4.2 Heather Rose

"Heather, what's wrong?" 

"I...I don't know. But I don't belong here." 

He sits up, kisses her cheek. 

"Of course you do." 

For a second, when he wakes up, he doesn't remember immediately. Where's Heather? Wasn't she just here? 

Then he remembers. 

Heather is gone. 

Olivia can only watch sadly as Crystal and Mark bawl their eyes out. All that's left of their only daughter is a pile of ashes and a flat headstone. 

Evan's emotions pour out. If anything happened to Vincent or Lincoln... he can't even consider it. 

"It's...nice to finally talk to you," Lincoln manages, face to face with Heather's father. 

Mark can't even manage a weak smile. "Likewise." 

"Heather...is our first child. Was," Mark pauses, wipes some tears away, "We weren't sure how to handle her dating at first. We thought...when the time was right, she would introduce you. I guess she just didn't trust us enough..." 

"No! No, don't think that. She told me, before she left, that she thought so highly of you and Crystal's opinion that she just didn't know what to do if you ended up not liking me," Lincoln is quick to correct him. "She really loved the two of you." 

Mark breaks down into sobs. If only he knew that when she was still alive. 

Ti-Ning Jones, a friend of Heather's, is also here. He doesn't feel comfortable enough to introduce himself to Heather's parents, so he just hangs around the edges. 

His girlfriend, Tammi, is here for emotional support. 

Nobody knows...

That one night, during her rough patch with Lincoln just a few weeks ago, they shared a clumsy kiss behind the public library. She had shoved him away immediately, apologised and ran off, but Ti-Ning has been thinking about her ever since. 

And now, she's gone. He frowns. Maybe he shouldn't be here.

"Son...I'm so sorry," Evan says, sniffing and wiping away tears. 

"It's...there's nothing we can really do about it," Lincoln sighs. His heart is heavy in his chest, and his mind is still reeling. How can she just be...gone? 

It pushes Lincoln over the edge. He begins to sob into his father's shoulder. 

"How can she just be dead!?" 

Crystal is wondering the same thing. 

"I'm sorry for your loss," Olivia says quietly. 

It takes all of Crystal's will-power not to burst into tears on the spot. 

"She was our first child. We wanted to have more...eventually. I never thought..." 

"No one could have expected this." 

"She died in some stupid scam! All for a shitty car!" Crystal doesn't bother wiping the tears away. Heather's ashes were found inside a car abandoned by the side of the road. Police suspect that it was a carjacking gone wrong. Nobody knows why Heather was in a car when she had already bought a train ticket. The car was unregistered, leading to a dead-end. Nobody can find the friend she was visiting, either. 

It all becomes too much for Lincoln. He leaves a bit earlier than his parents to walk home, feeling guilty that he couldn't hold out longer. 

Olivia only lets herself cry once she gets home. 

But she quickly pulls herself together. She needs to be strong for her son, now. 

Evan, having the same thought, has stopped crying himself. His eyes are still puffy and sore, but he's managed to get his emotions under control. 

They eat in silence for a while, only their forks scraping against their plates making any noise. 

"Dad... what do I do now?" Lincoln asks, his voice raw and vulnerable. When Evan sees him, he sees a lost, confused child. 

"You take your time. You grieve, son. You'll need time to heal." 

Lincoln nods numbly. It all seems impossible now, living life without her. Not in a suicidal way, but it just seems physically, literally impossible. Heather has always been here. How could she not be? 

It's a question that will bother him for a long, long time. 

All he has left of her are some memories. 

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AN: :( 

On a happier note, I was looking into the name Ti Ning, and I found out it's the first name of an animator from EA who worked on the Sims 2 and Sims 3! There's also a sim in sims 2 named Ti-Ning Hanby. Maybe Ti-Ning Jones here is a descendant? :)