It had been an hour since Jay had opened the door, and the family get together was not going well at all. In the first ten minutes, Macie had managed to knock the six-pack of beer Will had brought off the counter, breaking every one of the glasses and causing a massive spill on the kitchen floor and Olivia had already began asking when they were going back home. After both Nat and Will individually told her three times each that they hadn't even eaten yet, Jay decided to put the food on and he had been hiding out in the garden since.

He had managed to stay alone for the most part, Mae had found him very shortly after he went out there, but she only waved enthusiastically to him through the sliding door before running off away from the door.

He was almost finished when he heard the door slide open again, making him look up to see Hailey stepping out into the garden, bringing an unconscious smile on his face.

She makes a brief gesture toward the sky before she crosses her arms over her chest. "Those black clouds are getting a bit close for comfort don't you think?" She questions.

Jay had picked up on that a few minutes ago, when he felt a turn in the wind chill, it becoming just a little more crisp and sharp than it was earlier this afternoon. He turns his head to look up into the sky, seeing the cluster of clouds drawing closer before he shrugs. "Well that would just be the perfect end to the perfect day." He replies sarcastically.

Hailey tilts her head to the side, moving closer toward her husband. "It hasn't been that bad."

He scoffs a little. "Hailey, she's asked when she's leaving maybe a dozen times and she's only been here an hour."

"But you haven't made any effort in trying to talk to her," Hailey says, making Jay's face drop slightly, "She's not just gonna stop and wait for you to talk, you've got to start the conversation."

Jay sighs, knowing she had a very valid point. He put the lid to the grill down, placing the tongs on the side as he walked back into the house, nodding as he went.

With Hailey close behind him, Jay made his way back into the living room, sitting on the arm of one of the couches. He narrows his eyes, looking around the room. "Where are the girls?" He asks.

Natalie points toward the stairs just outside in the hall. "Macie took Liv upstairs to show her something."

Jay looks over his shoulder before standing back up from the couch and going toward the stairs. As he left he saw Will giving him a reassuring nod from the living room in the corner of his eye, Hailey doing the same from where she sat down on the couch. He doesn't look back as he tries to enthusiastically go up, but in reality his heart was pounding.

This was his last possible chance to set things right, and he was running what he was gonna say to her over and over in his head, making sure there isn't anything in there that would make this worse - if it could actually get worse.

He stops on the middle floor of the house, travelling down the corridor and into Mae's room. He remains in the doorway, watching the two girls go on about... something. He didn't pay attention to what they were talking about, all he could focus on was their interactions, the fact Olivia was willingly taking part in the conversation.

Olivia and Macie had never been close. They always seemed to bicker over the smallest things, and Jay never wanted to think about how maybe they would have more of a cousin relationship if the fight hadn't happened, but just maybe. However it was moments like these that washed those thoughts, the guilt of straining the two girls' relationship, away in seconds.

He felt bad when he interrupted, calling out Olivia's name to get her attention. He can't help but notice the small shift in her position when she hears his voice, the slight tension that went over her entire frame. She looked up at him, trying to give him as natural a look as possible. "Yeah?" She responds.

Jay points outside the room, just beside him, whilst giving her a small smile. "Can I talk to you quick? I promise it won't be more than a minute."

Olivia looks between Jay and Macie, as if trying to think of a reason not to leave her younger cousin's room. However when she couldn't think of anything, she slowly got to her feet and stepped outside, walking just around the door.

She furrowed her eyebrows slightly, looking up to him with slight impatience. "Yeah?" She repeats herself from before, keeping her vocabulary limited - which was one of the things she did when having to talk to her uncle.

Jay stammers on the words as he watches his niece's stare become a little more intense. He loses everything he planned to say and he's left standing in the corridor, completely speechless. Rather than showing Olivia he had nothing, he instead tries to come out with something on the spot. "Look... I know you don't really want to be out here with me."

"That's true." Olivia cuts in, taking Jay by surprise.

His mouth is snapped shut with shock at her sudden participation in the conversation, causing there to be a much longer pause before he spoke up again. "But I really hope that you'll, uh," Jay lifts his hand up to his neck, awkwardly scratching the part where his hair meets his skin. "That you'll listen to what I have to say."

Olivia slides her arms up her sides and crosses them tightly across her chest. "Which is?"

Jay lets out a sigh, slumping his shoulders down slightly. He drops the feeling of not knowing what to say as he blurts out the first thing that comes into his head. "Livvy, I'm so sorry. For everything."

There's a pause before Olivia slowly shakes her head. "After nine-years I don't think sorry is just gonna cut it," she replies, disappointment clear in her voice. She slowly looks around the corridor before back up to meet her uncle's gaze. "Your minute is up, I'm going back downstairs." She adds, already on her way toward the stairs.

