Yalena and her siblings often eat their meals alone. Not because Verne isn’t trying to make up for his past absence but because they can’t bring themselves to forgive him.
“How was your day Zarah,” she asks, taking on the parent role. She resents having to be the adult in the house and resents her father even more for one day just waking up and deciding he was ready to shrug on the coat of responsibility once again.
“It was good! We got to play outside for a whole hour at school because the weather was nice today. And, tomorrow, we’re taking a trip to the science station.”
“Yeah, maybe we’ll see a ghost,” Zane pipes up.
It quickly becomes apparent that the damage he has done by ignoring them and wallowing in his own self-pity will not be easily reversible. He feels like a pariah in his own house. “And rightly so. I failed them all” he thinks, full of regrets. His children, at least the ones that can walk, never stay in a room with him very long and though the twins talk to him sometimes, he can tell that they’re wary that he’ll ‘disappear’ again.
With this knowledge, it is an easy choice to decide to throw a normal, at the house birthday party for them when they become teens. It will be hard. He still hasn’t gotten over the loss of his wife but Wren is right. He can’t blame the children for that. Abrielle was happy, to her last minute and taking care of her babies was what she would want. He quickly pulls together a party, complete with friends, cakes, and balloons.
As soon as Yalena had caught wind of the party, she already made plans to skip it. Fresh in her head was her sweet teen birthday party which was anything but sweet. The memory of her father getting drunk before she had barely even blown out the candles, blaming her for her mother’s death, having to find a ride home for him and the twins. The only good thing that came out of that night was Glen.
“Glen,” she breathed a sigh to herself. She missed him terribly. She didn’t want her father to have him arrested or do something drastic like send her to boarding school but she couldn’t stay away from him. She loved him. She knew he was older but he got her. She had to see him. No more of just chatting on the phone when her dad wasn’t looking.
“Glen, can you come over,” she begged as soon as he answered his phone.
“To your house? Lena, I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
“The twins’ birthday is today. We have a storage room above the attic, no one would think to look for us there.”
She heard him sigh before finally agreeing to come over as soon as he could.
She met him in garage and led him up the spiral stairs to the neglected store room. It was supposed to have been turned into Grandma’s apartment but they never got around to finishing it before the Grim came to take her.
“Lena, is everything okay,” Glen asked, holding her shoulders and looking into her eyes.
“It is now. I had to see you. I can’t stand being apart,” she cried and threw herself into his arms.
He held her tightly for a while and she felt that there could be no better place than this.
“Glen, I, I love you,” she stammered out nervously.
“I love you too.”
Meanwhile, downstairs the party continued downstairs. Zarah decided to see how guilty her father really felt and asked him for a horse for her birthday. Apparently, he didn’t feel guilty enough because he prattled on about not having the room for a horse and not sure that she was ready to take on the responsibility of caring for a horse when she had school and her sports to tend to.
The first thing Zane did when he finally became a teen was to turn and head off away from the party. There were SO many people. How anyone could think with all of that noise and chaos was beyond him.
No one thought to look for Yalena. She had made it perfectly and abundantly clear what she thought of her father’s attempts to win her and the twins back. She had flounced off to the library shortly before the party started and explained that she would not be home until the last guest was gone the debris cleaned up. She wanted no reminders that her father apparently loved the twins enough to make an effort.
“Are you sure you want to do this,” Glen struggled to restrain himself having watched Yalena shimmy out of her dress. His shirt had quickly followed but doubt had crept in and now he was starting to wonder if this was a good idea.
She reached between them and made it abundantly clear that she did, indeed, want to continue. Hardly able to contain himself, he picked her up, folded himself onto the floor with her in his lap.
Yalena’s mind was racing as Glen nibbled on her neck. “I can’t believe I am doing this. Am I really ready? But we love each other. Isn’t this what you do when you love someone? Oh, it feels so good. How does he know what to do?” Her thoughts continued until they made one jumbled mess and she pushed them out of her mind.
He stood, lifting her with him and stood her back up. Before giving him a chance to change his mind, she unbuttoned and unzipped his pants. She knew what she wanted and there was no way anyone, not even her father, was going to get in the way of love.
The next morning, the twins headed off to high school with Yalena. She knew they would both do just fine. Both were incredibly smart but Yalena did worry about Zane’s ability to make friends. When they boarded the bus, he chose to sit away from his sisters and, as their classmates joined them, one by one, he stayed alone.
After her first day of school, Zarah felt the need to dive back into her potion making. She really wanted to be out in the yard, throwing a ball around or jogging through the streets but if she wanted to be valedictorian, she would need to stay top of everything. Plus, although she had realized that her mother was not coming back, she did think she might be able to find some kind of death preventative or at least life lengthener.
Zane had discovered his first dilemma. His lab partner in science class was Duane Wheloff. He had agreed to come home with Zane so they could study for a quiz the following morning. Only, Zane found himself thinking about Duane and wondering what his sign was. Wondering if he had a girlfriend. “What’s wrong with me,” he wondered.
“Look who it is,” Xander boomed as Thea walked in the door shortly behind him.
They gave each other big hugs, glad to be home from boarding school. They hadn’t seen each other since they left though they had kept in touch.
“Look at that hair! I barely recognized you,” Thea joked, tugging on his locks.
‘So what are your plans now that you are back?”
“Actually, I have an interview at the business center. They have an opening a few cities over and I want it. I know I would be right for the job. You?”
“I don’t know yet. I’ve been thinking of moving to Storybrook. There’s a lot more to do there and a lot more opportunities for music.”
That morning, after a restless sleep spent thinking about her goals, Thea went to her interview. Most would have assumed she was heading out on a date or to a glamorous event but she had big dreams of owning her own company one day and no time was too soon to start looking the part. She had the entire package and, if this company was too fool to see it, she would head to the next.
She had to wait three days for human resources to make a decision. After leaving the interview, she knew that the job was hers and didn’t understand why they would make her wait. Policy she supposed. When you were at the top, you had to do things on your time to remind the little people who was boss. She made the announcement over breakfast that she would soon be leaving to move to the city.
Once again, the house was just the twins and triplets and, of course, Yalena.
Guys, Thea is so much more beautiful than I originally gave her credit for! Like seriously, gorgeous. Not in a cute or sweet way either. More like a hot, ambitious bitch. Which I LOVE. I've been considering a RL for awhile now and I did roll a first generation roll and she would fit it perfectly. So I might store her somewhere and do that. I just don't know how I am supposed to let her and her story go.
Also, I hope no one is offended by the Yalena/Glen storyline. I know he is YA and she is teen but, in my head, they're really not that far apart in age. Kind of like a 17 year old and her 20 year old boyfriend.
