White Orchids (Watty Awards 2013)

Revelation

Hey everyone! Thanks for reading! A quick shoutout to Jessikaax, to whom this chapter is dedicated to! Thank you for reading my story and voting for it :) To the rest of you, this girl has a story called I Need Your Love, and I just discovered it. Apparently, not many other people have either! So please, do me a favor and go read her story! It isn't very far in yet, so you don't have to do a lot of catching up. I love it, and I'm sure you will too!!!

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Five Days Later

Nicki followed the smell of coffee into the kitchen, where Lisa stood over the toaster, frantically shoving a fork into it.

“What are you doing to that poor toaster?”

Lisa obviously hadn’t heard Nicki come into the room and jumped at the sound of her voice.

“God damned thing broke. I don’t have time to make Bella anything else, she has school in fifteen minutes.”

She noted the absence of the little ball of energy. Before she could ask where she was, Lisa shouted, “Bella! Get your butt down here!”

Quick, light footsteps pounded down the stairs and into the room. She ran straight into Nicki and wrapped her arms around one of her thighs.

“I don’t want Auntie to leave today! Why can’t you stay?” she asked, looking up at her with the saddest eyes she’d ever seen.

Nicki lifted her up so that they were face to face, coaxing a small smile out of Bella, which vanished as quickly as it appeared.

“I have to get home to your uncle, Bells. I miss him.”

Bella pouted. “So do I but I’m not leabing!”

Her innocence made Nicki smile. She truly wished she could stay, but she was beginning to have withdrawals. Tyler was coming home that day from his last road trip of the season. It was killing her to be hours away from him.

She placed Bella on a seat at their granite island and kissed the top of her head.

“I’m sorry, hon.”

“Mommy?”

Lisa answered without taking her attention off of the toaster. “Yeah?”

“Can I stay home from school today? I don’t feel good.”

She threw the fork down on the counter, accepting defeat. “I was wondering how long it would take you to ask me that. You can stay home, sweetie. Looks like mommy has to buy a new toaster, anyways.” She turned to Nicki. “How long are you staying? Can you watch her and Danny while I go?”

“I haven’t even bought my ticket yet. I can stay as long as you need me to,” she offered, hoping it wouldn’t be too long.

“Thanks, Nick. You wouldn’t want to make your world famous pancakes, would you? I could use the carbs. This day’s already got me stressed, and it’s not even nine.”

She laughed and put a hand on Lisa’s back. “I’ll get right on it. On one condition.”

“And what’s that?”

“Tell me what you really said to Tyler on my birthday.”

Lisa cast her a glance as she sat down next to Bella. “I did. Wedding stuff.”

“Enough, Lis. I know when he’s lying to me.”

She rolled her eyes and sighed. “I just had a little chat with him. A heart to heart.”