The imperfection we called our love | ✔

*Thirty-One*

Finn

As a kid every Sunday Finn and Claire would head down to church

Never missing one gathering

No, the rest of the Windel family weren't excluded; they just never wanted to go.

Greg was never a religious guy as opposed to Claire, who had been raised by the book.

As for Dave and Cecily, they openly refused to go, which had left Finn and his mother to put on their Sunday best, and get the Windel driver to take them to church bright and early every Sunday morning.

Admittedly, Finn didn't really like church; it was the place they went afterwards that exited him the most.

So much so, that Finn would wake up the earliest than he ever had all week, and slip into his parents room to wake up Claire, by tugging at her arm careful not to wake his father up.

Finn had done it so much that sometimes Claire would pretend to be asleep and pull Finn to her and tickle him, causing him to bite his tongue trying his best not to laugh.

Then they'd make blueberry pancakes for everyone and lay the table with Christmas decorations, only to slip out of the house like spies on a mission after

It was one of the very few happy memories Finn had of growing up at home.

After church they would walk down to the most beautiful house in the world according to Claire.

Claire had grown up in this neighborhood, where she'd walk to school with her sister every morning, and she'd often tell Finn tales of how she would purposefully take the longest route to school and back, just so that Claire could pass this one specific house

It was beautiful, with long elegant marble pillars, and windows with different color glass, that when the sun shone through it and the light landed on you, it was like seeing fifteen vibrant rainbows at once

Claire had dreamed of living in that house for most of her childhood

And it was only until the house burned down when she was fourteen, that Claire stopped imagining the house as hers

But even as burnt remains, the house was still beautiful

Only now in a different way

All that was left of the actual house-structure was mostly half walls, chipped pillars with shattered marble coating it, and vines creeping up them so precise and delicate that it looked as if someone took the vines and hand wrapped it around the pillars, instead of Mother Nature just doing her thing.

But other than that, there was nothing of the house that was still intact, apart from what looked like a porch.

Finn loved it because of the long soft grass that you could lie in, and the vibrant yellow flowers that were everywhere, in the little cracks of the wall, and coating the grass like a yellow blanket.

The little yellow flowers were always there, but they thrived during spring time

Everything was alive in spring.

After everything that happened with Aunt Marge and Finn had nowhere else to go, he found himself loitering the streets for a while, eating restaurants scraps, unable to shower for days on end, and neither knowing when his life would get better, or if it ever would

All this weight he was carrying around made him feel so temporary, but at the same time angry

So angry

Angry at his mom for not fighting for him, angry at his dad for being a dick, angry at his aunt, angry at his siblings

Angry at everyone and everything