THE HAYES

As soon as Matteo and Aria had been able to excuse themselves from the dinner table, they were running upstairs like two teenagers, making out and removing each other's clothing before they had even reached Aria's bedroom.

"I've missed you so much, Aria," Matteo murmured whilst planting little kisses along Aria's neck, gently tugging at her hair to gain greater access to the skin on her neck.

"Mhmm..." She moaned in return, quickly beginning to unbuckle his belt before pushing him down onto the bed and climbing over his body.

I've missed that killer body, but you? Not so much.

"You ready?" Matteo mumbled, watching Aria's expressions, as he slowly began to pull her directly over his crotch area.

"I'm always ready." Aria's eyes lit up, and that mischievous grin returned

"So, you wanna go out for a drink sometime?" Matteo asked as he pulled his white T-shirt over his head and back onto his body. The contrast between the white shirt and his dark skin further accentuates Matteo's already swoon-worthy beauty.

"You really want to go there? After last time?" Despite the occasional sex with Matteo, Aria had little interest in ever rekindling that old flame. She could only ever associate threats with Matteo. Even sex wasn't enough for Aria to forget how Matteo had made her feel in the past.

Matteo shrugged his shoulders, "I am sorry, you know. I was angry, and I have not stopped thinking about you since you left for Ireland." That generic statement he probably said to most girls he'd shacked up with.

He slid his body across the bed over to Aria and planted one lusty, long kiss on her lips again.

"Can you honestly say that kiss meant nothing to you, huh?"

She winked and seductively whispered in his ear, "I honestly can say that kiss meant absolutely nothing to me."

Matteo chuckled lightly, but the hurt was evident in his eyes. Truth was, Matteo had loved Aria, and those feelings just didn't go away very easily. He knew he had not treated her right when the two had dated, but he also knew that Aria was a flirt who would probably never change.

"I guess that's my cue to leave then." He began sauntering towards the door, but knowing he would probably not see Aria again, he felt he should let his true feelings be known, and so he turned to face Aria, who was still lying naked under the bed sheets.

"You know, I can't believe Isolde is letting you stay in this house."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Aria pursed her lips, knowing what he was going to say but daring him to continue.

"Nothing...I just meant, with your track record, I can't believe she'd trust you to be within ten miles of her fiancé." He put up his hands in defence, as if what he said was merely a statement and not meant to offend.

"Get out."

"What?" Matteo appeared startled by her reaction. Surely Aria knew that this was what everyone was thinking. Aria slept around; whether a guy was single or not had bothered her before.

"I love Isolde. I would never do that to her. She knows that, she trusts me, okay? Now get out." By this point, Aria had jumped out of bed, hugging a blanket against her naked body, and was standing at the door, holding it wide open for Matteo, who finally took his cue to leave.

"Mum?" Aria entered her childhood home, with Isolde standing closely behind her. She'd known returning to London for Isolde's wedding meant she'd have to visit this dreaded place again. She'd spent the best years of her life trying to get away from this home. But she knew at the very least, she owed it to her mum to visit.

"Oh, Aria,  you've come home." Tears pricked the back of Aria's mother's eyes at the sound of her daughter's voice, which she had not heard in over a year.

"Please don't cry, Ma. I'm here now, aren't I?" Aria cupped her mother's face in her hands and used her own fingertips to wipe away the tears forming at the base of her mother's bottom eyelids.

"I've not seen my beautiful daughter in a year now. Why does it always take you so long to come home?" Helena asked, using the sleeve of her oversized beige cardigan to wipe at her increasingly wet eyes.

Aria's mother, Helena, had once been a youthful and beautiful woman. But years of grief and ache had aged her tremendously. People once believed her to be Aria's elder sister, but now people rarely make that mistake.

She had dark eye bags under her eyes, which had now begun to resemble bruises.

"Ma, please don't..." Aria pleaded, gradually pulling herself away from her mother's suffocating grasp.

