The Final Chapter...?

                                    

                                          
"That's the last of the stuff from the car," I called, struggling through the door carrying a box almost too wide to fit through the frame.
                          
"Okay sweetie, we're in the kitchen," my mum called back.
                          
As I dumped the box onto the wooden floor of my new living room, I headed into the kitchen to find my mum and Charlotte already busy assembling flat pack furniture. Charlotte's ever-growing bump was getting in the way as she knelt on all fours over the printed instruction sheet.
                          
"Screw H4 needs to go into the last hole, Debbie," she instructed. "No, sorry, I mean screw H3 goes in the second hole, then H4 goes in the third." 
                          
The confusion caused my mum to curse under her breath from behind the table she currently had balanced precariously up on its side, half-built and looking ready to fall flat on her head at any minute. Quickly rushing over to grab hold of the large square of wood before I witnessed the accidental death of my mother, crushed to death in my own kitchen, she dramatically blew her fringe away from her forehead as she looked up at me.
                          
"Three gorgeous women like us, and not a man to call our own between us to help out with this nonsense," she quipped, raising an eyebrow.
                          
"Hey!" shrieked Charlotte, clutching her chest in mock horror. "My man will be home in less than a week, speak for yourselves."
                          
Easing herself up from the floor as she supported her back and winced, Charlotte could have probably told me the exact amount of time left until Alex returned down to the very hour, minute and second.
                          
She swore that they hadn't planned for her to fall pregnant so quickly. But they had somehow managed it during the precious week they'd together between the boys' UK tour ending back in May and the international one kicking off.
                          
I hadn't seen Noah since that last, beautiful night we'd shared. With Charlotte moving into her and Alex's new place as soon as term finished in July, I'd gone back to stay with my mum until I found a flat of my own. If only I'd known that would have taken me nearly six months, I'd have thought of a different plan.
                          
Noah did text me a couple of times before The Ambition headed off to take over the world, but neither of us made the effort to go and see the other. It was almost as if it would have been too painful. Everything was so perfect the last time we'd spent the night together. We could have easily pretended it was still that way for a few precious days, but he would have only been ripped away from me again.
                          
We managed to speak fairly regularly to start with, even with the boys hopping from country to country as the international leg of the tour began. Noah seemed to have gotten over his phobia of phones and would regularly wake me up at all hours of the night, making it impossible to be mad at him when he'd make the same excuse about time zones not changing the way he felt about me. But, as the tour dragged on, work with PCJ picked up, and Charlotte grew bigger by the day, the calls grew less frequent.
                          
Life back at mum's house also became trickier to manage once the winter term began. The commute alone left me exhausted every day, and my assignments from PCJ had been rolling in thick and fast meaning I need to be in London more often than not. Plus, having learnt to live my life independently, being back under her roof caused us to bicker over stupid things like switching lights off and unloading the dishwasher.
                          
On top of everything else, Charlotte needed help. The trial was moving forward and her relationship with her parents was still critically fragile. To try and support her, in early October we made the decision that I would temporarily move into her and Alex's new place. Just in time to celebrate my nineteenth birthday together, sat in our pyjamas, sharing a bottle of non-alcoholic champagne and an entire chocolate cake between us.