Italy's a beautiful place, especially the part in which Concetta and Benigno lived. They had this massive house in the middle of nowhere, and this great backyard, where they planted an apple tree, that's probably one of the biggest I've ever seen. They planted it right after Sylvester died, since he was cremated, they planted his ashes along with some seeds, and a week later we had this tiny sprout in their backyard. It was their way of having his legacy live on, to have him remembered, not only for his fantastic compositions, but also for this tree. The tree gave life, shade and most of all it brought all the memories back, the good ones. The ones where he's smiling, and spinning me around this backyard – where he's laughing, and singing and calling me petty nicknames I wish I remember. Concetta and Benigno were waiting for us at the airport, holding up a little sign saying 'Holt family', grinning from ear to ear. Despite her age, Concetta basically dashed toward us, weeping like a baby.

"Harry! Insley! You two are so big, what happened?" Both Insley and I shrugged, smiling as she embraced us in a tight hug.

"Oh mio gio, who are these two?" She looked down to Jude – who was cowering behind me, and Aubella was grinning.

"Concetta, these are the gems. Aubella's the one not hiding behind my leg, and this is little Jude, the shy one." I replied, laughing softly.

"Their so precious! Benigno, come here!" Benigno Holt had been silent since Sylvester's death, which was in 1993. He hasn't said a word for fifteen years, so when he silently smiled at the family, we didn't mind.

"Oh, I have so much to tell you! Ehh, my English is very bad, can I just speak the Italian?" She asked, both Insley and I nodded. We'd been speaking Italian since we were about two years old. But when Concetta started rambling on about things, I didn't get half of it. My Italian was good, but needed some brushing up, since I hadn't really spoken in a while. So, instead of listening to Concetta, I turned to Benigno.

"Hi, Benigno." I smiled, and he gave me a great big grin, embracing me for a bit.

"It's been a while, hasn't it?" I said, and he nodded. Then taking out a pen from his pocket, he wrote something on a notepad. I looked down, and in Italian it read – where is the mother?

"She err, passed away a couple weeks ago, that's why we're here." I replied, trying not to flinch.

He wrote another thing down – what terrible reasoning for visit – which made me laugh a little. The drive to their large house in the countryside was two hours, and Jude slept through all of it, along with mum and surprisingly Insley. When we arrived, Aubella begged me if she could go lay down, and I agreed, but only after lunch.

