's Serah! Say, I'm organizing Thxgiving on Saturday, so in three days. I would love it if you could come; I haven't seen you in a while. I hope you're okay! Xoxo."
As much as she hated it, Fang winced. She winced because she knew that Lightning would obviously be there for her sister in order to help her with dinner since it had always seemed to be a tradition in the Farron family, and didn't know if she would actually be welcomed there. But she also knew that her two daughters would obviously be there, and since seeing them only every two weeks was annoying her, she knew she needed to be there.
Slowly, Fang nibbled on her lip with both her thumbs standing above the screen to try and find the right words but simply typed her acknowledgment. "Hey Serah, would love too. Do you need me to bring anything?". She then waited a few more seconds before she could go back inside her drawing, waiting for the phone to buzz again on the glass table she had bought the previous week with her daughters and looked at the object buzzing after a few seconds, a small smile reaching her lips at her ex-sister's-in-law's text.
"No, you is just perfect. I'll see you on Saturday then 7PM." After placing the phone a little further away, Fang grabbed her pen back in her hand but remained perfectly still above the paper, her eyes narrowing slowly to stare at the ground in a feeling of absolute defeat, the picture of Lightning rushing back inside her mind like a thunderstorm ready to crash her on the ground and quickly lifted her head up to look at the paper as a dropping sound reached her ears.
She frowned heavily at the sight of a small blood stain on the paper, her hand quickly landing on her lip to be placed back in front of her eyes, watching her two fingers slightly reddish, her lip being obviously opened due to the amount of stress she was feeling inside her every bone. "Shit" she said as she stood up from the sofa to reach the bathroom a little further away to look at her own reflection. She shook her head in contempt as she turned the water on, both her hands quickly going on her face to wash it and began to suck on the lip to stop the blood flood. "What am I goin' to do now?"
Fang sighed. She sighed loudly and heavily as if it might take all the pain she was feeling away from her body but simply went back inside the living with a sluggish paste, shifting her direction to reach the kitchen in order to take a glass of white wine, the bottle almost emptying itself as the glass was almost completely filled with the yellowish liquid and simply placed it on her lips with her eyes deeply closed. "Saturday…" she whispered as she placed the glass back on the counter of her kitchen. "Saturday is goin' to be a very, very long day…"
With her arms crossed on her shoulder, Fang slowly unfolded them to grab the glass back and slowly made her way towards the sofa to sit down carefully, her eyes fixing themselves upon the Golden-naped Tanager, grabbing her pencils back to finish her aquarelle drawing from the table with a faint smile.