♬About 17 years later♬
I sat down; exhausted from al the house cleaning that boredom brought me. Sometimes I wish I still had a job, but there’s just no time to work when you’ve got two teenagers bringing you down with all of their baggage.

“Mom, I’m home!” Colton, the oldest calls out. He’s in his last year of high school, practically ready to move out and head off to college.

“I’m in the living room!” I shout back. He walks into the room and smiles at me, walking over and kissing my cheek. I’m glad that he’s not too old for his mother. “How was practice?”

Cole shrugs. “Same old. We did some drills and scrimmaged the junior varsity team. You and dad are coming to the game on Friday, right? It’s the championships here.”

“We wouldn’t miss it for the world.”

He cheers in excitement, obviously expecting me to say no, or that his father is too busy, before going off to his room. Harry may be a workingman, but he isn’t going to miss something so big as this. One Direction separated just a few years after the last of 1/5 was officially tied off. It took Niall a while to grow a pair and propose to Diane, and thought it was an emotional day for fans, it couldn’t have gone any better.

I look at the time, and it’s only just after four. Harry won’t be home until five, but I’m more worried about Coralie who was supposed to be home from school two hours ago. I had assumed she was out with friends, her boyfriend even, but it’s starting to get dark already.

Just then, the door opened and slammed with sobs coming from the entrance. I rush to the sound of the cries to see my poor 16-year-old crying her eyes out. “What happened?”

I saw her eyes look up at me, they’re same glossy green as her dad’s, but they were dull now, almost completely rid of color. “Travis dumped me.” She wiped her face and choked back on tears. “He s-s-said t-that he wanted to see other people, that he didn’t want me anymore.”

I shake my head. I never did like that boy, even Harry disapproved, but what can you do when they’re growing up so fast, wanting to experience new things. I offer my hands to her and lift her onto her feet, embracing her in a hug. “I should’ve listened to you, mum. He was an arse from the start.”

“I think I know how to cheer you up.”

“The usual?” This is nothing new. I nod. “I’ll get the tape.”

~

By now, I’ve eaten two bowls of ice cream and working on a third. Poor Coralie is working on the whole tub, spilling out her emotions while watching the tape that she loves to see over and over again. I don’t understand how this can bring her happiness after a breakup, but it brings a smile to your face.

“Wait, this is my favorite part,” she says and turns up the volume on the remote. The recording proceeds, and I look at her face light up, just like it always does at this part. “You look so beautiful in your dress, mum. Remind me again where you got it?”

I chuckle. She asks me this every time, and I know that she knows exactly where I got the dress. I still explain it to her, every time. “It was my mom’s, your grandmother’s I guess. She’s probably cringing right now at how old grandmother makes her sound.” Coralie laughs, just what I was hoping for. “I never even knew about the dress until Drew, your uncle, died. He passed it onto my Aunt Cory who gave it to me the day his will was read.”

She nods. “And my name was inspired from Great Aunt Cory?” I nod. That was definitely and unexpected doing on my part, but I had actually bonded with Aunt Cory that day. She was the only family I had left.

“What’s this?” I question as she brings out a large box. The corners and sides are beaten and worn, but it’s still in moderately good condition.

“This,” she takes off the lid, “was your mother’s wedding dress.” I open my mouth in shock, running my fingers over the old fabric. I had only ever seen this dress in pictures, thinking it was donated or sold for a little extra cash, but here it is.

“It’s beautiful.”

Aunt Cory smiles. “I’m glad you think so. It’s yours.”

I look up at her. “Really?”

She nods. “It was given to me by will. Your brother contacted me just last month asking if I still had it. I never had the heart to get rid of it, so I agreed to give it to you when that fiancé of yours proposed.”

I didn’t know what to do, so I threw my arms around her. “Thank you.”

I’m sure that the sudden affection shocked her, but she, nevertheless, wrapped her arms around me too and told me that it was no big deal.

“How did your brother die again?” Coralie asked me. I never kept anything from her. Talking about Drew and my parents got easier as I kept on talking about them.

I chuckle at the thought of what happened to cause Drew’s death. It must be one of the weirdest ways I’ve ever heard of someone dying.

“It’s all my fault, Harmony. You’re going to hate me for what I did…”

“Talia… I would never hate you even if you were the cause of Drew’s death. Whatever happens, you’re still my best friend and sister. I don’t care about the consequences of knowing the truth; just tell me.”

She takes a shaky breath. “I- I… Drew and I haven’t been the best lately. We’ve been really distant due to our different and full work schedules. I was upset. He was upset. All I know is that pretty soon we’re yelling at each other about stupid stuff-” She stops abruptly, shaking her head and crying more.

I place my hand on her shoulder. “I promise, Tal. Nothing will change; just please continue.”

She wipes on her tears and sniffles back the new ones, still shaking her head. “It’s all my fault. I got mad, so I threw my ring at him.” I look down and notice that her left hand is ringless. “It- it got lodged in his throat. I panicked. I didn’t know what to do. It took me a while to find a phone and call for help. By that time help came, his face was purple, and he had stopped breathing.

“It was too late to save him. I killed him.”

Coralie always frowns when I tell her this. She’s always sad that she will never actually get to meet anyone on my side of the family. “Did you forgive her?”

I give a small smile. “Of course.”

