Broken

Chapter 6: Welcome Home

Chapter 6: Welcome Home

Recap:

    I flipped on the light and almost fell out of my wheelchair as all of my friends and family jumped out from behind the couches, through the doors leading to the dining room to the right, and the office to the left. All of them yelling "Welcome home Chloe!"

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    "Welcome home Loey!" Alex and Gracey chorused as they ran to me from the back door with dad following close behind.

    "We tried to beat you here but somebody wanted to stop for a snack on our way through the kitchen." My dad said looking directly at little miss Aubrey Grace. "Welcome home baby."

    "Loey! Loey! I didn't go into your room at all the whole time you were gone." Alex told me.

    "Don't lie! You went in there when Miss Suzy and Macky was here. I told you no but you did it anyways and Macky came up stairs and made you leave and we couldn't go back up all day, not even to the toy room." Gracey tattled.

    "No I didn't Aub! You're gonna make Loey mad at me. Don't be mad at be Loey." Alex pleaded.

    "It's okay Alex I'm not mad at you."

    "As cute as this is I'm interrupting. Welcome home Chloe! I've missed you so much. I haven't seen you since I snuck into your hospital room that night. Kara almost killed me for missing dance that day and it was even worse since I couldn't tell her where I was. Nobody else has seen you since the accident either have they, well except for Jason. Everybody knows that. I mean, like, he's always there. I've missed you so much Chloe, you don't even know. I have so much to tell you. Can I stay here tonight? We can stay up all night and catch up on everything. Speaking of catching up have you been working on homework? If not you'll never catch up. At least not before the year ends. Oh my god! What are you going to do if you don't catch up? You need to maintain good grades to go to school at Gregory's. Are you going to have to go to a different school? Are you going to have to repeat the year? Summer school? Oh my god Chloe that can't happen we have to call the school and talk to them they'd never let that happen though right. I just don't know, this is so stressful. We have to..."

    "Ashley! Breathe!" I interrupted her rant. "Everything is taken care of just breath."

    "Thank god you stopped her. I thought we were going to have to knock her out to put a stop to that rant."

    "Jason! I didn't even realize you were here." I said.

    "I don't think you've seen half the people that are here yet."

    "Ashy talks a lot." I heard Alex whisper to Gracey.

    "Not Ashy. Ashley, say it Alexandria. Ashley."

    "Ashy."

    "Give it up Ashley it's never going to happen, do you know how many times I tried to get them to say Chloe instead of Loey. It just doesn't work."

    "Alex, Aubrey. Mackenzie's over there why don't you go play with her she looks a little lonely." Jace said pointing to one of the couches in the corner. "Now you need to mingle for a while before you get too tired to put up a fight about going to your room instead of one of the guest bedrooms. I'm staying here tonight, I've already okayed it with your dad and my mom, so I'll be here to help you fight the stairs tonight and tomorrow morning. I'll probably stay tomorrow aswell so I can force you into the car if necessary because I refuse to let you miss anymore school. Got it?"

    "Sir yes sir." I saluted. "Now let's mingle." I did a little dance in my chair as he walked around so he could push me.

    Jace rolled me around the house so I could say hi to people. People had spread throughout the ground floor of the house, avoiding the master bedroom and the guest rooms. Most of them were gathered in the kitchen and family room though, seeing as the kitchen had all the food and the family room was the largest room with the most open space. The first person I actually stopped to talk to was Kara who I intercepted on her way to talk to the girls from my dance teams.

    "Kara!"

    "Chloe! I wondered when my chance to talk to the girl of the hour would be."

    "I've been trying to keep conversations short but some people just aren't going for that. I'm planning to max out at 3 hours here before I make my dad kick people out while I battle the stairs."

    "Why don't you just stay down stairs, I'm sure you have an extra bedroom down here, This house is huge."

    "We have two guest rooms down here but they don't get used enough to feel lived in and I much prefer my own bed."

    "That I can understand, I hate not being able to sleep in my own bed for extended periods of time and you've been away from it for over a month." Kara reasoned. "Now when can I expect you back at dance. If I have to start you at beginner level I will but we all miss you."

    "I don't know when I'll be back to be honest. The doctor said I'm looking at around 6 more months in this thing if my healing process doesn't speed up at all, and even then I won't be able to jump back in because my leg will be too weak from not being used. I'll have to build up all my muscle again and get all my flexibility back as well. It's going to take a lot of time that I don't have."

    "Just don't rush it Chloe. If you do you could ruin it all, there will be no dancing in your future. You could hurt yourself so bad that you wouldn't even be able to walk. Now I'm going to let the girls come over here if that's okay with you. They've been staring at us since we started talking."

    "I know that I could hurt myself worse but this is what I planned for my life. I need to dance again. I can't be broken, I refuse to let myself break again."

    "Just be careful Chloe. Come over here girls, she's all yours."

    As soon as the words left her mouth all of the girls came rushing at me squealing and all of them immediately started talking.

    "Chloe we missed you."

    "When can you dance again?"

    "When are you coming back to school?"

    "We should have a party at your place next weekend to catch up."

    "Why couldn't we visit you in the hospital?"

    "I missed you."

    "We should hang out soon."

    "When can you get out of this cast?"

    "Hey! Shut up and let her talk!" Jace suddenly yelled, I had forgotten he was with me still. "I'm going to go see if the twin terrors have managed to force Mackenzie into insanity yet. I trust that you will not injure Chlo anymore than she already is."

    "I'll be fine Jace." I assured him.

    "We've never hurt Chloe," Jordan protested.

    "Don't lie to me, I remember one time when she almost broke her ankle because you guys dropped her." Jace said before he turned and walked away.

    "That was Kara's fault! She was the one that wanted us to try that lift." Paige yelled after him.

    "Calm down guys he's kidding. He knows what happened. Now to answer the questions that I actually understood from your blabbering. I'm coming back to school on Monday according to Jace he claims he's going to drag me there if necessary. I don't know when I can dance again. I'm in the cast for another 6 months. You couldn't visit me because the doctors didn't want me to be overwhelmed and I was suppose to be focused on healing."

    We talked for around half an hour until Jace came over and pulled me away "continue mingling" as he put it so that I could go to bed. In the next hour and a half I managed to say hi to all the people that I had not yet talked to and then we set off on the journey to find my dad.