"Harry, you can get his old room, there is mattress in cupboard as well." Concetta said, and I smiled as a thank you, dragging the luggage I had up the stairs and into his room. Sylvester's room was just the way he left it when he went to college, most of his clothes were still there, and all the pictures and posters he had were still up on the walls. The big picture of my mum in her last year of high school, with the biggest grin on her face, and Sylvester who has his arm snaked around her waist, and holding a thumbs up sign in the other hand. His hair was wild, and he wore a bandanna, he also had quite the amount of facial hair. I remember him telling me about that day, it was the day he asked my mum to be his girlfriend and I think I remember his exact words being, "Anna-Maria, girlfriend?" His English was weak back then, and my mum said yes right away. He could never say her name right, so Anna-Maria was Sylvester's nickname for my mum, she always loved hearing it. This room was one of the very few places where you could find evidence of Sylvester Holt's existence, and it pained me. On a dresser in the corner, was a picture of an iconic moment in my childhood, Sylvester was teaching me his piece – Blanc, he wrote it in winter and just named it blanc – I was sitting on the chair of the grand piano Concetta and Benigno still have in this very house, and Sylvester's larger hands were guiding mine. I was around two years of age, and my hair was still a wild bush of little curls that he always ruffled, and my mum always used to twirl around her fingers when I laid on her lap and cried because the children at day-care didn't like me. There's another one of him swinging Insley around, and he's so cute. He's got this giant grin on his face and I can almost hear him laughing through the picture going, "faster, daddy! Faster!" He was around two in the picture, and I haven't seen Insley smile that big ever since Sylvester went. None of us were the same when he died, none of us knew what to do. Being here at this house, it reminds us of the good times, when he was smiling, and when he taught us how to play football in the rain or how we'd lie under the tree, and he'd tell us the greatest stories. It brings back all these great memories, and it made me forget about his paranoia, and the screaming, and the gruesome death he suffered. He chose a sure fire way to die, he shot himself right in the head, and guess who witnessed it all? I was only six, curious and scared, looking for comfort in my dad's arms, when I saw it happen. He was sitting there in the illuminated corner, the moonlight making his tear-stained cheeks stand out, and the gun shone as he raised it to his head and closed his eyes, I couldn't believe what was happening, but I couldn't do anything. Him and I were the only two people awake, he opened his eyes one more time, and saw me. And then he smiled weakly, before pulling that trigger. As soon as the boom echoed through the house, an ear-piercing scream exited my lips, and I kept screaming and screaming and screaming until I finally fainted, next thing I knew, Sylvester wasn't even there anymore. The last picture on the shelf was one of Sage, in his little football outfit, he's got a gap between his teeth, and he's grinning from ear-to-ear. A football is perched underneath his foot, I reckon he was around seven when his was taken. My memories of Sage are foggy, he's Insley and I's senior by twelve years, and we haven't seen him since I was twelve and Insley eight. After he graduated high school, he ran away from home and apparently joined the military, but no one knows, because he never contacted us. The last we heard of him was three years later on Insley and I's fifteenth birthday, when he sent us white t-shirts saying Copy and Paste – mine was of course the Paste one, because I'm the junior by ten seconds, but Insley acts like it's ten years, it's quite frustrating – inside was a note, handwritten, reading, "congrats, you're a teenager, wear these with pride. –S" We never knew if it was from him, since there was no return address, and we didn't know how he found both of us, since I was in Stockport and Insley in Austria. We also didn't know whether it was just mum messing around, but we accepted it from Sage and we did wear those t-shirts with pride. Thinking of it now, we're a pretty messed up family, but it's great how the remainder of us can just come together and be happy. Sylvester's brother, Eros, was apparently flying in from New York to meet us, since we hadn't seen him since Sylvester died. (Well, I last saw him when I stayed with him in New York to complete my high school education. My mother couldn't come to America, so I just stayed with Eros, and spent my summer's back in England) We don't really know him all that well, I just know he works on Wall Street, and I read about him in the Wall Street Journal one day whilst waiting for Insley. He's apparently a stockbroker, one of the most successful in New York. I'd never liked stockbrokers but Insley knew him quite well, since he's in the corporate world.

"Hey, H. Concetta whipped up a little something for lunch, if you want to come down." It was my mother's voice I heard in the doorway, and instantly I put the picture down.

"Thanks," I replied, "I'll be down in a bit."

"This room brings back a lot, doesn't it?" She said after a while, and I thought about how it must pain her to be in the very room they probably lost their innocence in. They had so many late nights, with Sylvester's Christmas lights on in the background, and some record spinning on his record player he so treasured, it must've been my mother's absolute nightmare being here right now.

"The nostalgia is pretty overwhelming." I said, finally facing her. A couple tears rolled down her cheeks, but she was smiling.

"It's a good kind, though." She said softly, before wiping her eyes, and then turning around, "see you in a bit." I really hoped I could help her, but I was terrible at comforting people when they needed comfort, mostly since I was pretty messed up in the head myself. I followed her downstairs, and just hugged her at the bottom, she smiled afterward, and then we went to lunch. It was a pretty quiet lunch, Concetta trying to small talk us all into oblivion; I didn't blame her since we never visited anymore. Afterward, Insley left to take a call and I went to walk around the backyard for a bit and just be alone for a while. Drew was keeping mum and the kids entertained, though I could see Jude falling asleep again and Aubella basically dying on my mum's lap. Insley lay down under his tree, and I wondered what he was thinking. I wondered what everyone was thinking, were they thinking the same thing as I was? We all had different memories of Sylvester, and right now they were all being thrown onto us like a bucket of ice-cold water. When I came to sit next to him, he asked, "do you remember any of the nicknames he used to call us?"

