Generation 4: Part 3. I'll be there for you.

 

Now that I was home more, our family life seemed to disappear slowly, but steady. My mother spent a lot of free time on the computer, while my father tried to improve his painting or logic skill. I really don’t know what happened here – did the moving of my sister start this whole process of our family falling apart? Although I often tried to spend some time with my parents, but they basically told me they were busy and asked me to come back later. After everything we had gone through they now seemed to live their own lives.

I couldn’t stand watching them acting like this, so I spent a lot of my time at Cassie’s house. Her mother Gracie was still always very nice to me, but that was not the reason I went there. Cassie made me feel comfortable and somehow protected. This was ridiculous, I was the male part in our relationship – I was supposed to take care of her and protect her, not the other way round! I never told anybody about this, because I was a tad ashamed of me being so weak.

She always knew what was on my mind and managed to really comfort me when I was about to cry. I felt like she was the best friend one could possibly have. The only thing I was wondering… was this how I felt about her? That she was a good friend?

In some ways she was just like her mother, which worried me a little. Sure, getting on with Gracie was great, but I sometimes felt that I even had a better time with her than I did with Cassie. What the hell was that supposed to mean for our relationship?? I really needed to talk to somebody. But there was nobody there.

Instead of being honest with Cassie, I stopped talking about my feelings more and more, until there was nothing to say. Instead we often were in the same room, doing different things, like reading. With time passing, it felt like there was no real “us” anymore.

The one thing that could take my mind off things like these was music. Whenever I took the bass and listened to the notes I produced, all my problems disappeared for a few moments. Every little song, every single note went straight to my heart and made it feel warmer and lighter. And although I was pretty impatient at the beginning, I got much better with time passing. In fact, I got so good that I heard whenever there was a wrong note in between.

The music was great for expressing myself. Yet I still needed somebody to talk to, especially since my parents wanted all that alone time now. So one morning I got up early (which was hard for me, by the way!) and went to the adoption center. From now on I had an animal friend to share all my thoughts with. Meet Cora!

I’m not sure my parents even realized that we had a pet again. They were way too busy with themselves.

To make them notice, I took off that evening and went to a party at Cassie’s house. Some guy was playing the guitar, a few people were dancing and we had a nice time. It was much better than just sitting at home.

I also spotted Cassie that evening (which wasn’t too hard, this being her house and all), but we didn’t talk to each other. Instead we kept avoiding eye contact. This situation made me so incredibly uncomfortable. Can you believe it? We were in the same room for HOURS and didn’t say one word to each other. This turned this entire evening into something depressing and so I left pretty early. Finding Cora almost starved. So apparently my parents hadn’t noticed her yet.

Little did I know what had happened that night! My mother had gone out to eat dinner at a fancy restaurant in town and to catch up with some friends. When she had left the restaurant, she stopped walking all of a sudden and told her friends she felt very weird (this is what they told me later). In the next moment her body became transparent. My beloved mother died outside that restaurant, with no one of her family around! I couldn’t believe that she was gone. I didn't even get a chance to say goodbye.

 I also heard that she had begged the Grim Reaper to have some mercy on her and let her live for some more time. But he had just started laughing and told her to get up. Rest in Peace, Mom. I will really miss you, although we have drifted apart over the last few weeks.

 

This was a sign. We had experienced so much death in this house that I couldn’t take it anymore. So I literally put my father and the dog into a cab, told them we’d go to a secret place and drove away from our history.

 

 And we ended up here. Our new home which I’d had a look at for the last few weeks. It was absolutely beautiful and perfect to start all over again. And there was also enough space for the dog. Let me give you some impressions of our new house!

 

The back.

 

Our gazebo.

 

 Ground floor.

 

Living room and bathroom.

 

Kitchen and dining room.

My bedroom, upstairs.

 

My father's room, also upstairs. The house is beautiful, isn't it?

Although the loss was still extremely hard, it felt better to be in a new place, where we didn’t have all of these painful memories. And I really have to say that my father’s and my relationship improved a lot there. Maybe it was because it was only the two of us now – well, and Cora, of course. We still had some work ahead of us, but we would make it!

Author's notes: Rest in Peace, Emma :( Although it was already the third heir/main character to die, it was still sad. And came completely unexpected! She was way over her regular life span, but it sucked that she wasn't at home with her family when it happened. Her grave stone is still in front of the restaurant, I let it there as a memorial. 

And sorry that not that much happened, I guess there will be some smaller chapters from now on, the uploading still drives me nuts. I didn't really get along with the HTML editor and uploading the pictures first prevented me from scrolling upwards all the time, but they were uploaded in some weird order and wouldn't let me rearrange them and stuff. Maybe I am just too stupid. But until I really figured this out, I will provide smaller chapters ;) Which should also be in your interest, because smaller chapters mean less writing time, which means more regular updates!

Chapter title: Theme of Friends! :)