Thank you for the reviews.
Now the beginning part of this was actually meant to be the end of the last chapter but it felt like the last chapter ended quite naturally where it did. So we are picking up where the last chapter left off...
Is It The Wrong Time?
With James being the one to tell their dad about what he thought had gone on with Philip, they had decided that it was probably best that Amelia had a word with Philip over what had happened. It was actually quite upsetting to Amelia to see how upset Philip was over this. Because she was sure that Philip hadn't wanted to let her mum down but he should have been able to talk to them about things.
"Oh, Philip," Amelia said as she walked into the cooler.
"You all going to have a go at me then."
She grabbed a chair to sit opposite him. "No. But I am going to ask why you thought you couldn't come to us with what was going on."
"Why would I? I don't want to be like my mum."
"Why would you be like your mum?"
Philip swallowed and wiped away the tears. To Amelia, it seemed like her cousin was exhausted and that this was one last thing, the final nail in the coffin. Maybe he had just taken things a little too far but she also knew the conversation that they'd had on Philip's 16th birthday. She knew that Philip was feeling lonely, she should have done more to help.
"I shouldn't have stopped her," Philip muttered.
"Stopped who?" Amelia paused to give him enough time to answer. "Philip?"
"Mum. When you got your mum and dad back together, she wanted to leave again. I stopped her. Told her that she needed to make it up to everyone. That she hadn't really listened to what James or you had said to her and I wasn't going to let her run away from this. I shouldn't of."
"Philip, it isn't your fault that she has… no sense of responsibility. I can only imagine the talk that her and Mum are having just now. And it is going to sound awful but she isn't going to change. Mum gave her this opportunity as well. Not to make it up to her but up to you."
"She was making an effort. Making us eat dinner together and asking about my day. That is more than we were doing before. Then I got home from school one day to a note that she was out and would be back after dinner and to sort myself out. I thought it was a one-off but when I realised that it wasn't and she… started saying about how she needed a man and that Rachel had never wanted one so what was she doing with Eddie." Philip sighed. "I just… couldn't stand her bad-mouthing you lot and so… I did come to yours, I just couldn't knock on the door. So I just walked until I knew that Mum would be asleep and went back home and kept doing it so she didn't annoy me. Bolton saw me out one night. He was out with some other people. Took the piss out of me to seem big to them. And then just everyone else as well. Took the piss more when I tried to be like them."
"You could have come to us."
"You are all happy. Why would I… I thought she might have realised. That she might have seen and she might have gone back to trying without Auntie Rachel getting involved. She didn't."
"Philip, you shouldn't have allowed it to get to this."
Amelia knew that there was more she could have said but she didn't feel like it would have helped Philip, which is why she moved to be next to him to hug him and tell him that everything was going to be okay. Because it would be in the end.
Rachel was sure that she was the last person that Philip wanted to see but she pulled him into an empty classroom at the end of the school day and sat down on a desk next to him.
"I am sorry, Philip. That I exploded in the way that I did. You didn't deserve that. Not because I am your auntie but as your headteacher. I should have realised that there would be something behind it all. Just… Why didn't you come to us, Philip? We could have helped."
"I-I-I didn't want to bother you. After everything that happened with Mum… I didn't want you to give up Lawson."
"Oh, Philip. Oh, love, you're not going to. Hence why you've always known and why I would have never kept it from you. We are here for you. We want you to come to us with any problem and we want to be able to sort those problems out. And I get it now. You've never been supported but we want to support you. You don't have to do it all by yourself. Not anymore."
"It was just nice to see you not stressing."
"Believe me, I am always stressing about something. But then again, I think Eddie is way too laid back about everything." Rachel sighed. "Philip, you are more than welcome at ours. Whether that is to play on the Xbox with James or to talk. We will all listen."
It was in Philip's smile that Rachel felt like she had just taken a heap of pressure from him and she could just see the little boy who used to jump into her arms every time she saw him. And Rachel knew that she wouldn't be herself if she didn't think about how she hadn't seen it back then. That maybe she had a little too much drama in her own life to see that her sister was neglecting her nephew. And it was a horrible thought to have.
