10 years later
February 15th 2031
The young woman slowly opened her eyes, the mixing sounds of her dog barking and howling as well as knocking on the door entering her ears. She turned her head back slightly, frowning and rolling her eyes when she saw the figures 06:53 on the digital clock on top of the dresser. She left a kiss on the forehead of her wife before slinging her legs over the edge of the bed and walking out of the bedroom door, walking down the stairs to the front door, lightly holding onto Carina's collar as she opened the door, to see the familiar man in his late 50s donning a bright smile, her parents in law and former classmate behind him.
"Good morning, Bianchi-O'Carroll!", Ryan said enthusiastically, the other three people behind him smiling through their
"Ryan-O, it's not even 7 in the morning, what're you doing here?", Zoë groaned, rubbing her eyes as she let go of Rina who had gone over to greet Pat.
"You know what day it is?", Ryan asked excitedly, holding up a brown envelope.
"The day after Valentines Day, where my wife and I take a day off to recover from our massive hangovers?", she replied tiredly, earning a laugh from Pat.
"Well, that, but also, this." The man, surprisingly eager for this hour of the morning, handed her the envelope.
Zoë took it and frowned slightly as she began to open it. "What's this? Most recent tabloid or something? 'All the juicy gossip and secret pictures from Zoë and Katie's passionate Valentine's date night, yada yada ya-' Holy shit."
She saw 5 poly pockets in the envelope, pulling up the first to reveal Katie's name and the date 15th of February 2021 underneath a photo of her, smiling as she remembered taking the picture of her on one of their first dates.
"Has it really been 10 years?", she speaks.
"'Local businessman pledges college tuition to third graders'!", Pat quoted, making the group laugh.
"You guys can go into the kitchen, there, we're just gonna get ready and I'll just get us some Panadol."
"Don't worry, Zo, I'm on it.", Bernie said, heading to the kitchen before Zoë could say another word.
"So, where's my little man?", Zoë asked as the small group walked back into the house.
"He's on a sleepover with a bunch of the lads on the football team. Some sort of celebration for getting through to the Under 11 All Ireland representing Cork.", Pat responded, shrugging but beaming with pride.
"Holy shit, really? That's huge, when are the games happening?"
"Well, they're training for the rest of the month and then the games will start during March. It's pretty exciting. Ois is a mid fielder, he's great."
"That's great for him. Is he doing well in school?"
"Excellent. Never a bad word sent home or said about him and he gives us perfect spelling and tables tests every Friday." Pat then dropped his smile slightly, and slightly leaned towards Zoë, lowering his voice to a whisper. "He made a decision regarding the Communion, but we'll tell K later on."
"Oh, okay. I won't say anything beforehand, don't worry."
"I trust you. And hey, hope you're taking care of yourself. It's not your fault. Don't be beating yourself up"
Zoë didn't have time to react to Pat's statement, because Bernie came out of the kitchen then, handing Zoë 2 glasses of water with medication dissolved in it. She muttered a thanks, and once again reminded her unexpected house guests that they could help themselves while she got ready.
YOU ARE READING
The Isolation Room (GXG)
Teen Fiction{ENTERED INTO THE 2022 PRIDE AWARDS} When 2 girls who have never spoken to each other develop symptoms for COVID-19 while in school, they're put into the isolation room as they await someone to pick them up to take them for testing. Despite the dist...
