Okay yall dont roast me for this but

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"Mom?" It was the third time I called her name, but the first that my words were laced in exasperation. I skipped the last step on the staircase and peered around the corner to see if she was downstairs instead, but she was still nowhere to be found.

I glanced uneasily at the stacks of cardboard boxes and trash bags, filled with things my mom has hoarded over the years to cope with her situation. It was an absolute mess downstairs, littered in years of stress, grief, and exhaustion.

"Hello?" I call into the empty kitchen, heading out the back door. There, I found her kneeling on the ground, hunched over a bed of weeds on the ground, trying to clear the area. "Mom!"

She turned to look up at me, sweat lining her forehead underneath her sun hat. "Why are you yelling?"

She turns back toward all the roots to continue her work, and I sigh before descending the back stairs to meet her at the back. Her gardening gloves were covered in dirt and the basket beside her was nearly full of the roots she had surely been pulling all morning.

"Have you taken a break?" I ask her cautiously, well aware of her ability to overwork herself.

She waves a hand at my concern. "I came in for iced tea earlier, don't worry. Aren't I supposed to be the mother?"

I put my hands on my hips and watch her pull weeds for a moment before telling her the reason I was looking for her. "The truck is going to be here soon to take all the donations," I explain. "Did you finish packing up Danny's box?"

"It's in his room," She answers shortly. "Now leave me be. I'm going to finish these before noon."

I sigh heavily and retreat back into the house, taking my time to get up to Danny's room. The house was eerily quiet, and filtered light was escaping from behind the drawn blinds. I walked up the staircase slowly, just observing the stillness, before making it to the landing.

Danny's door was slightly ajar and I could see the open box sitting on his bed. I pushed his door open carefully and approach his perfectly made bed, my eyes trained on the box, preparing to see the familiar toys from his childhood.

Before I could look at the contents of the box properly, I heard the loud sigh of a truck outside, signaling the workers from the donation center were here. My mom has spent the past few months separating items to donate, trash, or move to a storage unit in town.

I grab the box of Danny's things and trail downstairs to add it to the towers of other boxes. My mom's voice was muffled through the door, but I could hear she came around to the front to greet the movers. For a moment, I look around, taking in the years of heartache and grief associated with the mess. It was a depression room, except the entire house.

And it was finally being cleared out. As the thought struck me, I felt momentarily relieved, before hearing my mom call for me from outside. Tearing myself away from the satisfying moment, I open the front door, but don't see the movers truck at all. Instead, I see Vincent's black Jeep at the same moment that I hear his voice.

"Show her what we worked on!" Vincent was shouting, his voice playful as I searched for him in the yard.

When my eyes landed on him, he had a football in his hand, drawn back slightly like he was waiting for the perfect moment to let it soar through the air. He had a relaxed smile on his face as his eyes focus across the yard, and then without warning, he sends the football through the air.

Vincent just wanted to show off his MVP moves. Of course, since his injury healed, he's been back on the field as much as possible at school. He's still the football team's golden boy, but I like to think he's a little less of an ass thanks to me.

Across the yard, Danny runs a route across the grass to successfully catch the football, making it look effortless even though they've only been practicing for a few months. My eyes stay trained on him as I watch him catch the ball and do a loop in the yard to slow down, celebrating as if he's taking his own victory lap.

It had only been twelve months since the surgery was a success, and yet Danny looked years older. He had gained healthy weight and played football with Vincent every chance he got, although I warned Vince that I'd castrate him myself if he pushed Danny too hard. For the first time in years, Danny got to enjoy being a kid.

"Lily, did you see that?" Danny asked in between big, dramatic breaths, with a toothy grin to prove how excited he was. "Vincent said I'm a natural receiver."

His hair was a wild mop on the top of his head, and I couldn't help myself from reaching out to mess it up further. "I think you can catch better than him, Dan. But don't tell him I said that."

"I can hear you!" Vincent says dramatically, and my eyes shift up to look at him standing a few yards behind Danny with a goofy grin on his face.

I grin at Vincent while my little brother starts to wind up for round two. Before he ropes Vincent into any more imaginary routes through the yard, I hear the same sigh of a truck, followed by the donation van turning down our street.

"Danny, go tell mom the donation truck is here," I shout across the yard. "She's in-"

"Got it!" I hear my mom's faint voice yell back, and I smile to myself.

I turn to Vincent and he's already taking off toward the front door to help move the furniture and boxes. My heart swells momentarily that he was here to help with this-- I mean, who actually volunteered to help move things?-- before I start after him.

Danny zooms past me and disappears behind the front door, presumably to help Vincent clear out the living room. It took all of us plus three movers to successfully clear the living room of all the donation boxes and furniture, which felt like half of the things inside the house.

