When Love and Death Embrace

Soon I was fast asleep, dreaming of dancing in a field of wild flowers to music only I could hear. As the song ended I laid in the flowers and heard, "I love you too." From a voice above. The field lit up and faded away peacefully, leaving me in total bliss.

"ry honey, you have to get up now." I opened my eyes slowly to see ape's smiling face in front of me. I stretched up and sat up, instantly huddling into a ball. Ape laughed and rubbed my back, comforting me. I love my mom. "Sorry to have to wake you up, but we have to get ready for the show." I nodded and rolled out of the bed, standing up on the floor gracefully. "Nice move ry." I smiled and bowed.

"Thank you, thank you. I do try." She laughed and walked over to the closet, pulling out my suitcase. "Whatta ya looking for mom?" She pulled out the dress bag and held it up teasingly. "the dress! Let me see!" she pulled out such a beautiful dress. I took it in my arms and held it to my body, modeling it.

"It's beautiful ry." I nodded. "To think bam picked it out." Bam picked this?! No way, bam never had any sense of style. You stared at her in disbelief. "I was with him hon. He picked it out, no lie." I still wouldn't believe it. I mean, would you if your brother was the one who couldn't even bring any change of clothes to a different country. Then you find out he picked out an amazing dress for you?! It was just simply unbelievable.

"Well get me a security tape from the store and I'll believe it." She laughed as she handed me 2 other boxes. I took them cautiously and looked back from the boxes to her.

"What are you waiting for? An open invitation?" I laughed and rolled my eyes.

"Are these from bam too?" She shook her head no, smiling. I cocked my eyebrow and smiled. "Then from who?"

"One box, the bigger one, is from missy. So open that one first." I looked at her suspiciously and opened the box slowly. In the box was a pair of amazing shoes. They matched the dress perfectly. I was completely sure that missy had picked them, she always knew what I loved. I put the shoes on the bed and held the other small box in my hands. "This one is from me and phil. But it's also from someone else." I didn't want to open it. I knew that she meant it was from my parents. What had they suddenly decided to pop back into my life? "go on dear, open it." I held my breath and pulled the top of the box off to see a gold heart locket. I pulled it out of the box, admiring it's beauty. I dared myself to open it up. I felt that if I did, I would cry. Hell, I know I would cry either way. Opening it, I saw the most amazing thing. On one side it had a picture of april and phil, smiling happily. The other side had bam and jess smiling like the goofs they are. Then there was another heart clasp. That was the one I was scared to open. Tears had formed in my eyes just from seeing my family. I didn't think I could deal with seeing my real parents. I was wrong, it was better than seeing my parents. Inside the clamp were 2 pictures. One was of me and the other was of ville. I gasped and let a few stray tears flow down my face. "You like it I see?" I looked up at her and lunged, pulling her into a tight hug. She laughed and hugged back tightly.

"You scared the shit out of me." She laughed and kissed my cheek lightly.

"How did I scare you?" I had to tell her the news about my mother. I knew she was going to take it hard, since they were childhood friends and all. I pulled back from her and looked sorrowfully into her eyes. "what happened?"

"mom died." The look in her eyes looked like she had been shot straight through the heart. "I'm so sorry mom." She looked down at her feet, that's when I noticed that she was already dressed for the show. She looked great. I closed the locket and chained it around my neck. I was a rather long chain, so it fell to about the top of my chest. I looked up and saw april smiling a sad smile.

"you look your mom the day she left you." I looked down at myself in my pajamas and my hair was probably a mess. Is this what she looked like when she left her daughter? Thanks mom. I looked up at ape with a suspicious smile. "Well, with the locket I mean. she left it with you. It's surreal how much you look like your mom." I rolled my eyes and gathered up my stuff to get dressed. "Ry? Are you alright about this?" I nodded my head and made my way into the bathroom. "Ryanne."