"I know he's the one who always called me H, and you Ins. And we were always H and Ins, the dynamic duo." I laughed a little.

"The summers in Italy were the greatest, weren't they?" He said, sighing happily.

"Do you remember when he tried to take us fishing, but ended up pushing Benigno into the water and almost drowning him?" I asked, and he laughed.

"Oh, Lord. How could I forget? I think we spent about an hour contemplating who was going to touch the bait." He replied, shaking his head.

"Just proves what a bunch of pretentious neat freaks we are." I responded with a laugh. It was true, we did spend an hour who was going to touch the bait and not puke – spoiler alert, it was me, and it was absolutely abhorrent, I have never gone fishing ever again.

"It was pretty fun though, you've got to admit." He looked to me, and my expression went serious.

"It was gross, I ended up getting seasick." I shook my head, laughing, "that was not one of my more glamorous moments."

"Agreed, it was a pretty grotesque sight." He agreed, uttering a laugh.

"Do you ever wonder what Sage is doing, I mean, we're here in Italy, we spent practically all our summers here with him, don't you ever wonder what he's doing? Or where he is? Any of that jazz?" I asked.

"All the time, but I suppose I've come to terms with the fact that he's his own person, and that he made a decision – that might've been pretty stupid, impulsive and reckless, but he made it nonetheless – and we're probably not going to see him ever again." He half, shrugged, propping himself up on one elbow, and looking to me. I was sitting up, looking down at a little flower I was twirling around in my fingers.

"Yeah, but it doesn't stop me thinking, what if he didn't leave? What if we knew him, would he be the same? I mean, how would he even be? I know nothing about him and he's my brother – or rather, our brother – and he's practically a stranger." I replied, sighing.

"I guess, but really, H, it's all about acceptance in our case, I know you wish you knew the guy, or you knew where he was, but right now I think it's better being in the dark. You're putting too much weight on your shoulders, honestly if Sage showed up right now, I think you'd have a mental breakdown, and you can't afford that, and I think you know that. I think you should just focus on why we're here, we're here just to get away from all the quarrels back at home, as I said, H, it's better to stay in the dark sometimes." He said, and I knew it was true. It was better to stay in the dark in this situation, I couldn't handle meeting Sage and Rose dying in the same sentence.

"I get it, but I still wish we knew where he was, and all that jazz. I just wish he'd contact us like, hello I am alive!" I replied.

"Maybe he will, we don't know what the future holds." He said, moving back to laying down on his back, with his hands behind his head.

"Wish I knew." I shrugged, throwing the flower away.

"Sometimes the thrill of the unknown is better than the impact of reality." Was his answer, and it was one of those things that Insley said, that really stuck with me for a while. He had things he said sometimes, and he didn't know it, but it stuck with me for a very long time, it stuck with me to this day, and I love him for being so wise.

The next morning I woke up to the gorgeous ring of the piano playing, and the angelic voice of my mother down in the kitchen. It was almost like old times, smiling I sleepily wandered down the steps. Jude was playing something on the piano, and as my mother and Concetta prepared breakfast, she was singing and it was beautiful.

"Harry, my God, you sleep in!" She exclaimed and Aubella – who was sitting on a barstool at the island – stifled a giggle.

Yawning, I said, "yeah, Tuesday's are those kind of days."

"I mean, really, Harry it's nine a.m." She replied, laughing.

"Scandalous." I laughed softly, sitting down in a chair next to Aubella, she smiled as she saw me, though I was still half asleep.

"Hey, Bells." I said, leaning with my arms on the counter.