Philip seemed to take what Rachel had said to him quite literally and she was sure that there weren't many days in the last 15 that Rachel hadn't seen Philip. It made her put for her to talk to Melissa again on her to-do list but it made for things to be rather awkward.
Mainly because she had been planning a little something for the last month (just to give herself something else to do) and she was now rather worried that it had all come at the wrong time.
Rachel couldn't stop herself from sighing as she quickly collected up the travel brochures before anyone saw them.
If anything, she had two options; to cancel it and just forget about the idea altogether or to see if she could add Philip to the trip.
There were arguments for both but Rachel was seriously wondering whether a bit of time away from Melissa would do Philip a bit of good. Yet she knew the arguments that would cause and the last thing she wanted was for Melissa to join them on the trip. She had only organised it as a bit of a last hurrah, something to make memories for all of them before James and Amelia left for university (a thought which always made Rachel's heart feel heavy even if it was something that she wanted for them).
"Mum," James said as he leant against the doorway of the living room. "Dad said about getting fish and chips. I can assume you want the usual."
"Please James." Rachel said.
"Me and Philip are going to go and get it. And we'll call Amelia on the way to see if she will be home for it."
"Well, we'll get everything else ready."
James shot her a smile and Philip briefly stopped to throw her one as well before the front door closed, causing Rachel to sigh again.
With that, Rachel felt like she was probably best off trying to find where Eddie was and it was still strange that with a look, he knew that there was something playing on her mind.
"Go on then." He said.
"Sorry?"
"Penny for your thoughts?"
"This whole… Philip and Melissa thing. Do you." Rachel stopped for a moment. "It isn't going to get better, is it?"
"You can hope."
"I might try and speak to her again."
"Rachel, I know you want to fix this and I know you want to do best by both Philip and Melissa but she only upsets you every time you talk." He shrugged. "What else are you going to say? Are you just going to be repeating yourself?"
"Probably but…"
"You can't save everyone. And I know that is hard for you to see with Melissa but you just can't. She won't change until she wants to change. You can't help someone that won't help themselves."
Rachel knew what Eddie was saying was right but she was no longer doing this for herself. This was one last attempt to try and get Philip his mother.
"One last chance." Rachel said. "For Philip's sake."
"Then you should probably be forming your argument."
Just by the look on Eddie's face, she knew that he thought that it was going to end in tears. But there was something in the way that he was looking at her that meant that she knew that she could come back home and fall into his arms and he could make everything okay. And Rachel hoped that would always be the way.
The moment when Rachel realised how ridiculous she was being and ready to walk away from Melissa was at the same time that her sister opened the door to Rachel's house. That was another thing on her to-do list. To actually sort out what she was doing with the house that she didn't even call home for a year.
"Rachel?" Melissa said.
Before the urge really left her, Rachel walked into the house, past Melissa who was not happy with her just barging in.
"Excuse me," Melissa said as she followed Rachel into the kitchen.
"Well, this is still my house. Unless you are going to buy it off me. It doesn't seem like we are going to be moving from Eddie's anytime soon. Although, we do probably need to get the rest of our stuff."
"Buy it off you?"
"Yes. I had to pay extra to make it such a quick sale. I could use the money to pay off the mortgage. Then I could put the rest away for emergencies or so I have money if me and Eddie decide to move."
Melissa scoffed. "I could never afford it."
"So have I spent the last nine months sponging off Eddie or have you spent it sponging off me?"
"What is this about Rachel?"
"This is about you stopping making the same mistakes. This is about being a proper mother to Philip."
"Yeah, well, how am I meant to do that when I don't have a roof to put over his head?"
Rachel huffed. "Okay. I am not kicking you out but I think you are going to have to think more long term aren't you? You would have first refusal on the house if I decide to sell it. I haven't really thought about it. But even with a roof over his head, you seem to be making the same mistakes."
"What do you mean?"
"Philip told me."
"Told you what?"
There was a part of Rachel that couldn't really believe what Philip had told her, hence her not telling anyone else about what Philip had told her, probably in confidence. It just felt like it was something that she hoped that Melissa had never done.
"That three months ago wasn't the first time that you had abandoned him. That this… Melissa, if you are struggling, why have you never said anything? These dark places as Philip calls them. I could have helped or found help."
"You know how hard it can be at times. So I want a bit of time by myself. Is that really a bad thing?"
