Right Path, Wrong Turn

Sophie looks absolutely gorgeous, and that is the very first thing that Matt notices.
Not her hands which are clutching her bag nervously or the shy look on her face, but how beautiful she looks.
In a nice knee length skirt, with black stockings running down her long legs in to sensible heels, and a stunning ever-green blouse. Her hair is pinned up in an elaborate bun, and she wears only a light touch of make up, just enough to highlight her natural features.
She looks dazzling, and Matt finds himself a bundle of nerves and fumbles his words.
“Wow, you…..look amazing Sophie.”
She blushes sheepishly, the deep red burning into her cheeks.
Matt looks particularly handsome himself, and Sophie begins to get the distinct feeling that tonight may not be the leisurely and friendly evening she had predicted. He seems to have gone to quite an extensive effort, if the tone of his outfit and flowers in his hands are anything to go by.
She is flattered though, and takes the flowers with a sincere thank you as he presents them to her.
It’s at that moment that a particularly rowdy Annabelle struts into the bedroom, loudly singing a song from her most favourite movie –and current obsession- Cinderella. Sophie has watched it with her what feels like two thousand times now, and has managed to block her loud, and near constant, singing into background noise.
“A dream is a wish your heart makes when you’re fast asleep…..da da da da….whatever you wish for you keep,” she yells proudly, swishing around in her new Princess dress, one Sophie got for her from a second hand shop.
Sophie remembers the moment that she showed it to her, how her little face lit up like it was Christmas. That was near two months ago now, and Sophie still has to fight her to wear her pyjamas to bed, not the dress.
“Miss Annabelle,” Sophie smiles at her niece. She takes a flower off a stem from the bunch Matt gave her and tucks it up in Anna’s pigtail. “How may I help you?”
Anna grins, sinfully. Her aunty is going out and leaving her and her brother with the babysitter, and she its evident that she knows it. “Who is your friend Aunt Sophia?”
Matt blushes and Sophie just laughs. “Anna, this is my friend Matt and Matt this is my niece Anna. Say hello Anna.”
“Hello Anna,” the young girl giggles, copying the oldest joke in the book.
But under her charm, Matt falls for it and laughs. He sweetly bends to Anna’s level, holding his hand out for her to shake. “It’s nice to meet you, Annabelle.”
Proudly, Anna shakes it, acting very professional. “Nice to meet you too, Mister Matt. Are you going to look after my Aunty Sophia tonight?”
Having moved to her dresser to stick the flowers in some water, Sophie glances over her shoulders with a warning look, and twinkle in her eye. “I think it’s you that needs looking after Annabelle Markham. You know you have to be good for Addison tonight right?”
Annabelle nods obligingly.
“That means going to bed when she tells you, helping with Jul and eating all your vegetables.”
Again she nods, like a solider, but this time, a mischievous smile creeps upon her lips.
“And you can only make Addison watch Cinderella once okay? Then she gets to pick what TV shows to watch.”
Caught out, Anna pouts. “But that is my favouritest movie ever!”
“Trust me, I know,” Sophie sighs, “But Addison is in charge for tonight, so she can pick. I will watch Cinderella with you tomorrow.”
“And sing all of the songs with me? You are the only one who knows all the words Aunt Sophia. Jul just claps his hands and makes funny noises.”
Kissing Anna goodbye with a touch of her lips to her head, Sophie smiles and gives in. “Okay, but only if Addison tells me you were a little angel tonight. Deal?”
“Deal.” Turning to Matt, Anna offers her hand to shake again, not quite understanding the concept of a handshake, but Matt takes his hand from his pocket and obliges. “Take good care of my Aunt tonight Mr Matt; I need her to watch the movie with me tomorrow.”
To be humorous, Matt stands straight and salutes her, to which she gives an approving nod and a giggle.
“Cute kid,” he comments as she bounces back down the hall.
Sophie grabs her purse and flicks off the bedroom light, “Yes, when she wants to be.”

At the restaurant, as they order dinner, Matt tries hard to keep his eyes a normal size, as Sophie orders a steak, same as him.
He knows its clichéd, but the almost diminutive range and number of dates he has been on doesn’t give him much experience other than what he’s seen on movies.