He doesn't bother saying anything else, choosing to stay put outside Macie's door until his niece had gotten all the way downstairs. Before he could make his way toward the stairs, he could hear footsteps getting closer toward him from the other side of the door.

Mae appeared in the doorway, leaning against the frame and tilting her head to one side, subtly furrowing her brows. "Are you okay?" She questions.

Jay turns back to his daughter, giving her a smile and a nod. "Yeah, baby, I'm fine."

The girl seems to disagree with what her father had told her, shaking her head and taking a step closer toward him. "You don't look fine, you look sad."

He forces the smile to become a little bigger. "I promise, I'm all good."

Macie eyes his for a moment before nodding slowly, closing the distance between them and wrapping her arms around his waist, the top of her head only reaching his abdomen as she hugged him. Her voice was a little muffled as half her mouth talked into his shirt when she talked. "Mom says it's okay to be sad, but that you should never hide it. If you hide it, nobody can help you."

The smile on Jay's face becomes softer and much more genuine as he bends his upper half down, putting a kiss to the top of his daughter's head. "Well your mom's absolutely right." He whispers before breaking apart from the hug and heading back downstairs, Macie quick to follow him down too.

************

An hour later, once everyone had eaten, Jay decided to take another shot at trying to get through to Olivia. Rather than catching her on her own this time, though, he chose to do it with Will and Natalie there too, knowing she would be less likely to cut him off if they were there.

He took the chance when Macie ran upstairs to the bathroom, watching her as she left the room and disappeared as she ran up the stairs before turning toward Livvy. He calls her name, but doesn't get any kind of response back from her.

Jay leans forward in his seat. "Olivia, look, I did a really bad job trying to talk to you earlier, I shouldn't just apologize, I should explain everything to you, lay it all out in the open if you'll let me."

Olivia remains quiet. She doesn't look at him until Will gently nudges her with his elbow, and even when she does look to him, she only stares.

Well at least this way she wasn't gonna cut him off. Or so he thought.

Just before he was about to open his mouth, Olivia shook her head as she moved her hands into her lap. "I don't think you need to lay anything out. I heard enough when dad was shouting to mom about how you almost got him killed. I understand pretty well what happened that night."

Jay puts his hand up, stopping her from going any further with what she was saying, slightly cutting her off. "Livvy, what I did that day was really dumb, and not a day goes by that I don't feel bad about what I did. I wish I could take it back, make it so it never happened because everything was just so much more simple-"

Olivia sharply cuts him off this time. "Jay, I just said I don't want to hear it."

Will and Natalie both snap their attention to her, Natalie mumbling her daughter's name under her breath sternly.

Jay leans back into the couch, shaking his head as a way of telling Natalie and his brother not to tell her off for back-chatting. "No, don't. She doesn't want to hear it, so she won't hear it. I'm not gonna force it on her."

A beat of tensed silence goes between them all before Jay suddenly shatters it as he stands from the couch quickly. "I'm gonna go get a drink, does anyone want anything while I'm out there?" He asks, scanning across the room, only to get shaking heads in response.

Jay makes his way into the kitchen, a bee-line for the fridge, grabbing one of the few beers they had left that luckily hadn't been out on the side when Mae managed to get through a six-pack in mere seconds. He focuses on opening the bottle, leaning his arms against the kitchen island with the bottle in front of him as he begins picking at the label, small bits falling into his fingers each time his nail scratches over it.

He doesn't know how long he's doing that for, but when he's brought back to reality by Hailey calling his name, he's got a good collection of ripped up label sat on the countertop beside his hand.

She slowly takes the few steps from the kitchen door toward him. "You only pick the label when you've got something on your mind."

Jay throws his head side to side as he looks up to her. "I tried, but she wasn't having it. She doesn't want to hear it. So what am I supposed to do now? I've got nothing, this was my last resort and she doesn't even wanna hear it. But I'm not gonna make her listen to me if she doesn't want to."

Hailey remains quiet, knowing he wasn't done yet, so she just lets him continue.

"I don't know, maybe this is the universe's way of punishing me for doing what I did. Maybe I was in over my own head thinking I could fix the thing I seriously fucked up. I should never have even tried in the first place, maybe it's meant to be this way."

This is when Hailey inserts herself in on the conversation. "Jay..."

He shakes his head, turning his attention back on to the beer bottle in his hand. "Don't. Just don't. Not now. I just wanna be on my own for a minute please."

Hailey watches him thoroughly for a moment before nodding. "Okay." She mumbles, then turning on her heels and walking out of the kitchen, leaving him on his own per his request.

okay, i really don't think this chapter is any good, so i apologize very much if it wasn't. i don't know what it is about it, if it's one thing or a collection of them put together. i just found this one difficult to write. i know for sure that i don't like how olivia came out in this chapter though, she just seemed like a bit of a bitch if i'm being honest... thank you so much for reading this far though, it means the world! ❤️