Self-Insert Stories

Teddies and Tears

Words: 2771

In the Meriwether household, three little girls were looking for something to do. The oldest, Dolly, had exhausted all of the game ideas for the time and was laying on the floor, watching the fan spin. The middle child, Faith, was situated on a chair, wiggling a loose tooth with her tongue. The youngest, Pearl, had been laying upside down against the sofa, staring at the wall. All three had already played Pizza Delivery, Movie Theater, Fishing, Candy Shop, and Zoo as soon as Faith and her family had arrived.

"What can we play now, Dolly? I'm bored. Like". She stops to inhale. "Really really really really really really really really really really bored," Pearl asked, sitting upright. Her black hair fell on her face and the beads of toy pearls fell off of her shoulder, still too big for her to wear around her neck.

"Hmm. I don't know," Dolly replied, sitting up as well. "Maybe we can ask our dads if they can play a horsey game?" Pearl moved to where Dolly was and crossed her legs. In the kitchen, the grown-ups could be heard talking, but none of their topics really caught her attention.

"No, we can't do that. Dad just had surgery on his leg". Faith stopped wiggling her tooth and sat on the floor with her cousins.

"Oh. What did Uncle Duncan do?"

"He fell off the roof changing our Christmas lights".

"Oh".

"He said the word Uncle Darrow used when the oven burned our sleepover pizza," she recalls, causing the other girls to shiver.

Pearl suggests, "What about a story? The grown-ups always have stories to tell when they were kids". Dolly becomes interested and agrees that a story would be a good idea to pass some time. She also suggests making it into a race to the living room and all three girls start at the "starting line". Faith is the quickest to run out and enter the living room with great speed. She then latches onto Duncan's leg, colliding into the cast with a brute force. Dolly and Pearl enter next, heading straight to their dads.

"I asked her and she- OW!! Faith! We talked about this. We can't play dinosaurs now, daddy just had surgery on his leg," Duncan explained, pushing his oldest daughter away from his bandaged limb. The grown-ups were sitting in various chairs and on the sofa, including all four of the Meriwether siblings, the spouses, and their Grandpa West and Grandma Jess. Kit had claimed the big armchair first. Gabrielle, Duncan, and Jessica were squished together on one of the sofas. Lips, Darrow and Celeste were on the other sofa, Celeste wrapped up in a blanket and sleeping against her oldest brother. Weston was sitting in an extra chair near Darrow, moving it out of the way when the girls ran in.

"Faith, hun, come here," Gabrielle, her mother, beckons.

"Sorry, dad". Faith lets go of her dads leg and climbs into her mom's lap. Pearl climbs into Lips' lap and nestles into his arms, sighing contently. Lips smiles at the action and holds her close.

"Can you tell us a story, dad? We've played all our games and we're really bored," Dolly asks, sitting next to Darrow. She smiles as Darrow pulls her to his side, still having a view of Lips on his other side.

"A story? Alright, lemme think..."

"What about when you threw us in the pool to teach us to swim? And how you would do that Tarzan-yell each time you did it, claiming that it was for the 'best of our wellbeing' from our big brother?" Kit smirks, leaning forward in her chair as she stares down her older sibling. Duncan huffs and rolls his eyes, remembering when he was thrown into the pool at 7-years-old and when Celeste was thrown in around the same age.

"Why? You learned how to swim, right? What, does lil' Dun-Dun still need his baby floaties? Kit-Kat needs help to float from her big bubba?" Lips teases, chuckling at the two middle children's unamused faces.