Matt’s priorities alone puts dating at the bottom of the list that hockey is first on, and he’s learnt from being in the NHL that as a player you don’t have to try very hard to get a girl. Most just throw themselves at you, with no wining and dinning or winning over having to be done, the name on the front and the back of your jersey seems to speak for itself. Hell, he’s even seen girls wearing their easiness on their t-shirts for him, with the whole ‘I get frisky for Nisky’ apparel. And as flattering as that is, Matt’s morals and his standards are set a bit higher than that.
“What?” Sophie asks almost embarrassed, feeling his eyes on her. “Did you expect me to be a clichéd little girl and order a salad?”
Matt shakes his head. Nothing about Sophie Markham is clichéd. Nothing. Their way of meeting proves that alone. “No, steak is good. That’s what I ordered.”
“I figured since you’re paying……..”
Matt smirks. “What makes you think I’m paying?”
“It’s the rules when a boy takes a girl out Matthew,” she answers, old habits dying hard, “Besides, not all of us get paid millions to do what we love.”
Her statement isn’t pointed at him, but it is a little jaded.
Interested, and seeing an opening, Matt picks up his drink. “If everyone did get paid millions to do what they love, what would you be doing?”
With the personal question, Sophie shies. Her attention turns down to her glass, and she shrugs. “I don’t know.”
“What do you mean you don’t know? What makes you happy?”
She toys with her knife and fork absentmindedly, uncomfortable with his questioning. “Not everyone gets the chance to figure out what it is they’re supposed to do in life,” she says despondently. “Some of us just get things put on their lap.”
“Like your niece and nephew were for you?”
With an intensely protective expression, Sophie gazes at him. “I would never count Annabelle or Julian as a burden or as something or someone that I got lumped with,” she clears, “I love them more than anything else in this world.”
After the sweet exchange between them at the house before they left, Matt knows this. “I know Sophie; I just mean it must get hard to care for two young children like that, especially by yourself.”
“Oh it’s not by myself, not all the time. My father is very hands on with the both of them and Ashley……well she is around when she can be I guess.”
By the tone in her voice, Matt can tell that this sister of hers is a sore point. But he leaves the topic, wanting to depart from the heaviness and keep things more light-hearted for a little while.
However, when dinner is served and time rolls on, just as they start to really relax and Matt can feel Sophie actually enjoying her self, their date is interrupted with one of those phone calls that no one wants to receive.
Ignoring her manners in case it’s an emergency back at home, Sophie takes it at the table. Matt watches awkwardly as her face drains of all colour and her features collapse.
“What? When did this happen? Where is he? Yes, Yes, I will be right there. Matt, I need to go, I’m so sorry but there’s an emergency.”
Matt just nods. “Sure. You know if you were just uncomfortable, you could tell me Sophie. You don’t need to do the ‘fake emergency phone call thing’.”
But much to his dismay, the panic of Sophie’s face intensifies, realer than ever. “It’s not fake Matt. That was my father’s work, he…..he collapsed and they’ve taken him to hospital in an ambulance.”

With her hands shaking wildly, Matt takes Sophie’s hand and drives her to the hospital, and waits with her in the waiting room.
It’s a long while, but when they are finally allowed entry into the room, Matt walks along just behind her, Sophie’s hand still tucked in his, holding on for dear life. They follow a nurse down a long hall way and into the room.
Seeing her father lying there in the crisp white hospital beds with more medical equipment attached to him than a transformer is frightfully confronting, and for the first time since she received the call, Sophie begins to cry.
Her free hand covers her mouth as her body aches in distress, and Matt stands beside her helplessly.
“Oh my god,” she whispers, shaking. “Daddy.”
When the shock is over, her hand drops Matt’s and she rushes to his bedside, pleading. “Dad? Dad, you have to wake up, okay? You have to get better….please. I can’t loose you Daddy. I can’t do this without you.”
With the emotion in her voice, tears even tug at Matt’s eyes, but he tries to keep himself together. “He’s not leaving you Sophie,” he promises, loosely placing an arm around her shoulder. “Everything will be okay.”
“I don’t have any one else,” she panics, “I don’t have anyone else.”
Tears rush down her cheeks, slipping from her pretty green eyes, which are open wide in shock. It’s clear that she truly believes that.
Scared to see this raw emotion from her, and wanting desperately to do something –anything- to help her to feel better, Matt pulls her against his chest.