"Ah, Isolde, you're looking beautiful as ever. How are the wedding preparations coming along?" Helena knew this was a fruitless conversation to have with Aria, so she averted the conversation to Isolde in order to avoid pushing her daughter away any further.

"Very well, Ms Hayes," Isolde responded warmly. She didn't know Helena well, but her mother had told her she'd been admitted to a psychiatric ward following her break-up with Aria's father. Her mother, being an overly judgmental and borderline cruel woman, had told Isolde on numerous occasions to stay away from the deranged woman.

"I'm happy to hear that. Will you be staying for dinner?"

"Oh no, I just came to drop Aria here. I'll collect you tomorrow morning, then?" Isolde lightly pecked Aria's well-powdered cheek before waltzing out of the house.

The mother and daughter stood in uncomfortable silence for a few minutes before Helena finally asked Aria what she'd been meaning to ask her as soon as she'd walked into the house.

"Are you well, Aria? Are you happy?" She grabbed Aria's hands and gazed into her eyes intently. She knew happiness was one thing she'd not been able to offer her children when they had been young, but now it was the only thing she truly cared about.

"I'm okay, are you mum?" Aria responded, blatantly ignoring the second half of her question, which her mother noted.

Helena knew the real reason why Aria so rarely returned to her hometown in London. Why did she so abruptly move to Ireland, where she knew nobody? She knew better than anyone how delicate and utterly reckless Aria was. She knew the real reason was her, Helena herself.

"I am, I promise." She kissed either of her daughters' cheeks.

"I've already prepared dinner for you and Marcus. It'll be the first time I've had both of my babies in the same room in five years. Did you know that, mi alma?"

Aria laughed lightly, but hid that she was slightly shocked at how her family had fallen apart.

Has it really been five years since we've all spent time together?

The mother and daughter chatted away, reminiscing and catching up on all the time missed, until Marcus arrived.

"Look, Ma, the devils at our door." Aria joked after hearing the doorbell ring.

Marcus stood outside with his arms wide open for his sister to jump into. Aria's one and only true hero, even after all these years. Truth was, the two barely spoke anymore, but they'd spent the hardest years of their lives together, and that was something both of them would hold onto.

"Is that really you, Aria? You're not nearly as ugly anymore." Marcus stated, pretending to be shocked at her.

"Get lost, you dick!" She punched Marcus playfully on his forearm. The resemblance between Marcus and Aria was uncanny, except  Marcus's good looks could be described as boyish, whilst Aria's were more striking.

Helena stood in the tiny hallway, her hands clasped together and tears falling uncontrollably down her cheeks as she watched her children.

"Ma, no more crying, okay? She's home now." Marcus said, planting a kiss on the tip of his mother's head.

Aria truthfully felt ashamed at the fact that she'd scarcely visited her home and her mother since she was eighteen. She'd ignored Marcus's calls nearly as often as they came. He'd left untold voice and text messages about their mother's continual relapse and how Aria was needed. But despite everything, she could never bring herself to return to their shabby little flat, where everything reminded her of her teenage years.

"There's something I need to tell you both. But I wanted to tell you together." She said as the three of them were seated around the broken dining table.

It was the same dining table that Aria and Marcus sat at every single day as children. The table that the two had broken whilst fighting at the ages of ten and twelve, respectively. Their mother couldn't afford to buy a new table, always telling them how she needed to spend the money elsewhere.

"Your father. He's dead."

"Good riddance," Aria responded quickly, forking her now-tasteless food into her mouth.

"Aria, please." Helena began pleading, knowing Aria's father was one topic that could trigger Aria's anger quicker than anything.

"He's still our dad." Marcus was silent before murmuring the words as his eyes never left his plate.

"No, Marcus, he lost the right to be called our dad the day he walked out on us."

"You should still attend the funeral," Helena said in a stern manner.

"No. Not after everything." Aria continued eating, trying to contain her anger but knowing that someone inside her was boiling away, ready to burst.