"Hi, Daddy." She grinned, as mum swatted my arms with a kitchen cloth and I collapsed on the counter top, laughing, "muuum, I'm tired, let me put my arms on the marble."

"Harold Charlie Holt, I raised you better than this." She said sternly, but she was still smiling.

I still laid my head on the top, until I smelled the sweet smell of the one thing that could wake me up in the mornings.

"Is that breakfast tea?" I looked up immediately.

"No, Harold. It's coffee." Mum smiled, putting the cup down in front of me.

"What an outrage." I shook my head, smiling as I took a sip, "can I just point out that my mother is probably the best in the world, thank you."

"I'm flattered, really." She grinned as Insley shuffled down the steps.

"Has our family always been this obnoxiously loud?" He enquired, as he looked to us, frowning.

"That's what I said." I replied, and Aubella was giggling up a storm next to me.

"I had an exceptionally existential night last night, and now you're all up at nine in the morning, it's absolutely-" suddenly his attention turned to something my mother was doing, "is that coffee?" Mum nods, and in an instant Insley's smiling.

"I take it back, this family is great. Sorry, H, you're on your own." He shrugged, going over to her, and pouring some of the dark liquid into a white cup nearby.

"I'm absolutely outraged. So absolutely outraged, I think I might just go sit outside and mope." I said, shaking my head, but Concetta had other ideas.

"Let's all gather at the table." She said, bringing something toward the large table in the middle of the room, and neatly placing it down. This got Drew's attention, who was busy animating something.

"Is that food?" He practically threw his laptop on the floor and dashed up toward the table.

The earlier mentioned Eros Holt had arrived late last night, and was pretty quiet for a Holt. We were all being our peculiar selves, Insley and I having our constant banter, and me being tired and existential and what not, and I think he was a bit freaked out. He'd never really been part of the family, far as I knew he was a mute, and a runaway, Sylvester never talked about Eros, I guess they didn't have a great relationship. Nobody mentioned him, I suppose he was the one the family shunned, and we all have a member who we don't really talk about, that's there but then again isn't quite acknowledged for being there. He was a wallflower, Eros Holt, he just saw things, and didn't say anything about them. He never said anything about himself, we all suspected he was a homosexual, but neither Insley nor I had the guts to ask him, he was pretty intimidating, being around two meters tall. (I mean, the Holt-family had a pretty short ensemble, and here was Eros, literally towering above all of us. I had to look up at him, and I felt like he was the principal and I, a high school student in major trouble. That's why he was the shunned one, he was so tall and intimidating, we all kind of just backed off in his presence, and he rarely ever graced us with it.)

The rest of the day was great, I took Jude and Aubella down to a lake close to the house, and they spent the whole day exploring the place, that's why the events of that night was so absolutely unpredictable. Nobody saw it coming, not even I did. I was laying on the bed – or rather, Sylvester's bed – listening to some music, when it hit me that this whole week was filled with grave nostalgia, and when I looked up at the pictures of the shelves, I felt like the memories were swallowing me whole. I decided then that if I had to be gravely nostalgic one more time I was going to decapitate myself, so I set out into the kitchen, and saw Drew. He gazed up as he saw me, his eyes widening, "Dad?"

"Hey," I tried to mask the fact that I was now crying, and that I couldn't breathe.

"Are you okay?" He asked, and I nodded.

"I'm fantastic," I sounded so fake and forced as I tried smiling, that's when I spun around on my heel and headed for the door, "I'm going for a walk, I'll err, be back in a bit."

"Promise?" He asked.

