She Accepted Divorce He Panicked (Scarlett and Sebastian)
238 Just Like Now

friend, but my little angel."

"The first day you came home, Mom put you in the cradle that had been set in the living room for days waiting for you, I went and checked you up. I didn't know how to feel about you at that time. Mom told me that you would be my best friend for life, and Dad said not

The word angel makes Scar flinch.

Sebastian used to call Ava that all the time. She was so jealous that she started hating this word.

"Before you arrived, I really thought you meant all the toys I could ever want. I mean, what else does an angel mean, right?" Damian laughs, almost getting a giggle out of Scar but she just hides her smile behind her arms. Damian indulges her dodge, sitting down on the carpet in front of Scar as he continues with the story that Scar didn't ask for.

"They had the whole room filled with baby stuff," Damian grabs his own ankles, getting comfortable. A true smile on his face, one that hasn't been there for years as he immerses in an obviously pretty memory, "We had FOUR maids in the house, but Mom and Dad wanted to do everything themselves, from feeding you to changing the diaper. I barely had any time with you, let alone time with them. So you get how I was getting more and more disappointed, right? Not only was I failing to spot the endless toys that I was promised, but I felt like I was losing my parents to you, too."

He says it as if complaining, but something in his words lights up little dots of warmth in Scar.

Now she wants to hear more.

"By dinner time, after yours, of course, I finally got a little alone time with you when they were both in the kitchen. I mean, we were a happy family, but they were never that happy, like that day." Damian wrinkles his nose at Scar, making a face. Scar laughs without even realizing, "I actually complained that to Mom once, saying how they were so beyond happy at your arrival when I had been there the whole time. Mom tried to lie and was saying how they were just as excited when I was born when Dad just spilled the beans telling me that he has always wanted a daughter, even more so after the first few hard years of having me!

"So I went to see you, as a very grumpy customer, you know?" Damian laughs, too, "You were laughing only a second ago before I reached your cradle, and at seeing me, you suddenly stopped laughing and flinched small into your swaddling clothes, just like now. Dad suspected that I bullied you for a very long while!"

Scar burst into laughter.

Scar has never met with Johnny Vanderbilt. He might have come once for a visit but she didn't agree to it. All that name to her has been a picture in the newspaper, the one about Emma's car accident. Now it's coming to life, once ever so little, but alive.

Scar could almost see the image of

a family, as ordinary as it can be with the Mom and Dad moaning over baby meals and diapers when they also enjoy it so much that they don't want to share that sweet burden with anyone else. She sees a loving mother showering in the bright light of a little life shining into her home when the father spoils the little girl while strict with the boy.

Mom. That word has so many layers to Scar.

It used to be Anna Fulller, but then she became the adopted mother, and then just Anna Fuller when Scar was finally done with her betrayal time afte time. Then it became

Emma, but only a picture picke net

from her life with Johnny Vanderbilt, which had nothing to do with Scar. Then it became Scar herself, during that seven and half months when Scar carries the most bitter yet sweet secret in her womb.

But never this. A live person with all her heart on her two children, smiling and laughing and moaning and huffing for them and with them, filling a house with all the warm th and liveliness one could ask for of a "home".

ton

Emma is gone, and Johnny Vanderbilt is not here. But Scar doesn't feel like an orphan anymore.

She had a home, the most lovely one, from Damian's story. She had a Mom who risked her life for Scar, twice, a brother who was all curious and kind to her, and a Dad who spoiled her even before she was born.

That's what a family is. Something that gives her warmth even with twenty years between them.

"And then?" Scar is not aware that she has sat up, completely forgetting that she was hiding behind her knees a moment ago.

Lost in her sparkling purple eyes, Damian stares at her as memory overlaps with reality--

What he is not telling her is that, the moment he saw her, he forgot all about his toy and lost in her pure, innocent, beautiful purple eyes. And the little baby laughed at his silly face.

Just like now.