Fate

When time stood still

Today started like any other Wednesday would,  I woke up to the sound of Noah playing with his toy cars in his bedroom, I swear, that boy doesn't know how to sleep past 7am. I got up, made his breakfast and got him dressed for school. Of course, like any other mother, I struggled to pull him away from his toys and spent far too long trying to get him to put on his school shoes. Many, many, deep breaths later, I'm waving goodbye to him at the school gates and hop on the bus to work. Work is slow, like always, I read emails, I use the photocopier, answers calls, make another cup of coffee and think to myself how different my life would have been if I didn't fall pregnant at 15.

Not that I regret having Noah, he is my sole purpose in life, but never did I think that at the small age of 22, I'd be a single mother working a boring, dead end office job just to make ends meet for my 6 year old son. I zone out until my shift ends at 1pm and head off to the supermarket. Noah is a fussy eater, I'm hoping it's just a phase, I've read online, on the few parenting blogs that I follow, that this is a normal occurrence in a child's life. Being a young single mother brings me huge doses of anxiety, the thought of being judged for how I raise my son is a constant thought on my mind.  Of course, the stares I receive when I collect him from school or whenever we are out and about together do not help.

A lady bumping into my trolley distracts me from my thoughts and I come crashing back into reality. I totally just zoned out whilst holding a packet of frozen chicken nuggets.
I apologise to the lady, even though it was she who crashed into me, why do we do that? Why do we apologise when someone else bumps into us? I trail round the supermarket grabbing the essentials, I'm never entirely sure why I continue to buy fruit, Noah is currently repulsed by anything that isn't processed and most days I forget that I haven't eaten. So the fruit usually stays in the fridge until it's all soft and disgusting, then it all goes in the bin.

As I approach the check out, a man catches my eye, something about him really feels familiar, his chestnut brown hair, his bright green eyes, the way that he throws his head back as he laughs when he is chatting to the woman behind the cash register...
It hits me like a tonne of bricks when it finally dawns on me why he looks so familiar...the air is so harshly knocked out of my lungs when my mind takes me back to Summer 2012... it's him... it's Noah's father...

I hope anyone who reads this first chapter is interested enough to want to read on. I've thought about writing my own short story for a long, long time and it's always been a dream of mine to do it. By no means is this going to be the works of an amazing writer but one of my resolutions this year is to do more things that I've always wanted to do. So whether this gets 1 read or 100 reads I'll be happy that I finally plucked up the courage to do it.