"Always, squirt." I said, opening the door and practically running out. Italy was getting too much for me; I couldn't handle any of the memories anymore. I needed to get away I needed a break. I just needed something else to happen, I wanted to forget everything, and I really did. I wanted all my feelings to take a hike, and I wanted the weight on my heart gone. I wanted to be able to breathe properly, and not cry everyday, and most of all I wanted her back. I wanted to build a time machine and rewind back to when she was still here, and be less oblivious. Time, we were all so engulfed in it; it's our best friend and worst enemy. Time consumes everything, and nothing remains if it's feeling ruthless. Time was ruthless with Rose, she deserved more than she got, and she deserved all the time in the world. I just felt hopeless for the longest period of time, and found myself on a deserted beach writing her name in the sand, and watching the waves wash it away. That's when my lungs gave in again, and I was struggling for air, I don't remember what happened, but I remember screaming, and then seeing headlights. And then I remember seeing her, and she was beautiful, her eyes still blue and her hair still black as the night. Her skin was still so fair and like porcelain, and I remember screaming again, but this time screaming 'no' over and over again. I remember seeing Insley in front of me, and he was biting his lip furiously, my eyes shifted from him, to Rose constantly, and it was absolute torture. This was the part of being schizophrenic I despised, the crazy hallucinations and the full-scale mental breakdowns at the most peculiar times. My mother appeared in front of me and I heard Insley exclaiming, "Mum, what's going on? He's never done this before!"

"Calm down!" She said to him, and looked to me, I had fallen onto the sand, and was now clutching my ears shut and wishing my eyes would stop seeing her face in my mind.

Finally I got so tired of it all, that a sob just wrecked through my body and I fell, I fell so hard I didn't think I was ever going to get back up. My head hit the sand and now I was crying again, it was the worst feeling in the world. They both saw me rip in two, and I hated it, I hated crying, I hated being so weak, I hated myself. I wished I could run into the ocean and it would swallow me whole, but the more rational part of me knew I could never do it.

"Oh, H." Mum breathed out, as I wept. God, it was terrible, I just felt sick to my stomach, crying was such a terrible feeling. I know it's a natural response to dread or shock, but hell I despised it, I hated crying so much.

"Wh-why is this happening?" I said in fragments, due to the fact that I was still a sobbing mess.

"You're grieving, my boy." She smiled softly, and I let out a yelp of distress.

"I hate it! I hate this, this is stupid and preposterous and I absolutely hate it! I want it to stop, mum, I just want it to stop!" My outburst surprised all of us.

Mum didn't say anything after that; she let me cry like a baby all over her shirt, I didn't even notice the sun was starting to set. She lifted my chin up, and wiped my tears, then tilted my head toward the sight.

"Look, it's your favourite time of day." She said.

I didn't reply, I just silently continued crying. It was magnificent, and it reminded me of her, so I looked away, and stood up.

"Can we- can we please go home? I'm exhausted." I stated, gazing at my hands.

Insley nodded as Mum rose from the sand, and we all went to the car he brought. I think it was Concetta's but I wasn't that observant. We drove home in silence, until around halfway back I said, "I want to move."

"What?" Mum answered.

"I said I want to move. Get the blazing hell out of England. I can't take it anymore." I replied.

"Harry, don't be impulsive." Insley said.

"There's no impulsivity, I've thought about this. I want to move." I countered sternly.

"Just wait 'till we get home, okay love? You're upset, you can't make decisions in a state like this." Mum said, and I knew she was in denial. I didn't blame her, I was being so impetuous, and it was probably because I hadn't taken the a-p's in a while.

So I shut up after that, but I was still considering the move. I had thought about it, I wasn't going to be able to handle England, especially not St Ives when we got back, after the memorial; I was going to be completely bloody finished. There's going to be nothing left of me, I'm just going to go on autopilot. I needed to get away; otherwise I was going to go absolutely insane. But then again, to live, sometimes you have to lose your mind. Most of all I hated myself for falling apart again.

Author's Note:

been a while, aye?? :D thank u all sm for 800+ reads hollYYYYY makes me alll fuzzy on the inside omg we're getting close tO THE END WOW WHAT IS MY LIFE my baby of 2 years is almost done.... :(