Protective Bros on Tour

Seventeen: Home

B O N N I E

"Will mummy and daddy be home?" I gasp excitedly as I sit up in my car seat as our car turns down our lane and through the security intercom. The nostalgic creek of the old gates in between the avenue of trees tells me we're really home.

"We're meeting them at a restaurant for dinner and spending the evening with them," Blake looks up from his phone and gives me a small smile, before placing it in his pocket.

"Home's not changed one bit," Joe observes as the car purrs to a stop outside our front door steps.

"Untouched," Alex reiterates.

"Home, home, home!" I wriggle in my seat and try to undo my seatbelt as the car stops.

"The guys have been missing the pool usage,"Alex opens the car door from the inside and notices my struggles, unclasping my seatbelt for me.

"I'm coming!" I jump excitedly out of my seat and follow him out of the car.

I ignore my brothers and the driver who get out all of the luggage while I run and jump up onto the steps by the front door.

"Want me to unlock it for you, huh?" Joe walks up the stairs with two suitcases.

"Yes! Yes!"

He hovers behind me and unlocks it. I burst in.

"I'm surprised Bonnie is this excited, given what happened," I hear someone say, half listening to them.

Home looks and smells exactly the same. I smile at the familiar surroundings.

I look down the hallway that hasn't changed, the hallway I would beg my siblings to chase me down and catch me, or play hobby horse down the hall. Or play cars, and squeal at them pushing me in my car, down the shiny fast floors.

But then it hits me. The words someone jsut said comes back. I remember the terrors I spent here too,  with my nanny. Albeit temporary, it was awful. Scary and painful. I've never experienced pain like it. It's not normal, none of it was, according to my brothers and sister. I shudder, gulping and try to push the past to the back of my mind, like I've suppressed it all this time while on tour. Suddenly the hallway seems darker, and uninviting.

Someone said about going to talk to a stranger about it, therapy something. But I'm not talking to anyone I don't know, about it, in case they turn on me, too.

Turning around, I face my siblings who are getting all the bags in. It's quiet, no parents greeting us? Where are mum and dad, don't they want to see us from our huge world trip? We've been gone for so long.

"Why the frown?" Alex notices me first.

"Mummy and daddy?" I frown harder.

"They're not here Bonbon, remember," Blake looks up from checking the passports, pushing his shades up his head, scraping his hair back in doing so.

"But- I wanna see mummy and daddy! We're home," my face falls and I look around again, just in case they suddenly appear on the stairs or from one of the side corridors off the entrance hall we're in.

I thought they'd miss me and want to see me. They'd always be excited to see me after their long days of work.

"This is what they're like," Georgie sends me a sad smile.

"That's not needed," Joe shakes his head at her. "They're meeting us for dinner baby girl, okay, like we said," he ruffles my hair as he walks past me to put his bags down.

"Why not now?" I frown again, getting cross. I thought they loved me.

"Because they're working, princess, but they're home some evenings this week - they've promised," Joe replies.