March 30th 2023
Chapter 89
We Celebrate A House Full Of Love
Dear Mrs. Friar,
I was hoping that I would get to fly home over the summer, so I would get to see you and everyone, and I'm really sorry that it didn't happen, especially because it meant that I missed out on Ella and Taylor's wedding. I knew they understood, and you would, too, but I really wanted to go. Being this far away from everyone and everything I know is hard, and I knew that when I decided to go to school in England, but it's just one of those things I couldn't really know until I was in the middle of it, right?
I don't want to make it sound like I sat crying out here, saying I wanted to abandon everything and go back to Texas. Have there been a couple of times where I felt really, really homesick? For sure. But it never lasted long, because as much as I do miss home like that, I love being here just as much, maybe more. I'm starting to wonder if I won't just settle here after I finish school. There's so much to make me want to stay, though of course I would come and visit as often as I could if I did that. I've still got time to decide, so nothing is set in stone at all.
This summer, the reason I didn't get to go back, as you'll know, was thanks to this opportunity that came to me through school. It's taken me through so many places, allowed me to see so many things with my own eyes I never believed I would get to see. I could go on and on about it, but I thought it best to do as we did in school. If you haven't opened it yet, as instructed on the wrappings, you'll find along with this letter a sketchbook that I filled up all through the summer.
I knew I wanted to do this and send it to you at the end as soon as I got offered the post. You're kind of the reason I'm out here at all in the first place, you know? Even before Theo left home, before I got pregnant and had to decide what would happen with Anthony, I could never even dream of having a life like this. I think that all started to change that night, on Halloween, when I told you what was going on.
Now I'm here, and it feels real, it feels earned. I'm getting to feel more and more at home, I've made some wonderful friends, and I have professors that inspire me so, so much. If you ask me, none of them could ever compare to you, because you were the first, you were the one that made it possible.
With love,
Nika Petrelis
PS: Ella says that she and Mr. Friar like to tease you about the letters you get that make you cry. If that happened here, I'm sorry? Kinda?
.
Dear Nika,
For the record, because it's never been in me to hide it, yes, I did cry. And yes, they roasted me good. But that's alright, because I got them back by showing them your letter. Guess who got roasted then.
All that aside, I was so very happy to receive your package. I'm guessing by the number of layers you put around that sketchbook that you were concerned about it making it to Texas in as good of a condition as it left your hands. You'll be happy to hear that there wasn't a scratch or a crushed corner in sight. Your sketchbook made it, and if your letter made me cry, your art... Alright, that made me cry, too, but mostly from a place of artistic appreciation. More than anything, it made me so very happy. I can still see your style in all of the pieces, just as I can see how that style is evolving with you.
If I had to go into detail about all of it in this letter, it would take far too long... and too much paper. Lucas suggested that I record myself going through all of them and send it to you, so that's what I did. Everything is on the drive I sent you and, yes, the excessive layers were a nod to you.
As to the rest of your letter, we know how you would have been there if you could have, don't you worry. I did hear about your potentially staying in England from Ella, and from your former bandmates, too. I think it's fair to say that, even though we would all miss you so much, as we already do, we would support any decision that made you happy. You deserve every bit of that happiness, Nika, so you hold on to it with both hands.
Sending you so many hugs until I can give them to you in person. All the best,
Mrs. Maya Friar
X
"Hey... Hey, Lucas, you awake in there?" a whisper broke into the early morning quiet, though not so quiet that it might not have awakened both of the sleepers if they hadn't been stirring already. Instead, it made them both smile, unseen for having their backs to the door, or at least...
"They're awake, you know?"
"How can you tell? Are you sure?"
"Would you like me to leave you three alone?" Lucas quietly asked, and Maya snorted, imagining her sisters, standing like deer in headlights. They got over it quick, judging by how, seconds later, Maya and Lucas were startled by the arrival of two fully grown girls climbing up to sit at the foot of their bed. "This is what the next four years are going to be like, isn't it?" Lucas asked, turning a look to his wife that made her laugh before tapping his arm.
"If the last ten plus years didn't tell you it would be exactly this, you weren't paying attention," she whispered, and he smiled. "Alright," she sighed now, looking to her sisters, "What is this about?"
"It's August 18th, what do you think it's about?" Nellie pointed out, and that answered the question even as it made everyone smile.