“It’s okay Sophie,” he soothes, hoping the right words will come to him and he will make things better not worse.
His hand runs up and down her shaking back as her body wracks with her sobbing, trying to comfort her. “It will be okay, I promise. Your Dad is in the best place to get help that he possibly can be.”
“No, no you don’t understand,” she cries, her voice a little muffled by his chest, “I don’t have any one else Matt.”
She pulls her face back and her eyes hook his, the fear that is drowning them on full display. “I don’t have any one else Matt, if I loose him, I have no one.”
“That’s not true Sophie, that can’t be true.” For a guy who has had his parents and his whole family supporting him and encouraging him his whole life, he finds it shocking to believe Sophie only truly has her father to depend on in this world. “What about your Mom?”
Sophie tears away from him, leaving his arms to drop back to his sides. “She left when I was fourteen and when Ashley was first pregnant. I haven’t seen her since.” Her confession is dark and cold, cold hardness and hatred creeping into her voice. “And as for Ashley, let’s just say that the apple doesn’t fall very far from the tree.”
Her words hang in the air, and as she stands at the foot of her father’s bed, still crying softly and just watching him, Matt is speechless.
He can’t imagine how alone she must feel, so he makes a decision not to leave her, or at least not to stray too far from her. She needs some one right now, and even if he doesn’t have all the right things to say, maybe he can help stop her world from crumbling all around her.
“Where’s your cell phone?”
No response.
“Sophie, where is your cell phone?”
Finally, she turns to him, her face perplexed. “What does that matter?”
“If you give it to me, I’ll go out in the hall and call the baby sitter –It’s Addison, right? I’ll see if she will stay the night with Julian and Annabelle, and when your Dad wakes up soon -and it will be soon- I will drive you back home to see them and grab some clothes for him, okay?”
She stands still like she is frozen, and Matt takes a step toward her, his hand held out kindly. Her eyes are glistening with tears as they look up to him, as if she can’t believe he would do that for her. As she stares in admiration, Matt gently slips his hand inside her jacket pocket and retrieves the phone.

While he’s out in the hall way, Sophie numbly takes a seat at her father’s bedside. Tubes and needles and other bitter medical terrors surround his body, but she tentatively stretches her hand out, taking her father’s.
His skin is cold and it worries her, but the steady beating of his heart through the loud machine reminds her that he is still alive.
She looks over his hand, calloused and rough from all the hard work he does. Her eyes move up his body, noticing the soft black bruise on his neck from when Annabelle and he were playing football in the backyard and she fell on him as he tried to tackle her. The faint stain of Julian’s throw up that is just barely visible on his shirt.
Very quickly, bursts of hot anger rush through her body. First for her mother, who put all this strain on him, who left him to bare the weight of the family, of raising two teenage girls and then caring for two grandchildren, all by himself. For taking the cowards way out and running, instead of facing up to anything.
And then for Ashley, Ashley who acts like a teenager, with no sense of responsibility whatsoever, gifting her father the burden of another two children, when he should be resting, should maybe be near retirement.
Her lip curls in disgust, upset with the pathetic excuse for a family she has given a terribly caring man such as her father.
It sits heavily in her chest that with her relationship with Deryk, though she never put it first, it is now time spent wasted when it could have been time spent checking in with her father, making sure he was taking care of himself or maybe even giving him a day off from his responsibilities, the break that he is so richly worthy of.
“I’m sorry Dad,” she whispers, “This is my fault. You’ve always taken care of me, but I got too selfish to do the same for you. You deserve better, I’m so sorry.”
She releases his hand and as her tears fall again, she closes her eyes and squeezes them tight, knowing that if there is ever a time that requires her to step up and be strong, it’s now. But she isn’t sure she can do it, that she has the strength in her.
Luckily, she doesn’t have to find it within her self as Matt comes back into the room, tucking the phone in his pocket.
After catching the last of her words, he makes his way over to her and scoops her up, settling himself in the bedside chair and Sophie in his lap.
“You might think you have no one,” he tells her quietly, “But you have me. I’m not going anywhere Sophie; I’m going to be here to help you. You’re not alone.”
Curled against his chest, she hears his heart beat and feels his strong arms lock around her, reinforcing his words and his promise. She is more appreciative than he will ever understand, but she knows he is a good man. And she can’t let anyone else get dragged into the messy web that seems to be her life.
