Unfolding

Chapter 17

Hikes and Brunch

"Never underestimate the power within you, because you may be the only person in the entire universe to solve a specific problem." - Gift Gugu Mona

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"I got all this love, nothing to do with it now
When you gonna come and get it? I can't throw it out
I got all this love gathering dust in my house"

"I got all this love, all this love." I hummed to myself as I whisked two eggs in a bowl. Adding flour, sugar, milk, baking powder, a pink of salt, and some oil, I mixed all of the ingredients together.

It was Saturday morning, well 11:30 am but hey, still morning nonetheless. I woke up feeling better than I had in a while. It was the first Saturday in months when Aiden did not wake me up at 7 am to go workout with him. I mean, honestly, who willingly gets up that early when they don't have to!

I continued to hum along to whatever song came next on my Spotify as I flipped the pancakes in the pan. Mom was at work, as per usual, so I had the apartment all to myself.

As I plated the pancakes, I ran through a quick mental checklist of all the homework I had to do this weekend. On the back of my mind were also college applications. Despite the fact that the deadline for regular decision applications was January 1st, I wanted to finish before winter break.

I had major plans with my bed and Netflix during the duration of winter break.

Just then, my phone chimed. Curious to see who it was, I saw it was a text from Ella. Following the whole quick-pay incident, I had decided to save her number to my list of contacts. I had a feeling I would be hearing from her more often, and I wasn't wrong.

Ella: Hi Natalie! Are you busy today?

Natalie: Hey Ella. Not really, what's up?

Figuring she probably wanted me to babysit again, I took a seat at the counter and began dumping syrup over my stack of pancakes. Yum.

Chime!

Ella: Great! I'll pick you up in 30 minutes. Wear something comfortable 

Natalie: Okay. Sounds good.

Once I had finished eating, I dumped the dishes in the sink and quickly got changed into a pair of black yoga pants, an oversized tan knitted sweater, and some black Nike trainers. Mother Nature had decided to play a game of guess what the temperature will be today, the entire month of November. Although the weather had begun to chill, today was a surprisingly warm day in the mid sixties.

I decided not to give Ella's out of the blue text too much thought as I kept scrolling through Instagram until she texted me that she was here.

As I opened the passenger side to her black Range Rover, I noticed she was alone.

"Hi!" She chippered as soon as I opened the door. "I'm so glad you were free today! When I asked Aiden if you were doing anything today, he said you would probably be sleeping all day."

"Aiden just doesn't know when to keep his mouth shut." I smiled through gritted teeth. "I'll take any reason not to do the mountain of homework I have sitting at my desk right now."

"I thought we'd take advantage of the beautiful weather today and go for a hike. My OB recommended that if I want to have an easy delivery, I should be as active as possible. Like he knows anything about what it's like to have a human come out of your vagina." She huffed.