Run-Away Little Sister: Hurting

Chapter Six: Childhood

THIRD PERSON POV:

Happiness.

A feeling of pleasure or contentment.

In the younger years of Anastasia Smith, her life was filled to the brim with happiness. There was no anger, sadness, loneliness, disgust, fear, just pure happiness, pure bliss.

Anastasia lived her younger years before the death of her parents like a princess. She was spoiled, but never self-centered. She was the sweetest person you could ever meet, she almost never did wrong. Anastasia lived her life helping people be happy, she brought an instant joy that would just follow her around.

As a child, Anastasia was the youngest of all six children, only but eight minutes, but Ana was the youngest either way. Her brothers were her protectors, they were her knight in shining armors. If Ana thought anything would go bad, her brothers were the first people she looked for.

James was the one who would help her study.

Matthew was the one who would play tea party and princesses with her, more often than her other brothers.

Jackson was the one who would ride his bike with her.

Mason was the one who would drop everything to run to his sisters aid.

And Nathan, he was the one who would do all of that and so much more. He was her twin, his best friend, until the very end. They were two peas in a pod, and that would never change, or so they thought.

A few days before Nathan and Ana came into the world, Courtney and Dylan, the parents, were going to be sitting down their other four sons to have a conversation. James was the oldest at twelve, Matthew was eight, and both Jackson and Mason were three years old.

"Kids." Courtney spoke softly, running her hand across her large bump, "Your dad and I wanted to have a conversation with you about the new babies that are coming."

All four boys eyes were locked on their mother's loving face. Courtney was easily the best mother around. She was the poster perfect mother, always smiling, baking, helping her kids with their homework, spending time with them, coming on field trips, being the "soccer" mom. She lived to make her children smile, it was the best part of being a mother.

"Why do we gotta have more of us anyways, momma? Aren't we enough?" eight year old Matthew asked his mother, a pout present on his face.

Courtney only laughed lightly, "Momma and Daddy love having smiling babies that shower the world with joy, so we keep having more. You guys are more than enough, if we never had more, your dad and I would be okay with that. But until that moment comes, we'll keep having smiling babies who bring the world joy, okay Matt?"

"Okay, momma." Matthew shrugged, moving his attention onto his toy car that was sitting in his lap.

"Where's daddy?" Jackson asked, looking around the room for his father.

"He's coming back from McDonalds with dinner." Courtney smiled, brushing the bangs her son had out of his eyes.

"Chicken?" Jackson's eyes lit up at the mention of McDonalds.

"Yes, you'll get your chicken nuggets." Courtney smiled, "James?"

"Yes, mom?" he questioned, looking up from the homework that was in his lap.

"You doing alright with your homework?" she asked.

"Yep, I'm almost done. Just a couple more problems, then can I watch some tv?"

"After we eat dinner, yes you can." Courtney nodded her head.

"Mumma?" Mason questioned, pulling on his mother's sleeve of her shirt.

"Yes, baby?" she asked softly.

"Tired."

"You need to eat, baby. Then you can go night-night. That sound okay?"

"Guess..." Mason mumbled, shoving his face into his mother's body.

It was less than twenty minutes later that Dylan had showed up with the food in bags, coming through the door.

"Hello happy family." he laughed, looking at his wife who was in the middle of the couch, reading a book silently, with Jackson and Mason rested against her body, Matthew against her legs on the floor playing with his cars, and James doing his homework on the coffee table a few steps away from the couch where his mother was currently residing.

"Hi, baby." Courtney smiled, closing her book, "We missed you."

"I missed you guys too." Dylan smiled, "You guys put your stuff away, I'll go grab plates and meet you at the table."

As Dylan walked away, the four young boys and their mother all got to work putting things away, before following after Dylan. All the boys sat at their usual seats, Courtney moving to help her husband quickly put the paper plates out in front of their children.

It was halfway through their dinner, when Courtney brought up the conversation they were going to have earlier, "Boys you remember what I was saying earlier, on how we were going to have a conversation about your soon-to-be baby siblings?"

"Yes, mom. I remember." James confirmed, with Matthew nodding his head as he stuffed his face with fries.

Jackson and Mason both kept their faces focused on their chicken nuggets and fries in front of them, not bothering to give any attention to their mother or father.

Shrugging it off, Dylan continued his wife's sentence, "This is going to be a very short conversation, your mom and I just want to make sure all four of you guys will watch out for your baby siblings."

"We think they'll have the best big brothers in the world, but we're biased, so can you guys promise us that you'll do your best to always protect them?"

"Yeah, mom. I'll do my best." James smiled at his mother.

"I promise, momma. They'll love me and I'll love them. We'll be the best of friends." Matthew spoke excitedly.

"Good to hear boys." Dylan smiled at his oldest two sons.

"What about you both?" Courtney asked Jackson and Mason, "Are you guys going to be good big brothers to your new baby siblings?"

"Yes, mommy. I promise. We'll play together all the time. I'll always protect them." Mason smiled innocently at his mother.

"I promise too, mommy. They'll be happy here." Jackson smiled just as happily towards his mother.

"Good." Courtney spoke, "Finish eating, we'll head over to the park and play for a little while."

That day the promise to protect their younger brother and sister was made, only half the promise was ever truly fulfilled.

"We were like one huge tree. We all grew from the same root, but we all moved in different directions."

"Yeah, and I was one of the tree branches that got chopped off, not important enough to save."

Author's Note:

Hello Everybody!

Here's chapter six, I hope you guys enjoyed it. Originally I was going to do a chapter about the brothers, but then I figured this little flashback was needed. I wanted to be able to show that all four of Ana's oldest brothers had at one point been decent human beings. 

Anyways, Chapter seven will be out soon. Let me know your thoughts about this chapter in either the comments or by sharing this story with someone you think might like it. I'd greatly appreciate it.

Thanks for reading!

-Michaela {The Author} 

Original Version Published: February 23rd. 2019 

Edited Version Published: July 30th. 2021