“You don’t have to Matt,” she stammers, “If you need to go I understand. This isn’t your problem….. I’ll….I’ll be okay.”
His fingers delicately pick up her chin, tipping it up so he can see her face. “Sophie Markham, do you think that for once, you could just not argue with me?”
His words are cheeky, and the smallest hint of a smile tugs at her the corner of her lips.
“I’ll be here for you Sophie, whatever you need, just tell me. Like I said, I’m not going anywhere.”
She nods, no words able to properly give justice to how grateful she is, so she just nods. Matt takes that as her acceptation, and softly wipes her cheeks of the last of her tears.
Her head moves back against his chest, and after a long few minutes, he hears her breathing change as she naps, no doubt exhausted from all the drama. The faint black rings under her eyes shows that its been a while since she has slept or at least slept well, and Matt knows its not due to staying up late partying like other girls her age, its because of the caretaker role she plays for Anna and Julian, being forced into the role of their mother.
He can’t imagine what its like to have little lives depending on you, and being responsible for them twenty-four-seven. Sure a few of the guys on the team have kids, and they are awesome, but Matt enjoys being able to hang out and talk to them, and not having to fix things when they cry or look after them.
Doing some maths in his head, if Sophie’s mother left when she was fourteen, and when Ashley was first pregnant, and Anna’s now six, Sophie must have been taking care of Anna and Julian both since she was about seventeen.
Thinking about it, there isn’t that many people in the world that young who have such big dependability on them, unless they’ve given birth to the children themselves.
From speaking with her at dinner and just her over all personality, Matt knows Sophie is bright and funny and clever and so obviously very pretty. Like every other girl, she must have had dreams, ambitions, and places that she wants to go in life.
All things that she clearly had to sacrifice in order to make up for her sister’s shortcomings.
It saddens him to think of the different circumstances they could have met under. Like maybe at a game, her cheering for the team and then he would see her and ask her out and they would go to dinner and she’d talk about how she is studying to be a child educator, yeah, she would make a great teacher, and then they could fall in love and live happily ever after.
Only Sophie’s life is far from a fairy tale, something that Matt now fully understands. Her moments with Deryk, however stolen and fleeting, must be saving graces from the heaviness she is drowning in.
He thinks back to the notes he’d found in her draw that day that he’d dropped her purse off, and remembers a silver bracelet that sat at the bottom of the pile, as if it were hiding. It didn’t seem too expensive, looking to hold more sentimental value than cash.
It was the only piece of jewellery he’d seen in her whole room, amongst all of the baby toys and clothes. Not only does she have very little time for herself, but that must go for money as well.
Matt realises that from her perspective, Deryk must be seen as something like a Knight in Shinning Armour, only he is more like a Rogue in tinfoil, given his marital status.
A doctor walks in at that moment, peering at the charts on the foot of the bed, and startling Matt from his thoughts. After making some adjustments to the I.V drip, the doctor finally sees him in room.
He wants to ask if there is any news, knowing it’s the first thing Sophie would say if she was awake, but that’s just the thing –he doesn’t want to wake her. So his eyes plead the doctor, who just shakes his head.
“I’m sorry,” he answers quietly, “There is no change yet, and we are still running tests. I have no news for you right now. I do however; have to advise you that this room is only open to family at this time.”
Scanning the man’s face, Matt can tell that he –thankfully- doesn’t recognise him. “Its fine,” he brushes off, nodding at Sophie, “I am family. I’m his daughter’s fiancé.”
Satisfied, the doctor tips his head and leaves back out the door.
In her sleep, Sophie wriggles closer against Matt and he feels a smile cross his lips. He should have at least gone with boyfriend, but he has seen enough medical dramas on TV to know that they typically only acknowledge family as biological or through marriage. And besides, he likes the way that being a part of Sophie sounds on his lips.
As she stirs slightly again, he leans back in the chair and begins smoothing a hand through her hair, keeping it from shielding her pretty face. Though when she is comfortable again, he doesn’t stop, he just continues the same motion, feeling it calm her.
Sleep begins to tug at his own eye lids, and Matt bends his head slightly as touches his lips to her forehead.
‘Maybe its time Sophie forgot about the Knight in Shinning Amour and met a Prince Charming,’ he thinks.
And maybe, she already has.