"I'm fine. Why should I be sad about the death of a woman who gave up her daughter? I don't even have anything to remember her." I said subconsciously. Ape looked at me with sad eyes and pointed to the locket. Stupid locket, I've only had it for no more than 5 minutes and I already hate it. I unlatched it from my neck and threw it on the ground. Ape stared at the locket with a look like someone had ripped her heart out of her chest and were making her watch as they destroyed it. "dumb locket! What am I? Annie the orphan?" she shook her head and picked it up off the floor, holding it gently. I had really hurt her, I really and the worst person ever. She walked over near the door, obviously very hurt. "Ape, I didn't"

"you would have been if phil and I hadn't taken you in." she snapped in a very cold tone. I was the tone that screamed that she was disappointed it you.

"Mom, I'm" she put her hand up and walked out the door. Fuck! What else could go wrong with my life? Stupid emotions, that's itI'm going to ignore all my feelings from now on. I walked into the bathroom and got ready to go. I showered, shaved, did my make-up, fixed my hairyou know, the usual. I then put on the dress and shoes. I had to say, I looked great. Bam's dress had an amazing fit on me and missy's shoes were sooo freaking comfortable. I loved everyone timing. An annoying, furious knock was heard on the door. Thinking it was april, I opened the door quickly. Unfortunately, I met the face of my annoying brother instead. He looked pissed thoughdamn, he heard.

"How dare you annie?" I rolled my eyes and leaned against the door. "Ry, why did you do that to ape?" ignore the emotions Ryanne. "Answer me."

"I didn't mean it. I've just been really shaken up about my mom's death and I don't know why. I didn't mean to make her upset!" bam laughed. "Why are you laughing?"

"She's not only upset, she's bawling." Fuck, once again I've hurt someone I love. "You're lucky that I'm in here instead of phil." I nodded. I know that if phil was in here then I'd probably be dead. Phil had one rule and one rule only, don't make ape sad or upset. And me, being the intelligent one out of us kids, just had to go and break the only rule. I had to make this better. I was an engaged woman now! I couldn't die before my wedding day. I pushed past bam and made my way to the door. But bam stopped me from going the whole way by pulling my arm back. "Whoa, what are you doing? Are you trying to get yourself killed?" I simply nodded and walked out of the room. Everyone was in the living room, staring at me with evil eyes. Well, everyone except for steve-o and weeman. Their eyes seemed to look like they felt sorry for me. I looked around the room and saw ape sitting with head on phil's shoulder. I walked cautiously over to them, being as careful as I could. Phil spotted me and shot me a sad/mad glare. I walked over in front of ape and leaned down in front of her. I stared at her sadly when I saw she had the locket resting in her hand. I picked it up carefully and looked at it in my hands. She looked at me in confusion, but I kept looking at the locket. I didn't realize how beautiful it actually was. I turned it over and stared at it in awe. On the back as an engraving which read, 'My life, My world, My love. My Ryanne. Love daddy.' I smiled happily at it. It meant way more to me to know that is was from my father than from my mother. I placed the chain around my neck and clasped it. Looking back up to ape with sympathetic eyes, I placed one hand on her knee and my other hand over the locket. By this time, everyone was probably staring at me like I was insane. I didn't care though, I had hurt my mother and needed to fix it.

"Ryanne, what are you doing?" phil asked with some anger still in his voice. I kept my eyes locked on april's and smiled a week smile.

"This little orphan loves her adoptive parents very much. She just still believed that her real ones were still out there. Now this orphan has realized her real parents have been right in front of her all along. She was just too hardheaded and stubborn to see it. She's sorry and hopes those parents will still love her as much as she loves them." Ape's confused smile slowly widened and became much brighter. She then grabbed me and I was pulled into a warm, loving hug. I hugged back just as tight and smiled and phil sympathetically. He nodded and kissed my temple lightly. Ape and I pulled away from each other and exchanged apologetic smiles. Nothing needed to be said between us, everything was finally cleared up between mother and daughter.