Hop, Skip, Wed

7. Chapter 7

"We are like parallel lines: always close, never together."

-Anonymous

***

"What happened, Sophie?" My mom asked concerned, when Archer and I walked in hand in hand into the living room. I quickly let go of his hand and walked over to the sofa to sit down.

"Mom....." I groaned

"Are you okay?." My dad asked both Archer and I. I looked around for Archer’s parents but it seems like they’ve already left.

"How did this happen?" My mom asked me.

I knew if we told them the truth they would call off the engagement, so I lied, “Well, I wanted to try and drive stick shift since Archer had a manual car. But another car came out of nowhere and hit us and we ended up crashing into a tree.”

"Sophie." My dad sighed, “What did the doctor say?”

“How did you know we went to the hospital?” Completely shocked that my dad knew we went to the hospital even though we hadn’t mentioned it. Maybe he could read minds.

“The bandages.” He said, pointing at our bandages. Ah, that make’s more sense. Maybe I spend too much time with kids.

“The doctor said it’s best if she didn’t walk too much, so that her leg could heal. She gave this ointment for her leg and this painkiller for her head. They did some tests to make sure there was no internal bleeding, which is why it took so long for us to get back.”

“Well, was there any bleeding?” My mom asked worried.

“No, fortunately there wasn’t.”

We stayed there and talked for a while before I began getting sleepy. “I’m going to go sleep.” I said, as I excused myself and walked/limped to my room.

It's been nearly 5 hours, and I have no clue of how Mia is. I feel like a terrible mom. I have no idea how but somehow I managed to open the door without walking Mia up. When I looked on the bed I saw Mia peacefully sleeping next to my brother's son, Alex. Surrounded by my teddy bears. I didn’t know Alex was here.

How adorable.

I pulled out my phone and took a few pictures.

I took a quick shower, careful not to wet my wounds and changed into my pyjamas. I walked out of the bathroom and saw Archer standing by my door.

"Where did they get so many teddy bears?" He asked.

"No one knows, they appear out of nowhere and they disappear once there job is done."

We were both quiet for a while as we watched the kids.

"Why did you lie to your parents?" I could see he was trying to understand.

"Because they would have called off the engagement."

“Because of an accident?”

‘No, because you were driving the car.”

“That doesn't make any sense.”

“A lot of things in life don’t make sense, but that’s just the way things are.”

Archer stared at me for a while before saying goodnight and leaving.

Walking, I'm not sure what I was doing could actually count as walking but we'll call it that. I made my towards the bed and was asleep as soon as my head hit the pillow.

I was so tired when I woke up this morning. Because Mia woke up 4 times last night and I was scared that she might wake Alex up so every time she woke up I would take her outside my room to calm her down. I was awake at 7 in the morning just because both

Alex and Mia woke up early.

My leg was much better and I could walk better now.

I was making breakfast for Alex. when he asked, "Auntie Soph, what happened to your leg?"

"I fell. Do you want chocolate syrup or maple syrup on your pancakes?"

He thought about it for a moment before saying, “Chocolate.”

We ate our breakfast and watched a few movies, because according to the doctor's orders I was still supposed to be resting. Around

two, we ordered pizza for lunch.

“Auntie Soph, can we eat some ice cream for desert.”

“Yes! That is a great idea. Let me go get some from the freezer.”

Turns out we were out of ice cream, we tried to order some, hoping the ice cream parlours would deliver them to our house but no luck. In the end we decided to wait for my brother to come back home so he could drive us to the ice cream parlour. My dad and brother had gone golfing and my mom and sister in law were running some errands.

“You should call them and ask them when they’ll be back.” Alex suggested at nine o’clock,

Before I could call them though, we heard the doorbell ring. Alex and I both quickly walked to the main door and opened it only to find that it was Archer holding a bouquet of flowers..

“You look disappointed.” He said to Alex.

“We thought it was mommy and daddy.” He said as he stomped back to the living room.

I let Archer in and locked the door.

“How are you?” He asked.

“Much better, thankfully. You?”

“Me too. Is he okay?” Looking towards a pouting Alex.

“Yeah, his parents are running a little late. They were supposed to take us to get ice cream and the ice cream parlour closes at 10. I would drive but I can’t because,” I pointed at my leg, “so he’s a little upset.”

“That’s not a problem. I could drive you guys. If that’s okay with you.”

At this, Alex turned his head towards Archer, and jumped off the couch and into his arms.

I grabbed Mia and Archer got the car seat from my car and we got into his car and drove to the ice cream parlour. I ordered cookies and cream like always, Alex ordered chocolate chip and Archer ordered Tutti Frutti.

“Thank you.’ I said, once we were back home.

“For what?” Archer asked.

“For taking us to get ice cream.”

“It was nothing.”

“Still thank you.”

He stared at me for a while before saying, “You're welcome.”