A Reason To Go On

Epilogue

Alexia's POV - Six Years Later

"Momma, momma" i watch as Zachary flings his little arms around Casey's neck while sobbing quietly. A few seconds later movement to my left catches my eye and i know immediately that the boys walking towards me have something to do with Zachary's little melt down. Watching the two boys striding purposely towards me, their arms defiantly folded across their chests, i take a moment to admire my little boys. Both look nearly identical with their black hair and green eyes, little mini versions of Jayden, the main difference with the boys is one is a few inches taller.

"Ryder, Xavier, what did you do?" i say in a firm voice, placing my hands on my hips and giving them both disapproving looks. As they get closer i can just make out a smaller figure trailing behind them. I wait patiently for them to be standing in front of me, and give them the look that says 'someone explain."

The person behind them steps forward and into my line of sight, "its was my fault mummy" she says while her bottom lip trembles. Looking down at Scarlet while her lip trembles and looking so vulnerable my resolve and annoyance wanes a little.

"Zachary was playing on the swing, and wouldn't give Scarlet a turn, so we just helped him off, so she could have a go" Ryder says, still showing the defiance in his eyes. I look over at him "so how exactly did you get him off?" i ask.

"We just shoved him a little mummy, but it wasn't that hard" Xavier helpfully supplies. This situation is not a new one for us, unfortunately our boys have always been over protective of Scarlet. Even when they were just toddlers, and could barely talk and walk the boys seemed to gravitate towards her, always looking to make sure she was always happy. Now Ryder is seven, and the twins have just turned six, the boys have got worse and seem to be going through the 'pushing and hitting' stage a lot.

Last week i had their school calling us to say they have been an incident at school. Jayden and i rushed over there to see both boys sitting in the principles office. When we asked what was going on, we were informed that Ryder had pushed another student, while Xavier was waiting behind him so he could trip him up, and the other boy fell down. When i asked them why Ryder simply replied "he gave Scarlet a flower and then tried to touch her hand." Apparently he found nothing wrong with their behaviour because they were protecting their little sister from 'boys'. At that moment i really wanted to slap Jayden and his little 'talk' with the boys about protecting her. When we got home and i was alone with Jayden i told him how i felt, his response was "why was a boy giving her flowers anyway and trying to hold her hand?" It honestly felt like i had four kids in the house at that moment instead of three, after giving Jayden a swift slap to the head i had to explain that the boy's six, he obviously likes Scarlet, but seriously its not like he was thinking anything sexual, hes six for crying out loud!

Looking back at my children, Scarlet's still stood in between her two brothers, after i inform the boys that pushing is unacceptable, i tell them to go to their rooms for a time out. After several complaints from them, and the scathing looks they gave Zachary, they finally go albeit reluctantly. I bent down to Scarlet's level and rubbed my finger affectionately down her cheek, she really was a beautiful girl with dark brown hair and piercing grey eyes, I'm sure when she was older we would have our hands full, with the attention shes sure to receive.

"What about me mummy, do i need to go to my room?" she asked still looking upset over the whole situation. "Did you push Zach?" she shakes her head indicating no, "then no, you can go join everyone outside, go find daddy" i tell her, while steering her towards the back door.

I look over at Casey who seems to have done a good job at calming Zach down, since hes now following Scarlet out the door. "I'm sorry about them Casey" i tell her, it seems lately all i seem to be doing it apologizing to Casey for the way my boys treat her son, and poor Zachary, every time he comes over to play just recently they seems to be some kind of incident. The ironic thing is that if he comes to play when the boys are out, Scarlet and Zach play lovely together, and get a long really well.