Chapter Eight

I love you but I fucking hate you, a story of three

The first night the three of them had decided to camp out in the living room. Posy shared she was worried about going to sleep alone with what happened in the back of her mind. Avery agreed and that led to them ordering out, boarding up the broken windows, and marathoning romantic comedies to calm down. The next day they did the same, along with for the rest of the week. Their parents never showed, they didn’t call and when they tried to text their mom her provider said no one with that number existed.

He tried not to panic and just reassured his sisters that they were probably being petty. But he knew from the look on their faces that they didn’t believe him. But none of the three had wanted to discuss the possibility that their parents were hurt. He shivered under the blanket he had wrapped around himself, they had been wary of using too much power in case another mishap happened. A fire breaking out made him queasy to think about, his lick raw from how much he had been anxiously knawing at it.

From across the room, Posy sat in their school uniform posing for her phone camera, occasionally laughing. She was probably on a live call with her friends to discuss what exam they had taken that afternoon. The three had been forced to go to school after skipping a few days and thankfully, they had been left alone mostly. There were snide comments whispered behind their back and a random senior had tried to trip him when he was walking down the stairs but he had grown used to the treatment by now.

Usually, he would be beside himself from the actions of his town’s herd mentality. Instead, he sat watching his sister laugh with her friend blankly, lacking any energy within his body. The bullying he got in the human realm was in the back of his mind. The possibilities of what was going to happen in the land of the fey weighed heavily in his thoughts. Aiden didn’t know what would happen to them or when they would be whisked away into the other realm but his mind was racing.

As the oldest, it was his responsibility to protect his sisters now that their parents had bailed. Usually, he would falter at the mention of taking on the leadership position of the three, but they were abandoned. And this wasn’t just the town’s paranoia they were dealing with but magical beings. They could speak a decent amount of the newer Seelie tongue but the customs and teachings were still very foreign to them.

They’d be outcasts as soon as they stepped foot in the land of the fey.

“Aiden,” He broke out of his stupor to hear Posy calling out his name from across the room. Her phone was down and she had a worried look on her face. “Are you alright? I can hear you thinking about things…”

She drifted off, no doubt sharing his anxiety about the ambiguity of their future.

Aiden shrugged his shoulders, looking off to the side. Was he okay? It was hard to tell these days with everything that had happened. A boggart destroying their house, nightmares about Cassandra, being harassed by what felt like the entire town’s population daily. His entire life had thrown itself array and landed headfirst into the ground only a few months after their birthday.

“We both know he feels like shit,” The two startled having not even noticed that Avery had entered the room with a similarly sullen demeanor. Her hair looked unruly and oily from lack of care along with her skin being unusually pale in comparison to its natural honey glow. “We all feel like it.”

“Yeah, you’re right. I’m just worried about everything mostly,” He said looking back and forth between the living, the semi-fixed kitchen, and the empty driveway. “Mom and dad being gone. Going to the land of the fey.”

“Everything’s gone to shit,” Avery said with a weak, callous laugh.

“I don’t think mom and dad are coming back,” Posy added, her voice watery. The two instantly snapped their heads to look at her. Her phone was forgotten as she moved her hands around nervously, ashen in the face as she tried to find the proper words to say.

Her voice was heavy as she confessed to them with regret and hurt. It contrasted the somewhat quiet attitude she had taken on since everything had unfolded. The teenager had held all of her thoughts and assumptions within herself for so long, that they just burst out in the form of word vomit.

“Mom came to me in a dream again and I didn’t want to say-” Avery groaned while Aiden felt his heart drop into his ass as she continued. “-anything because you guys were pissed off at her for hiding so much from us. But she sounded like she couldn’t come back and it’s been eating me inside just hiding to hide what she said from you both.”

“What the fuck, Posy? You’re doing this again after what happened the last time you acted like mom’s therapist?” Avery was nearly screaming at their sister as she moved to get in her face. “This is our lives we’re talking about! Your life!”

“No shit, Ave! I get it I do but mom was crying after you piled onto her and I have the heart not to do that to her! She doesn’t have a choice in the matter it’s out of her hands and she’s been working her ass off, risking her wellbeing to tell me things!” Posy screamed back getting out of her seat and pushing against the older of the two, red in the face from how hard she was panting.

“Guys stop,” Aiden said feeling his palms begin to sweat from his anxiety building up.

“I piled onto her?” Avery scoffed and pushed Posy back noticeably harder. “She is a grown woman, Posy. I just told her to tell me the truth for once, to tell us all the truth instead of just one of her children. How do you know she’s risking her wellbeing? How do you know anything is at risk besides her precious land of the fey?”

There was a pain in Posy’s voice when she tried to argue against what Avery was implying. “Mom wouldn’t be doing all of this, risking her relationship with us, with dad just because she misses her old life. She told me that there’s something bigger than us going on and we have no choice! She has no choice!”

“Well, how do you know that from just what one, two conversations?” Avery asked as the other girl looked lost for words, caught red-handed. “She’s been telling you this for a while, hasn’t she? You liar!”

“Avery shut the fuck up, Posy shut the fuck up!” Aiden found himself getting louder with each name he called but the two continued their argument. The three of their voices echoed around the room from how volatile the discussion was getting. “Stop before you-”

“Stop before I what? Hit her?” Avery looked back at him with a teary look in her eyes. Before he could respond she pushed Posy again. It was hard enough that she stumbled forward from how much force she put into hitting her sister. “She’s been lying to us for mom for weeks! And she might have been lying for her for years!”

“I just found out a few weeks ago! I didn’t say anything earlier because what she said was awful! And you both barely even talked to me before all this happened!” Posy’s voice was shrill as she actively started trying to fight her older sister, one of her hands wrapping around her free hair to yank at it.

This immediately caused Avery to fight back, her hands clawing at the smaller girl’s face. As soon as this happened, her long nails drew blood causing Posy to scream even louder. Aiden got up and tried to force them apart, yelling at them to stop as they continued to get heated and bicker. But they were too focused on hurting each other to listen, with each response getting crueler and crueler.

“We don’t talk to you because you’re an annoying little bitch!” Avery’s voice was cracking from how loud she was screeching this in their ears. “You want to defend her? Don’t you see how fucked up this entire situation is? Aren’t you angry?!”

“Of course I’m angry! I was fucking mad when she told me, I was mad that I had to hide it from you two. I was mad at the fact that they WERE GOING TO KILL OUR PARENTS AND I COULDN’T TELL ANYONE!” Posy managed to get the upper hand and slapped Avery in the face before Aiden pulled her back, kicking and screaming with a wide-eyed look on his face.

“What did you just say?” Avery had scratches on her face and a broken lip, but only now did she start to openly cry. “Posy, what the fuck DO YOU MEAN AIDEN LET HER GO NOW! LET HER GO!”

“NO EVERYONE JUST SHUT THE FUCK UP AND CALM DOWN!” In his arms, the telepath ad actively started sniffling, his chest hollow from her confession.