The Wedding Shop

Chapter 13:

I sat staring at my phone for fifteen minutes, deliberating if I should send the text or not. I had only written a quick message saying:

Hi Matt, thanks for passing your number onto me through your dad xx (you can guess who it is ;)

It had been a week and a half and I thought that I should put him out of his misery so quickly pressed send. Done. I wasn't going to sit and wait for a reply so went upstairs for a couple of hours and finished my essay away from the presence of my distracting phone.

I felt proud of myself for accomplishing my third out of five final pieces and went downstairs to relax and maybe watch some Christmas films with Jas. I started to send her a text and noticed the three missed messages that popped up in a little bubble. I felt that the Christmas jingle bells were ringing madly in my stomach and had to calm myself down. They were all from Matt, the first one saying:

Hey stranger, missing you. Every time I see a star now I feel my heart glow inside. What a special night that was x

I wriggled around in my seat getting all excited and delved into the other two:

"when can I see you? Maybe I can take you out for coffee?"

I already knew my reply but wanted to see the final message first:

"how about I take you into London, there is a huge Christmas festival going on and I think you'd like it.xxx"

Of course I was going to say yes but I wasn't sure if I was ready to spend time with Matt alone; Jasmine and I had always been a bit of a package deal and I wasn't ready for all of that to stop so quickly because of a boy. She still made time with me despite her boyfriend and I wanted to do the same so came up with a suggestion:

"would love to see you too...was thinking of doing a double date sort of thing, me and you and maybe Jas and Sam? Don't know how you feel about that, your call x"

Beep! His reply was almost instant.

"sounds great, tomorrow ok?"
"perfect x"

I hadn't even asked Jasmine yet but she couldn't say no! I needed her and she'd understand. I sorted everything out with her and was so excited to have a fun Christmas day out in London.

I went to bed early and was welcomed by the best surprise in the morning as I felt my eyes fill with happy tears when I looked out the window. It was the day before Christmas Eve and I couldn't believe my eyes as I watched the tiny white sprinkles fall gracefully like little fairies dancing. Could this be the white Christmas we had all been waiting for?

I ran into the twins room and tickled their toes from under the duvet.
"wake up munchkins, I have a surprise for you! Wakey wakey!" they both patted their tiny feet being me down the stairs and I covered their eyes and counted to three.
"ok open!"
"wow! Look outside! Look outside!" they grabbed eachothers hands and ran round in circles. They made me so happy and so did my eldest brother but I knew he had passed the novelty phase of finding snow amazing.
"will it snow tomorrow so Santa can wear his snow boots and then when he gets home Mrs Claus will give him a warm bath?"
One of them asked me tugging at my pyjama bottoms.
"well you have to say a little prayer before you sleep so that the snow will stay a little longer. And that goes for you too Goofy."
I had a little nickname for one of them as he had always had a big gap in his front teeth that reminded me of Goofy from Mickey Mouse. Everytime He smiled at me my heart would melt; they were both so beautiful and well behaved and seeing children their age that would run riot and shout and scream would always make me so proud of my two little angels.

I got dressed and headed out kissing mum and dad.
"home by eight please sweetie, I don't want you out in the cold all night. And come back with Jasmine, I want to know you're safe."
"yes daddy, of course."
"and um, no funny business, ok?"
"ok mum."
"love you." they chanted.
"you more!"

My parents had always been a little over protective and growing up it wasn't always the nicest thing, but looking back I had sadly grown up in a wonderful yet often crazy world and I was glad my parents had built a stable and protective life for me that I was now responsible for on my own.

We all met up outside a Starbucks and sat down for a coffee. We had only seen each other just over a week ago but it felt like old friends catching up like it had been years.

The day was amazing and I couldn't believe how beautiful London looked with the snow and decorations. We had dinner in a really nice American Cafe and chatted the whole evening. We wanted to look around just before the shops closed and found a cute little jewellery store with lots of antique necklaces and bracelets. The most beautiful thing on show was a purple necklace shaped like a butterfly with tiny purple gems around it and two black antennae.
"this is so pretty." I said to the little old man behind the till.
"it is isn't it? Been around since the end of world war two, a very special piece indeed. Belonged to my mother and since she only had three boys she gave it to me when she died. It holds a lot of good luck as my father sent it to her when he was in India fighting in the war and a week later the war was over"
"that's amazing. I don't think I could take that from you."
I had fallen in love with it as I knew I would never see anything like it again. it had such a magical history and to have something like that of my own would make me the luckiest girl in the world. From looking around the rest of the shop I knew without checking the price tag that it would be expensive so wanted to leave before I started wanting it even more.

We walked to the train station and would make it home in perfect timing. Jasmine was staying over at mine as Sam had work the next day so they said their goodbyes until tomorrow night which was Christmas Eve. I stood shivering as the snow came down softly touching my cheeks.
"I had such a lovely time Matt. Thank you."
"you're welcome Soph, I love spending time with you, even these past few times have been the most fun I've had in a long time and I really hate being away from you."
Matt unzipped his jacket and handed me a small black box that soon had little snow prints on the lid.
"what's this?"
"happy Christmas Soph."
Matt put his gloved hand on my cheek and kissed me gently. He soon walked away into the fog and when I could no longer see him carefully opened the box. Inside was the treasure I had found in the jewellery shop and I cradled it close to my chest.

Few boys I had ever met had a heart like Matt's and I was no longer scared to have feelings for him and wanted him to be a part of my life. Matt was my answer, to any question that was never answered. To any problem I had never solved. You may say how could she know? They've only seen each other a few times before and couldn't possibly have got to know one another yet. But it was like choosing a wedding dress, you could look through hundreds of thousands of them, but you'd know when you found the perfect one for you.

by vera©