Here, Darling.
Gone Until The Dawn's Gone With Me
It must have been about three am when Alaska’s phone began to chirp from some dark corner of her bedroom, groggy the girl sat up her thoughts immediately turning towards the worst, presuming something dreadful , must of happened to one of her loved ones.
However this did not seem to be the case, instead on the other end of the cellular device was a very inebriated Jack Barakat slurring down the phone about how much he loved Alaska since Lucy had just texted him agreeing on a one off date, no strings attached.
As happy as she was to hear this news it was definitely not something she thought was worthy to be woken up at three am to be old by a drunk person. Instead fifteen minutes later after congratulating the young man numerous times she finally got him off of the phone after getting him to swear that he was going to phone Matt to pick him up from whoever’s party he was currently at.
Finally she returned back to her bed and placed her head on her pillow but it seemed like all the tiredness had drained out of her leaving her with no return to dream land. Carefully she exited her bedroom, trying to keep as quiet as possible in order not to wake anybody else up as she picked her laptop up from the living room and collapsed at the kitchen table.
The wedding was less than two weeks away, giving Alaska only a couple of day until Ava and herself boarded the plane to return back home. She still hadn't confessed to Zack her plans, never finding the right time to breach the subject worried that he would want an invited to tag along.
As much as Alaska liked him, she didn't want Zack to be there. After all it had been nearly five to six years since she had seen her family and she thought it would be a big enough shock to introduce them all to Ava let alone her daughter and a new boyfriend. No, all she wanted to do was catch up with her brother who she had dearly missed with no distractions, because Zack Merrick was definitely a distraction.
Ava still didn't know they were going away for a little while and she wasn’t going to find out until they were on that plane, things just seemed so off at the moment, she had thought everything was fine between her and Zack, great even, but he hadn’t been returning her calls or texts since the day he took Ava to school and honestly Alaska didn't know what she had done wrong.
After a while she stopped trying to contact him with the fear that she was going to come across clingy, something that Alaska absolutely despised. She hated the girls in books and on TV whose lives completely revolved around their boyfriend/husband who were always dictating everything they did in their life around what made him happy, girls practically not taking a single breath unless he allowed it. