Aria began walking up the stairs, carrying the pain of the last 48 hours heavily with every step. It felt like every step weighed more than the last as she got closer and closer to the house that no longer felt like home. 

“Do you remember the plans we had for this wrap around porch, Michelle?” Aria said slow and dry to Michelle as she continued to make her way up the stairs. She once was so excited to  mount these stairs daily but now she walked nearly lifeless with no motivation beneath her feet. No more excitement for wrap around porches covered in bright, comfy colorful furniture that we planned to lounge around on on sunday mornings. Rose was supposed to be running around in the yard that we worked so hard to keep up with, and Michelle would be watering her Pansy’s and Celosia’s as they bloomed in the crisp fall air. I would slowly sip my coffee and breathed in the life that I had waited so long for. This was no longer the reality that this dreary porch captured. Instead we would sit here weekend after weekend, with cold hard blank stares in our faces and hurt in the deepest parts of our hearts. This porch wouldn’t host guests for future birthday parties, nor would Rose and her friends sit on this porch and devour snacks and pop over homework dates. 

Aria paused as she approached the last step that lead to the front door.  We had painted the door a rustic maroon ish color and of course Michelle couldnt let the season go unnoticed as she made sure to place the seasonal rug that matched the bright garnished wreath that graced our front door just in time for fall. The front door that sealed and harbored a vast amount of emptiness now that all the plans had changed. Nothing was the same here, nothing could ever be the same. We couldn’t possibly be happy here now that life had stepped in and dealt us a hand that was foreign to our eyes, making us unable to move. 

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