For Whatever May Come

Twelfth Chapter

Friday 20th November
11:28am
Johnson Household

Just under two months had passed since that night where Oliva admitted Natalie didn't want to join them for dinner because of Hayden's remaining fear of her hurting him. Since then, Natalie had joined her family in coming over, which had increased to almost every night and sleepovers between the girl occurring at least once a week. As he promised, Josh had bought Hayden a new laptop, which was the latest made by the company, that was paid with by the reduction of Kaylee's pocket money, being a five pounds a week of the normal fifteen until the laptop was paid for. Kaylee had turned fourteen on the tenth of October, Josh had been kind and hadn't made her give the £400 in total she had received from him to Hayden as a payment.

"We never have this anymore!" Hayden exclaimed as he walked into the kitchen with the intoxicating smell of freshly made pizza hitting his nose.

"It's been a while," Josh agreed. "Pass me the oven gloves," Josh ordered as he pointed to the draw where they were kept.

Hayden nodded and quickly grabbed them and handed them over.

"What's the special occasion? I mean, I agree Kaylee going back to school after being ill for almost two weeks is something to celebrate, but I didn't think it deserved homemade pizza." Hayden smirked as Josh rested the pizza onto a plate on the countertop.

"Shockingly no, this isn't to celebrate your sister leaving," Josh said with an amused smile.

"What's it for then? Is it someone's birthday that I've completely forgotten about? If it is, I'm putting my name on your present," Hayden warned as he grabbed two small plates and placed them next to the larger one.

"No, nothing like that. I just...Don't worry about it," Josh dismissed with a false smile.

"I miss her to Dad," Hayden said lightly. "Mum would be happy about this. We both know she would have wanted you to move on," Hayden said as he grabbed a can of Monster from the fridge.

Josh sent Hayden a disapproving look at his choice of drink.

"I know," Josh said fondly.

"It hurts, you know-" Hayden began. "Knowing that when I get married, when I have kids, she won't be there; she won't be there for Kaylee when she gets her first boyfriend or anything like that," Hayden said as he passed his can from hand to hand.

Josh remained silent as he let Hayden come to terms with what he was admitting.

"Dad?" Hayden said after a small silence.

"Yeah?" Josh asked as he turned and handed his son a plate with four slices of pizza.

Hayden nodded in gratitude before taking a seat at the breakfast bar.

"I'm seeing Oliva as a mum to me and I don't know how I feel about it," Hayden admitted as Josh came and sat down beside him, his own plate with five pieces on.

"That's a good thing, and it's what you mum would have wanted. I've told you this before. She wouldn't want us mourning for the rest of our lives," Josh reminded.

"I still feel like I'm betraying her. I have days where I feel like such a shitty son because it seems like I've gotten over her death. But there're days where I still wake up with nightmares and I feel so upset sometimes when I fell like I haven't even greaved 'cause I had to be strong for Kaylee. Even at her funeral I felt so bad I wanted to just scream but Kaylee was right there and I didn't want to make her worse," Hayden admitted as he stared at his half ate pizza slice.

"Even though I love how much you care about your sister, I really don't want you to sacrifice your physical or mental health when it's not your responsibility. I understand you don't want to make it worse for me or Kaylee, but keeping this inside isn't doing you any good. I'd give your sister more credit. She's not as childish and nieve as you think she is. Kaylee understands a lot more than we both give her credit for," Josh explained lightly.