I Hate California

thirty nine

When I woke up, I was shocked to see that Sage wasn't by my side. She had fallen asleep in our bed last night after being so cuddly towards me. Even though she hasn't been speaking much, she has been touchy which was now new. Her actions tend to change every once in awhile, one minute she'll be talkative, but hate it when you touch her and then the next, the other way around. 

I carefully got out of bed, fixing the covers on my side since Joe was still asleep. I made my way down the hall and peeked into Sage's room, she wasn't there. The house was still quiet, making me nervous since I couldn't find her. 

"Sage?" I called out, walking down the staircase. I saw the T.V. on in the living room and scanned the room until I found my little girl, asleep inside her blanket fort that Joe and her made yesterday. I sighed, turning off the T.V. and softly kissed her cheeks as I covered her with a blanket. It was only 7 AM, so I figured she could get more sleep. 

I went into the kitchen, deciding that I should prepare breakfast. I've been pretty bored lately, the orders to stay in bed were now nothing to me, especially since I have a six year old daughter. I looked over into the living room to check on Sage and she was still soundly asleep. As I started to prepare breakfast, my back started to ache. I ignored it for now, and continued cooking. My back hurt like hell the first few weeks, I thought it was getting better until this morning. 

When I started to plate up Sage's food, I heard rustling in the living room and looked to see Sage peeking out of the fort, confused and her hair all tangled. I chuckled and put everything down for now. 

"Well, good morning baby girl!" I smiled as I engulfed her into my arms, smothering her face in kisses. She giggled and kept trying to push my face away, but failed to do so as she still had little energy. 

My parents were coming over to the house today since they wanted to see Sage and Joe and I were more than happy to let them. I could tell that Joe was getting overworked with taking care of her these past few days and I didn't blame him. Sage was a lot of work, she had attitudes and  tantrums all over the place. 

After getting Sage situated at the kitchen table, eating her breakfast, I went up to wake up Joe since he has been asleep long enough. When I entered our bedroom, he was already awake and smiling at me. I greeted him on his side of the bed and he pulled me in for a kiss and kissed my stomach. I was already showing quite a bit and it was actually pretty exciting to see, every time I passed by a mirror. 

"Where's our first baby?" Joe mumbles into my neck. I laugh because it tickled and pulled him by his arms to get up.

"She's eating breakfast. Come on, we don't wanna keep the Princess waiting" I tell him as we walked out of the room, heading downstairs. 

When we get to the bottom of the steps, I freeze when I don't see Sage sitting in her chair. Joe looks over at me and we walk into the dining room where she was no where to be found. I started to call out her name and went into the bathroom, thinking she was in there, but was no where to be found inside. 

"Sage, honey, where are you? This isn't funny!" I say a little louder, starting to get paranoid. How do you lose a six year old girl in the span of five minutes, not even. Joe starts to look in all the corners downstairs and I don't even think she went upstairs or else I would've seen her. 

I hear Joe open the garage door and yelled out her name, but no response. That's when we heard the door bell ring. I watched as Joe ran to the door, quickly opening it and was greeted by my parents. 

"Hey! We are finally here!" Mom cheers as they step inside the house. I shake my head, and run towards her, peeking behind her. 

"Did you see Sage outside?" I ask frantically and they look at me concerned as they both shook their heads. Joe sighs, running past them and out the door to check outside. I leave my parents at the entrance very confused as I ran back into the living room, scanning the room. The back doors were slightly open. Sage couldn't even open these doors, they were already heavy enough for me.