Yes, now that they thought about it, the fact that Kacey, Remy, and Lucy Friar were all turning five years old today was a perfectly valid excuse to startle their parents with a bed invasion from their aunts. The entire reason why Maya and Lucas had not left their bed and gone to call on their birthday girls yet was because they'd been keeping an ear out, waiting for their moment. Maybe the girls would have come scrambling over from across the hall on their own, in which case they would have been ready for them. There had been no peep of them by ear or eye though, so now with the second set of multiples in their house coming along… The twins had always had a particular bond with the triplets for that very reason.
"I think they might like a classic birthday wakeup call," Maya smirked, seeing how her sisters immediately became attached to this idea. "You two go ahead, we'll go see what the others are up to back there," she gestured in the general direction of the green room.
As quickly as they had come along into their room, Nellie and Gracie left it again to pull themselves together and then sneak into the other room. This left Maya and Lucas to collect themselves and move down the hall. It was anyone's guess whether any or all of the girls in that room would be awake already, plotting sisterly shenanigans. This morning, they had the added benefit of nearly-birthday girl Tori among them, too, and they were certain to bring her in to everything they were trying to do. They had Ella upstairs, too, her and Taylor ignoring the fact that they now had a very good home of their own to be in, together with Tori when she wasn't at her father's. For an occasion like this, it would have been almost wrong not to have them right in the house. The green room girls might have been plotting right in that moment to go and collect them, and their Uncle Wy, and their aunts, too, if they thought them all still in their beds.
It wasn't until they got right up to the door that they started to hear the voices from inside, quietly talking over one another. And when they opened the door, they found that the sisters and their niece had gone and staged their own sort of camping trip, with a blanket tented over bed posts and several pillows and cushions pushed on to the floor in the middle, where Marianne, Tori, Mackenzie, and Aubrey sat together. Nearby, Micro the bird chirped in equal surprise in his cage. At the arrival of their parents and grandparents, the quartet all paused and looked up.
"Leave it to us to cultivate a lot of early birds," Maya stated, making Lucas nod in agreement as the girls stared back at them.
A moment later, there were the unmistakable sounds of excited surprise from the triplets' room, and it sent big and little sisters running, one little niece at their heels, as the two adults were left to either move out of the way or get trampled. They went right behind them though, so they came upon the scene in progress, with Nellie and Gracie using their respective arms to close around their three nieces as they'd been together in Remy's bed, and then the four girls from down the hall finding no problems with climbing on somehow to join the great heap. At the heart of it were Maya and Lucas' 'little butts,' their Cub, and Kit, and Bun, with such great smiles on them that their parents could never forget them in that moment.
They were patient, they could wait their turn. They could remember all too well how scary it had once been, to be expecting three babies at once, to even touch or hold them at first and be afraid to break them, so any chance they got to see them all like this together… Those girls had none of those fears, none at all. They just burst with life, they were funny, and sweet, daring, and creative… They were growing, so they were getting to explore what made each of them a person apart from her sisters while also never losing what made them a very special unit. They could rush their parents all at once with the best of them, which they did, and they would be lifted, two here and one there, like they were of a single mind, too.
"Hi!" Maya laughed, only straining about half as much as she made it sound as she held Lucy and Kacey at the same time.
"Good morning," Lucas pressed a kiss to Remy's cheek even as she had her arms around his neck, like he didn't need air at all. Her sisters had a similar idea, though this mostly meant pressing one cheek to either one of their mother's until they looked like a face sandwich.
"How'd you guys sleep? Good?" she asked, turning her eyes to one side and then the other, which made them laugh.
"Kacey snores," Lucy declared.
"Nuh-uh, Remy does!" Kacey insisted.
"I don't, I don't, Lucy does!" Remy leaned over.
"Hate to break it to you, but you all do," Lucas told them, imitating the trio's sleeping sounds. Coming from him, they didn't even try to deny it, just found the whole thing very funny.
"Yeah, but mostly when you're sleeping next to someone, which is strange?" Maya pitched in, earning a discreet grin from Lucas which she did not clarify for their birthday girls' sake. Instead, she could only smile and look at them. "You're five years old now! Five!" she told them, with all the loving awe she had in her. They looked so proud of themselves for this, and no one would blame them. Their family as a whole could do nothing but see them as spectacular.
TO BE CONTINUED
See you tomorrow! - mooners
