Little Red Riding Hood

Surprise, surprise!

My parents had this strange hobby of surprising everyone ever since they were young. My father surprised his parents by going against their will to inherit their family business and studied to become a photographer. My mother's parents refused her dream to become a model and tried to get her married off to some businessman, but instead of obeying she ran away from home and chased after her dream.

My parents weren't wrong while making their own decisions. My father became an internationally renowned photographer and my mother caught up to her dream and became a top model. They were both successful and famous around the world.

While living the choices they made, they crossed path. It wasn't love at first sight, my parents always told me, it was more like hate at first sight. They both found each other annoying and repulsive. Only five minutes at each others company and they would already be at each others throat. Their agencies worried that their personal feelings would affect their work, but my parents knew the importance of their job and the hardships they endured to reach where were. And so they never allowed their personal disputes to interfere with their work. Their professionalism surprised and earned great amount of respect from their coworkers.

But this was nothing compared to the surprise they received afterwards. My mother retired from being a model and announced that she was pregnant and was going to marry the father of the unborn child who was none other than the photographer she hated so much.

Don't get me wrong, I wasn't born from a drunken one night stand. Before I was born my parents were secretly dating each other for 3 years. When they found out about the pregnancy my parents decided that it was time to start planning to live as a family. And with her pregnancy my mother decided to quit modeling. Sometimes I feel guilt that because of me she had to let go of her dreams. But my mom always tells me that it was her choice to retire from modeling and nobody forced her to it. Also she hasn't let go of her dreams, she is just living her dreams in a different way.

A few months after their marriage I was born, the fruit of their secret relationship, like they use to say. Dad remained a photographer who travels world wide with his wife, a former model who is now his personal assistant. They are the power couple whom everyone knows of around the world.

From all these incidents it's as clear as day that my parents love to surprise everyone. And just because I am their daughter didn't mean I was spared.

It happened a few weeks ago. It was the last day of our final exams, and so after exiting the school my friends and I decided to hangout at our usual place, a really cool café run by an equally cool lady, and then return to our homes. I was feeling light after getting rid of all the pressure exam brought along with it. But boy was I so oblivious to the surprise that waited for me at home.

With slight skip in my steps I ascended the stairs that led to the front door, using my spare key I opened the door and immediately the smell of something delicious hit my nose. Unconsciously I hummed in delight. Hurriedly I removed my sneaker, exchanging them for slippers and made a beeline to kitchen. There I saw my ever so beautiful mother making world's best chocolate chip cookies. I am not exaggerating when I say her cookies are to die for and she only bakes them for special occasions. And for a moment that had me wondering why she is baking them now, but I didn't read too much into it.

"It smells great!" I exclaimed running up to my mother and hugged her from behind. Mum had an average height and I was an inch or two shorter than her.

"Welcome home, honey." Mum cooed in her sweet voice. "How was your exam?"

"It went really well. Actually all of my exams went really well. I might score a pretty good percentage this year!" I replied excitedly and released her from my hug.