Brooke's POV

When I was 10 I asked my mom how Sam was my brother. I understood that we had the same dad I just didn't understand how. I knew that his mom was very close to my mom when she was growing up and I knew that she and Sam were best friends from the time they were little kids. A lot like me and Ryan and Jason and Melissa only Jason and Melissa are in love and Ryan is my nephew even if he just a few months younger than me. At 10 I just assumed that everyone grew up happily with their mom and their dad. So I asked her how she ended up with dad and she told she would have to explain it all later. I'm pretty sure they needed to get their story straight.

The day after I asked they told both me and Jason how dad walked out on his wife and Sam. It had never even occurred to me that my dad and Alison were even together even thought they were Sam's parents. Remember I was 10. And then mom explained how they met a long time later and they didn't know who the other person was. She broke up with dad but then later found out she was pregnant with Jason so they decided to work things out. When I was 10 I took it at that. As the years went on mom told me more and more about the drama involved.

Most twisted love story ever is what I told them. How weird is it to end up with your best friends long lost father? But I'm glad they ended up together. They belonged together and they were amazing parents.

When I was 15 dad had a heart attack and while he survived it was the start of a long battle and a lot of hospital stays.

The whole time he was sick he was more worried about mom than anything. I knew Grandpa died of a heart attack and dad dying at all was apparently mom's greatest fear.

We all knew he was going to die soon. He was weak, he wasn't really him anymore. He held on for 2 years though.

Then mom got sick. It was just the flu we thought but because she was so stressed and tired from worrying about dad she couldn't beat it. She died shortly before my 17th birthday and he died a month later. He tried to hold on for Jason and I but we told him together alone in the room with him that he should let go and be with her.

Jason and I were of course devastated. We were just teenagers. He had already graduated and I was in my last year but neither of were anywhere near ready to be adults. We were kind of spoiled kids. Sam and Emily and Jake and Leah all offered to let us live with them but neither of us really wanted to move.

That house is full of memories and memories of memories. It's the only house we'd ever lived in even though we spent enough time at both Sam's and Jake's to feel like those are our homes too.

That is the house that he bought for her hoping she would forgive him. The house she did forgive him in. The house he proposed to her in. The house we both took our first steps in. The house I pushed Ryan down the stairs in when I was 5 because he ripped a head off a Barbie and the house Jason first met Melissa in. Every holiday and birthday and good grade and heartbreak are held in that house.

We did briefly consider moving but I wanted to go with Sam and he wanted to go with Jake and we knew we had to stick together. Ryan is my best friend and Melissa is so much more than that to Jason but he's my brother. He's really the only one who understands how while we are upset we're OK with the fact that they both died so close together leaving us when we still needed them.

They were two parts of a whole. I believe everything happens for a reason. I got that from Sam I think.

I believe that dad left Sam and Grandma left mom and mom got pregnant with Jason within a week of meeting him so that they could spend the time they did together. It led to so much more, it led to mom being strong enough to let Grandma and Jillian into her life and ours, it led to Jason and Melissa being a sickeningly sweet couple with their first baby on the way. I even believe it led to Alison being happy. She was finally able to let go of her past with dad and move on. She got married before they died and they were both there.

In the end it was decided that Jillian and her little girl Grace would move in with us. Jillian married young and divorced young but she says it all worth it because she ended up with Grace.

We all lived together for the next 5 years until Jason and Melissa moved into their own house and I met Chris a year later. Jillian tried to warn me against moving so fast and I do have my occasional worry but I think the heartbreak is worth the reward in the end. Maybe I'm not meant to be with Chris forever but I'm going to love him in the moment.

Funny how things work out, Jillian moved here to help us keep the house and now it is her and Grace's house. Jason and I both know it's still ours though and we can always go back.

Both mom and dad loved Jillian and I know they would have been happy to have her here.

Most twisted love story ever. There is no happily ever happy after but it's not because we're not happy, it's because there is always another after. Happiness and sadness and pain and joy, they all come and go.

But Jason and I, we have an amazing family to get us through it all.

The End

A/N Thank you so much for all the reviews and the follows and the favorites.