After the movers were on their way, Vincent helped my mom and I move the trash items out to the curb, until eventually the only things left were meant to be brought to the storage unit. We brought the rest of the boxes out to my mom's car, and Danny helped her pack it to drop off the last items.

When I stepped inside the living room, I marveled for a moment at the sudden stillness. It was different than earlier, when things felt uneasy and almost overwhelming. The years of pain had been fully stacked up in the living room, overflowing inside cardboard boxes, reminding us how tough things have been for years.

But now, it was empty. It felt free, like we clicked restart, and the past pain left with the towers of boxes. The light was still peaking through the closed curtains, leaking onto the floors of the living room to highlight strips of wood. For the first time in years, things didn't feel so heavy.

Thanks to a gofundme that Vincent had set up, all of our past medical bills were paid, and there was no longer a financial cloud looming over my mother's head. She was able to take more time off to aid in Danny's recovery, and eventually, she even quit her time demanding job and found new work at a more relaxed, woman-owned real estate agency.

Needless to say, her bosses were more than understanding about our situation, but they truly went above and beyond to make her feel welcome and comfortable at work. They even tell her to leave early every Friday to do something fun with Danny. Her bosses dubbed it a "mandatory adventure day".

A floorboard shifted behind me, pulling me out of my thoughts, and I turn to see Vincent walking toward me with a calm smile on his lips. For some reason, I knew that he could feel it, too. The absence of pain and chaos. The light.

When he gets close enough, he wraps his arms around my shoulders, resting them there to keep me close. His eyes are as soft as his smile as he regards me with his gaze, so captivating without even trying.

"You seem serene," Vincent murmurs as his eyes search between mine.

I rest my hands on top of his wrists, which still rested lightly on my shoulder, and smile at him. "I've never seen it look so empty in here."

I'm sure to someone else, that could have sounded like a bad thing. People hate empty spaces and want to fill them. But Vincent understood what the emptiness meant here-- it meant a clean break. He grins at me.

To confirm my assumption of his understanding, Vincent says thoughtfully, "Plenty of room for new memories."

I grin at him. For some reason, I would never cease to feel amazed by the way Vincent Bradshaw understood me. It still managed to feel foreign sometimes, when I would blink and remember how long I thought he was merely an arrogant jock. If there was one thing he's taught me-- and I won't admit this to him, but he's actually taught me a lot-- it was that I couldn't judge people too quickly.

After a moment of admiring the boy in front of me, I lean forward and press my lips against his, feeling overwhelmed by the familiar electric sensation that always accompanied his touch. Vincent moved his arms to slide his hands around my waist and pull me closer toward him, and I happily obliged.

Our kiss was short lived when the door flew open and my energetic little brother came barreling through the living room. I pull away from Vincent but feel him stay close to me as we both turn to Danny, who was pretending to puke at us.

"You guys are so gross," He exclaims dramatically, and then starts to cross the room, past us, and toward the windows. "It's like a dungeon in here."

With that, Danny threw open the curtains from one of the windows, and the light poured into the room to illuminate even the darkest corners. I smiled as I watched the light filter through, spilling across the staircase and into the doorway of the kitchen. Danny continued to open the curtains until the entire room was filled with the light that I could feel inside my heart.

"Much better," Danny says with a satisfied smile, and I feel Vincent's hand snake around my waist to pull me into him again.

I look up at him and feel his soft eyes before his gaze even connects with mine. We all felt the lightness, the hope, the excitement for the future. And we were all ready, together.

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Before you ask, yes, Jane and Trevor lived happily ever after :')

I know the whole "one year later" thing can get old, but I always knew I wanted to do that for this story. Something about this entire story just screams growth to me, even if the theme is more subtle than I should have made it. I wanted to keep the end relatively open ended, because my favorite part about an ending is continuing the story in my head. Maybe that's just a weird writer thing, but I hope you're not too mad about it!!

But SERIOUSLY, THANK YOU ALL so much for all this love you've given this story! Words cannot describe how much it means to me to know that my writing has touched you in some way. This story has definitely taken me awhile to finish, but I appreciate you all sticking in there until the end. You're seriously the best readers out there.

On a final unrelated (but kind of related?) note, I hope you and all your loved ones are healthy and that you're all doing okay with COVID. Times have been super tough lately, so remember to take care of yourself and others any way that you can! Be kind to each other and spread love because there's way too much hate in the world!!

I'm unsure if I will be posting any other stories on Wattpad (unfortunately, I don't get paid to write, which totally sucks) anytime soon just because I don't have enough free time at the moment. However, I'll be logging on occasionally because your comments make me smile!!

Y'all are the best readers out there FOR REAL, I appreciate you all so much!! Keep being amazing, stay healthy, social distance, AND WEAR YOUR MASKS :)