Tag Archives: update

Chapter 15: Revision

Remembering what happened last night, Gaby wakes up very upset.

She becomes even more upset when she finally noticed that her twin isn’t here, but she calms herself down. She knows where to look for Ramona.

Of course she’d find her here in the little studio. That’s a relief.

Glancing at the pile of unfinished messy paintings beside her, Gaby guesses that she may have gone through a fit of painting rage since 4 am. She doesn’t try to stop her now though.

Ramona suddenly drops her paintbrush and starts to cry. She pauses for a bit, sniffles, then quietly said, “I’m running out of paint.”

The school bus honks outside, and they still have their homework to submit, and Ramona has new paints to buy, so the girls begrudgingly put on warmer clothes and grab their things before rushing outside.

It’s a bad day for everyone in the house.

Lukas finds himself helpless upon seeing his mother so distraught. He hasn’t felt so helpless like this before, and wants to do anything just to distract himself from it.

“Let me cook breakfast for you, mom,” he offers.

“Don’t burn the waffles, okay?” Miranda says, not meeting his eyes. She doesn’t want him to see how red and puffy her eyes look. “Your father left his recipes in one of the jars if you need help.”

While Miranda composes herself by looking at the kitchen that Stanley is so fond of, her son comes up with a brilliant idea that might help everyone out.

But first, breakfast.

Today is Gaby’s recital for music club, and her whole family is here to watch. It turns out to be a success.

“You were great back there!” Her older brother beams at her. All his sisters seem to be so talented with what they’re doing.

Gaby still fusses over her performance, worrying that it was mediocre. She doesn’t easily take compliments to heart.

Still, Gaby wouldn’t mind receiving praise from the one family member who couldn’t attend today.

When she’s not painting nonstop throughout the night, Ramona goes to her mother’s bedroom to talk with Miranda from anything to everything, until she falls asleep.

It has not been an easy night for her since her husband’s passing, but her youngest is determined to help her in any way.

Gaby makes sure she gives her big brother a proper farewell before he finally graduates for tomorrow.

They’re gonna miss each other.

“I won’t be here to fix the karaoke machine when I leave,” he reminds her jokingly.

Everyone’s getting ready for the graduation ceremony. At breakfast, Lukas strongly expresses against working in politics for some reason, to clarify some expectations that his family may be having about his future choices.

Aside from vying for valedictorian (which he succeeded), he hasn’t expressed any other goals. Gaby thinks he might follow their big sister Chelsea to the military.

Vinca looks pleased to see her baby sisters at the city hall, especially Ramona.

The Ramos-Velasco family is here for the graduation ceremony too, since Tammi hasn’t graduated with her actual batchmates and has to get her diploma with Lukas’ batch instead.

Brentley hates wearing suits in this weather, but his mother’s look tells him to endure it for another hour.

Lukas was voted as “Most Likely to Take Over the World”, which doesn’t really surprise him. After the ceremony, his rebellious nature kicks in after spotting one of his classmates who isn’t even wearing their robe.

Now he thinks he’s too good for the robes too. Then he proceeds to throw it over the bushes (he retrieves it back again after Miranda caught him).

Vinca checks up on her elderly mother, worried about how these drastic changes would affect her psyche.

She figures that Lukas will want to move out of the house soon, and Gaby seems to be the adventurous type as well. She’s not sure how Ramona will respond to these events though, but her mom tries to reassure her that she’ll be fine.

When Lukas moves out of the house in the evening (he’s renting an apartment with one of his classmates), the family starts to revise old routines, and are planning to make new ones.

“I’m gonna revive Dad’s garden,” Ramona announces. “I think he’d love that.”

“He was looking forward to spring a lot,” Gaby agrees, with a twinge of sadness in her voice.

Miranda almost chokes on her food, but she recovers. No one has thought about what to do with the garden yet, so it’s a relief to hear that someone wants to take charge.

The twins talk about their future. They share their ideas, what they want to do with the house, all the fun stuff that they could do together this time.

Though Ramona’s excitement dies down when Gaby asks her about future career plans. She frowns at her suggestion of proceeding to IT, and tries to tune her twin out when she talks about it.

Lukas’ visit to his childhood home ends with grilling his sister about getting into IT. Ramona quickly eats her ice cream and hopes the questions will go away.

Eva surprises everyone with a visit too, after finally finishing her tour. She’s proud of her nephew for graduating!

His aunt jokes about getting a job in politics, and Lukas feels momentarily betrayed at Eva being conventional for once.

With him distracted, Eva successfully overtakes his car, effectively winning against Miranda’s team and pissing her off.

The sisters make amends by singing one of Miranda’s songs favorite songs while Lukas continues to play to avenge himself.

(Author’s note: I’m gonna continue this. I think I’m still sad about Stanley dying, and honestly I don’t want to see Miranda dying too. I just love that pair so much, but real life gets in the way and I couldn’t make the time for this. Hopefully I’ll get back to it once I officially start generation 2.)