& Sometimes Life Isn't Fair but I Will Always Love You

A/N This is the fourth chapter I've posted today! So if you are subscribed you might want to go to chapter 16, because that is where the story left off before I started updating today.

Four Years Later

“Alayna! Tell Brandon to share his toys with me!” Tyson ordered me from up the stairs of my home.

I just laughed silently to myself, shaking my head and putting the long noodles in the boiling water.

“Boys! Come down here!” I yelled through the home.

I heard two small groans and then their footsteps as they made their way downstairs.

“What.” Tyson said, crossing his arms as he stood and looked at me.

“Yeah. What.” the adorable three year old said next to his uncle, who was really just a big brother to him.

“Brandon, why aren’t you sharing your toys with Tyson?” I questioned him kneeling down to his level.

“Because he won’t sharwe his toyws!” he complained in his three year old talk.

I looked over at Tyson, confused.

“What toys won’t you share with him?”

Tyson just looked down and away, a frown on his face and his arms crossed.

“Ty.” I pressed.

He sighed and pulled the toy out of his pocket.

I gasped.

It was the Transformer that Brandon had given him the night he died. I hadn’t seen it since then. Seeing it now caused pain to tug at my heart.

I just nodded and turn to Brandon, grabbing his hands in mine and looking into his little eyes.

“Honey, that toy is very special to Tyson because someone very special gave it to him, so it’s okay if he doesn’t want to share it.”

“Who gave it ta him?” Brandon questioned me.

I couldn’t. I just couldn’t say it, not yet. I know that it’s been four years, and eventually I would tell Brandon all about his dad, but I couldn’t. Not just yet. It still hurt way too much.

“A friend.” I finished.

Tyson eyed me questioningly and seriously, well, as serious as an eight year old could get.

“Now, go upstairs and play while I finish dinner.” I told them, and the two went sprinting upstairs.

I smiled as I stirred the sauce.

I loved my life, I really did. I had a beautiful son that looked way too much like his dad, and Tyson was always over here to keep him company.

But on nights like tonight, it was always hard.

As I stood in a house that I shouldn’t be able to afford, and the only reason that I can afford to is because Mr. and Mrs. Tarak and my parents help me pay for it, so that Brandon can have a safe home. But standing in my warm, beautiful home, with two little boys that I loved so much upstairs playing together, and making a warm dinner, I couldn’t help but picture what this night would have also been like if Brandon had never died.

I’d still be cooking. Little Brandon would still be upstairs playing. We’d still have this beautiful home. But Brandon would walk in the door, shouting out his arrival. Little Brandon would come sprinting down the stairs screaming ‘Daddy!’ and flinging himself into the man’s arms. Brandon would send Little Brandon to wash up for dinner, and Brandon would walk into the kitchen, see me, and wrap his arms around my waist from behind. Kissing my neck lovingly. He’d tell me that he missed me all day at work, and that he was so glad to be home. He’d taste the sauce I was making and tell me that it was delicious. Then he’d kiss me fully on the mouth, and I’d tell him how much I loved him, and he’d tell me that he loved me more. Then we’d eat dinner as a family, we’d tuck Little Brandon in and then head to our room, we’d both fall on the bed together and—

I stopped myself before I could go any farther. I always did. It hurt too much to continue. It hurt too much to try and imagine his arms around me again, the way his lips moved against mine, because his arms would never wrap around me again, and he’d never kiss me again, so imagining just hurt.

I sighed sadly and called the boys to dinner, setting their plates full of spaghetti on the table and sitting down with them.

I was particularly quiet that dinner, the pain of my loss still raw from my fantasy, but I wasn’t the only quiet one. Tyson seemed to be at a loss for words as well.

But halfway through the meal Tyson sighed a long sigh, and turned in his seat toward Brandon.

“Brandon,” he said, catching the young boys attention from his task of desperately trying to get a noodle to stay on his fork. “here.” Tyson said, extending his hand toward Brandon. “You can have it.”

My eyes widened as I saw the Transformers toy in his outstretched hand.

“Yay!” Brandon yelled, moving to grab it from the older boy’s hand.

“But!” Tyson said, closing his hand around the toy. “You have to promise to always take care of it and protect it, since I won’t be there to do it.”

Tears swelled in my eyes as I realized that Tyson was saying the same thing to Little Brandon as Brandon had said to Tyson all those years ago.

Brandon took the toy away from Tyson after a very serious looking face and an “I promise.”

I got up out of my chair and hugged Tyson, knowing that he felt the pain that I did. He really did look at Brandon as a big brother.

_________________________________________________________
Later that night, after Tyson had gone home, Brandon and I lay in my large bed, him cuddled up into my side as he played with the Transformer in his hand.

I was watching the T.V on the wall across from my bed when Brandon spoke up.

“Mommy, who gave thwis toyw to Twyson?”

I turned the T.V off.

I had always wanted to wait to tell Brandon about his amazing father. To wait until he was older and would understand. He was nearly four years old, and he wouldn’t drop the question, so I supposed that he was ready.

“You’re daddy.” I whispered to the sweetheart that lay his head on my shoulder.

He nodded.

“Hey Mommy?” he said again, looking up at me this time to make sure he had my attention.

“Yes?”

“How come ofther boys and giwls have a Mommy and a Daddy, and I only have a Mommy?”

I swallowed back the lump in my throat. I don’t know why this seemed so shocking to me, I knew that at some point Brandon would notice things like this, and ask me abut them.

So, as the little three year old looked up at me expectantly, his bright shining eyes the same shade as his fathers, I couldn’t help but smile at him, kiss him on the forehead and tell him that I love him.

And then to explain to him all about his father and why he only had a Mommy, I told him this story.