"It is when you leave your nine-year-old son to fend for himself. I have never once thought about leaving James and Amelia on their own. I would… I wouldn't have ever left them on their own. Couldn't you have found someone to look after him?"
"The neighbours always said that they would make sure he was okay."
"How do you care so little?" Rachel whispered.
"I care a lot, thank you very much."
"About Philip or yourself?"
"So you do have a low opinion of me?"
"Well, you seem to have one of me. All because I had the twins."
"I was the special one. I was the little princess. I was meant to be the one that had the twins as well."
Rachel just blinked at Melissa, trying not to cry. Because she knew everything that Melissa had just said and she grew up thinking that. She grew up knowing that Melissa was the favourite and she had hoped that her sister wouldn't grow up thinking that she was any better than Rachel. It was clear that their parents' bias had led to that.
"Then I am glad that I did." Rachel said, trying not to let Melissa know how upset she was. "Because I am so grateful for my two. More grateful than I could ever put into words. You aren't grateful for the one that you have. Imagine if you did have twins. You would have had two unloved children. You would have two children that you would constantly abandon."
Rachel was sure that Melissa was going to argue back but Rachel wasn't going to stick around to hear the next excuse to fall out of Melissa's mouth. Rachel just knew now that she would have to look out for Philip more. She would have to check up on him more. Maybe she would just have to let him know that she loved him.
Rachel knew that the whole house knew that she was upset. Eddie had comforted her once she had arrived home but she hadn't really calmed down enough for the twins not to be shooting her concerned looks over dinner. And maybe she was glad that this was a dinner that Philip wasn't with them (with him out with Bolton and Paul, who had assured him that they were going to make more of an effort to actually be his friends, was what Philip had told her when she grilled him to where he was going and with who). So much so that Rachel found herself throwing down her fork, more in frustration that she allowed her sister to upset her.
"Look, I'm fine." Rachel said.
"You don't seem it," James said.
"Yeah, well… I can just feel my plans unravelling themselves."
"What plans?" Eddie asked.
Rachel sighed. "In just under a week's time, I had planned for all of us to go to Greece for two weeks. As a holiday of just us four. A last hurrah sort of thing before you two go off to university. Two weeks of distracting everyone from the exam results and school and whatever else." She bit her lip as she paused. "But now I wonder that, with everything that is happening with Philip and Melissa, whether it is at the wrong time. Philip needs our support so… do I see if I can add him to the booking or do I try and cancel it or…"
"You are not cancelling it," James said. "This is the one thing that you aren't cancelling because of Auntie Melissa."
"Then tell me what the best thing to do is?"
"Why don't we use it as a test?" Eddie said.
"You know…" Rachel started.
"I know but maybe your words will start to sink in and maybe she will start to make more of an effort in the two weeks that we are away."
"Or we could just make sure that the freezer is stocked up and say that Philip is still welcomed here," Amelia said.
"It just feels slightly wrong to leave him when it feels like we have just got him talking to us." Rachel said.
"Then we will talk to him, Mum," James said.
"What did Melissa say to you today?" Eddie said. "Because you haven't been the same since."
Rachel knew that Eddie wasn't going to take her short explanation that she gave him earlier and she probably should have known that he was going to end up saying something to the twins about it. Maybe she just didn't want the twins knowing.
But then again, she had been more honest with them recently.
"I didn't… Maybe I didn't want my parents' bais to be as deep as I thought it was. And that it would always reflect in Melissa's actions. She… barely loves Philip. How the hell was she meant to cope with twins if it seems like she can't cope with one child?" Rachel said.
Maybe a year ago, both Rachel and Amelia might have come up with an excuse for Melissa but it seemed like the addition of Eddie in their lives meant that whatever loyalty they had towards Melissa had gone and they had all placed it in someone that they could rely on to be there.
"Maybe it was fate, Mum," Amelia said. "Maybe you had twins because the universe knew you could look after them and knew that Auntie Melissa never would."
With that, they seemed to descend into an argument about whether there was such a thing as fate. It cleared whatever tension was in the room and it made Rachel believe that going ahead with her plans was the right thing to do. Because they definitely needed two weeks away from all the drama. Just so they could focus on each other.