“Tell me again why you didn’t have anyone walk you down the aisle? I always wonder why you didn’t have Uncle Louis or Uncle Zayn walk you down the aisle.” She practically loves hearing about how Harry and I met, so she knows that, had anyone walked me, Louis and Zayn would have been my two choices.

I always love to tell this story. “Well, it was the day of-”

“After, mum. It was the day after, remember?”

I chuckle. “Of course, silly me.” She truly does know the story inside and out. “It was the day after out actual wedding day. Your father and I decided to just have it then because we wouldn’t know when the next day we would have available would open up. That, and your father didn’t want to reschedule the honeymoon.

“I was about to ask Zayn to walk me down the aisle, but by then he had already walked into the church behind all of our other bridesmaids and groomsmen, your aunts and uncles. I thought about running in there and asking him, but I didn’t.”

“Because grandpa and Uncle Drew appeared,” she finished.

“You know the story! Why don’t you finish it?” I tease her, but let her do just that.

“They came in and walked you down the aisle. You could see them watching the wedding from the back of the room, but no one knew until the end at your recession. They came down like angels for your day.” She smiles after finishing. She’s about to start asking me more questions when the garage door opens and headlights shine in through the front window. “Dad’s home!”

She races out of the room and into the garage. I hear the thump of Colton’s footsteps as he races down the stairs, obviously hearing his sister’s outburst. I laugh and follow them to the garage where Harry is just getting out of the car. I lean up against the doorframe and smile as he greets our kids.

“Hello, beautiful,” he finally greets me with a peck on the lips. My cheeks flush, and our teens run inside shouting about how disgusting PDA is.

“Hey, handsome. About time you got home. How was work?” I ask, following him inside.

“Stressful. Louis is driving me insane, per usual and-” He stops when we get to the living room. “Ice cream and our wedding tape…” He turns and faces me with worry. “What happened this time?”

I sigh, “Travis dumped her.”

“He what?” I hear Colton yell from somewhere within the area. “That kid is so dead!” Harry completely supports our son, whereas I smack him for encouraging violence.

He laughs and plants a wet one on my cheek. “Ready for tonight?” I nod, excited for the reunion.

~

“Harmony!” Perrie squeals and tackles me with a hug the second she opens the door. I squeeze her back. “Well, hello to you to, Harry!” Perrie exclaims as Harry just stands there awkwardly. They manage a hug before Harry is off inside, greeting who I’m assuming is the other boys.

“Hello, Aunt Perrie!”

Perrie screams. “You guys have grown so much! Come in!”

I chuckle and make my way into the house where I get tons of hugs and greetings from the rest of the guys. Coralie and Colton have gone off, with the others’ kids I’m assuming.

“El!” I shout when I see her. She turns around and smiles, giving me view of two other people. “Dani! Diane!” I run over and embrace them. I don’t know what’s gotten into me; I’m not usually so affectionate. I guess it’s the fact that we don’t all get together at the same time anymore. Sure, I see Perrie a lot, and the other girls here and there, but we don’t get to do something like this quite often. Us girls chat for a few minutes before joining the rest of the group in the backyard.

The kids are occupying the pool. I see Zayn cooking up some barbeque on the grill. Louis and Niall are drinking beer on the couches, and Liam and Harry are arm wrestling. I walk over to them and wrap my arms around Harry’s neck. Dani does the same to Liam.

“Are you really going to let him win?” I tease Harry when Liam gains the advantage. Harry huffs and his muscles flex as he pushes harder and gets the advantage over Liam.

“C’mon, Harry,” Louis comes over, “Liam is getting old. He’s got nothing on you!”

Niall scoffs. “I disagree; Liam may be older, but he’s still got muscles.” The group minus the two chuckle when Niall squeezes Liam’s biceps.

Soon, the older kids start coming over and picking sides. I saw Andrew Payne and my own son betting on their dads. I made a mental note to knock Colton upside the head.

Pretty soon everyone was cheering on their pick and booing at the opposing guy. That’s when I saw Liam starting to give in. His elbow tripped up slightly and he let out a ‘gahh’ before Harry had slammed his hand down, thus winning. Harry stood up and bowed, accepting the beer from Niall. He looked at me cheekily, tapping his cheek. I laughed and leaned in to kiss his cheek, but he turned his head last minute and kissed me smack on the lips earning a bunch of oohs from our friends and ews from the younger children.

Dinner was called not too long after. We toasted to the One Direction reunion and dug in. The rest of the night was spent just enjoying all of the company with friends, definitely a night to remember. By the end, no one wanted to leave, but we all had to get on with our normal lives. Goodbyes were said, nevertheless, and soon we were off, going back home.

~

I quickly stripped from my clothing and slipped into one of Harry’s oversized t-shirts that I like to wear to bed. I washed off all of my makeup, combing out my hair and brushing my teeth before crawling into bed. Harry crawled in minutes later, pulling me closer to him and I laid my head against his chest.

“How did I ever get so lucky?” he asked me.

I tilt my head to see that he’s already looking at me, fiddling with the strands of my hair. “I ask myself that same question all the time.”

He smiles, pulling me up for a kiss that I gladly return. He breaks apart shortly, resting his forehead onto mine. “I love you. I really do.”

“I love you, too. No doubt about it.”

Notes