"It wasn't all dad's fault!" Marcus slammed his knife and fork onto the table as he stared at Aria.

"How can you say that? He left us for her, and he never even looked back. For five years, we were alone, we were kids, and we had nobody. And even when he came back, he just threw money at us.

"Do you remember? Me being ten years old, having to bathe mum. Us working extra jobs when we should've been in school just to afford the rent, burning our fingers every single night trying to make food. I watched you being beaten up by the bailiffs when we couldn't afford to keep this place. Don't you remember how fucking bad it was?" Aria was now standing up, shouting across the table at Marcus. She hadn't realized when the tears had begun to roll, but now that they had, she knew she wouldn't be able to stop them.

"Aria, please sit down," Helena said barely above a whisper.

Aria, reluctantly, reclaimed her seat.

"I am so sorry for what I put you two through. For not being able to make myself better for you two. But Marcus is right, it wasn't all your father's fault. And now, I'm asking you, both of you, to put it all behind us and attend his funeral. Please."

Aria could still feel the tears slipping from her eyes. After all, she had received the brunt of the situation. At only ten years old, she'd listened to her mother's endless tales of how love was little more than a joke, a myth. How to get through life, men should be used and then quickly tossed aside before they have the chance to hurt you.

"No, Ma, I won't go." She grabbed the tissue to wipe the corners of her mouth and left the room. Going upstairs to her old bedroom.

The room had been left untouched, and as she walked in, she saw her fifteen-year- old self crying whilst sitting on the bed. Comparing her life to her best friend Isolde's and wondering why she'd been born into a dysfunctional family.

When her father had first left, and she'd been eight, she'd thought the chores she'd had to do were normal, but as she became older, nearing thirteen she'd begun to wonder why she'd been destined to scrub and scrape at the pots and pans and vacuum the house every couple of days whilst Isolde family had cleaners to do so.

Why did she have to flash the bailiffs her cleavage and flirt with them for them to excuse her and Marcus for not being able to pay back the loans their father had taken out?

When they became older, and they couldn't afford their rent, Marcus and  Aria had to muster up a sob story about Aria being a teenage mother, whilst Isolde had no idea what a landlord even was.

Every day, Aria had new burn marks from her fingertips to her elbows from attempting to cook food for her sick mother, whilst the only thing that changed about Isolde's hands was the colour she used to coat her fingernails.

And lastly, why Aria had to visit her mother in a psychiatric ward when she hit rock bottom, whilst Isolde's parents' only problem was which new car they should buy each week.

"Hey, you." Marcus stood at the doorframe of Aria's room, a shadow of a smile lingering upon his lips.

"Every time I come back here, I just remember why I wanted to leave." Aria sighed.

"I know, I feel the same. But we did have some amazing times here." He beamed at her with a glimmer in his eye.

She laughed as she automatically remembered what he was referring to. Their neighbour, Gabi.

Gabi had been a fifty-five-year old woman, and the only person who knew how bad things were for the two. She was almost like a grandmother to the two, and she had a serious obsession with Kylie Minogue, so whenever Ari came over to hers, she'd break into her rendition of 'Boy, I can't get you out of my head.'

Imagine a fifty-five-year old grinding against an abnormally large flower pot whilst singing Kylie Minogue. The image would forever be etched into their minds.

"La, la, la, la, la, la, la," Marcus began, seductively moving against the door frame.

"Oh god, no, Marcus, please, "Aria said, covering her eyes.

"I just can't get you out of my head, Boy your lovin' is all I think about, I just can't get you out of my head..." Marcus rolled his head in slow-motion whilst speaking to the door frame as though it were his boyfriend, Mike.

"Marcus, please, what would Mike say if he were there?" Aria was holding her stomach at this point as she was curling over from excess laughter.

"He would say, ' Where's the old Aria? ' She would be dry humping the bed frame at this point." He laughed.

She shrugged her shoulders before getting up and joining in with Marcus.

I guess being overly sexual ran in the Hayes family.

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