My summer holiday is well planned out. Spending one month at a fancy guest house with my five cousins to prepare for Aunt Medrine's wedding.
The unexpected happens when Aunt Medrine tells us that we are spending the month with her fiancé's two nephe...
"I've always wanted to ask. Where did you get this?" I stretch my hand to Col's neck and touch his pendant.
"It was a gift. Col kisses my forehead." From my mom."
"Wow. You must treasure it"
"I do. It was the only thing that used to connect my mom to her family because she grew up in an orphanage." He tells.
"The nuns at the orphanage told her that they woke up one morning and found a baby on their door step. The baby had this pendant around her neck. The only time my mom took it off was the day she gave it to me. On my eight birthday." Col adds tears already pooling his eyes. I hurt for him. For all that he has been through. For losing his mom at such a young age and watching her die. I could do anything to make him feel better.
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The next morning, my hospital room is full. They all decided to have breakfast with me. As all eight of us are eating and laughing, I realize that Aunt Medrine and Ross haven't come by.
"Does Aunt Medrine know that I'm here?" I ask outloud.
"Yes. I told her and Ross. Their flight is scheduled to land this afternoon." Trent quickly responds.
"What about my parents? Did you tell them?" I ask, cautiously. Trent shakes his head.
"I figured you would want to talk to them yourself." Trent adds.
"Thanks. Can I borrow your phone?" I ask Trent, having no idea where mine is. Trent hands me his phone and I dail my dad's number as I cook up the lie I am going to tell him because I don't want my dad having a heart attack over this.
He picks up at the second ring and everyone in my hospital room goes silent.
"Hi dad." I greet." It's Ellie."
"Hi baby. How are you? I've been calling your phone but you haven't been picking."
"Sorry. I...I misplaced my phone." I blurt out." Funny story dad, the other night I fell in the pool."
I watch is Nova buries her face in my pillow so that she doesn't burst out laughing. Yeah worst lie ever.
"You what?" My dad raises his voice over the phone. I can hear him start to panic.
"I'm fine dad. I actually just swum to the edge."
"Ellie...you don't know how to swim." My dad emphasizes. I go silent, looking for how to turn the story around.
"That's not the point dad. The point is I got out just fine. Breathing, walking but you know how Trent can panic like a pregnant woman. He forced me to go to hospital for a checkup."
Trent looks at me is disbelief. At this point, they all look like they are trying not to laugh but failing terribly.
"Well, let me talk to Trent. You're story sound vague." I sigh and hand the phone over to Trent.
The second Trent walks out to talk to my dad, we all burst out laughing.
"You are a terrible liar, Ellie. TERRIBLE." Blake comments.
"I hope the story you told Ross and Aunt Medrine matches the one I just told my dad because if it doesn't, I'm dead."
"Consider yourself dead then because the stories don't match!" Marissa shakes her head and we burst out laughing again.
A few minutes later, Trent walks in and hands me the phone.
"He wants to talk to you." Trent says but the look on his face makes my heart beat faster. Please let it not be what I think it is.
"Ellie." My dad sighs. " We still going to Africa."
There it is. Exactly what I was afraid of.
"Ellie?"
"I'm still here dad." I swallow." When are we leaving?"
"The morning after the wedding." My dad tells me. "I'm sorry baby. We didn't want it to be this early but there is a kid in Africa who needs surgery. His parents can't afford and if he isn't operated on by Monday, he's going to die. Your mom is his only chance."
"I understand dad." We say goodbye and I hang up. I look around and the looks on their faces tells me that they already know what I'm going to say.
"I'm leaving for Africa. On Saturday morning."
"Then we'll make the next five days count." Blake speaks up not willing to be negative about the situation.
"We'll make them count." The twins said simultaneously.
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That is exactly what we did. We made them count. On Monday we all went to play basketball with King and his team. Us against them and even though we had Col and Trent on our team, we still sucked but we had fun.
Col and I finally found the perfect song for the bride and groom's first dance and contrary to Col's protests, the song came to us.
Ross was teasing Aunt Medrine when he commented that when God made Aunt Medrine, he must have been thinking about Ross. And boom! The was our song.
When God made you by Natalie Grant.
On Tuesday Aunt Medrine had us do the final fitting for our wedding attires then she took us out shopping. Ross introduced Col and I to the music team that was going to play the instruments for us on the wedding. Then we had pizza night and karaoke again.
On Wednesday, we played our form of spin the bottle again, had a messy cooking contest and watched movies all night.
Regardless of how much fun we had or how badly I wanted time to slow down, it didn't. Time just kept running by. Saturday got closer every second.
The hard part was everytime I tried to talk to Col about the fact that I was leaving, he just brushed it off.
Thursday night, the night before the wedding, the house was filled with people. Final arrangements were being done. Col and I were in the basement after our last rehearsal with the music team. A few minutes after the team had just left, we were sitting on the floor and Col was holding me in his arms. I tried to bring it up again.
"We been ignoring the elephant in the room." I looked up into his eyes.
"There is an elephant in the room?" His eyes widened in mock horror. I laughed, I couldn't help it.
"Col I'm serious." I was still laughing. "We haven't talked about it."
He sighed but kept his face straight." About you leaving?" I nodded.
"Look, we will make it work, okay? It won't help worrying about it now."
I sighed in defeat. It was the same response he had been giving me all week. He couldn't let me see past the surface of his emotions.
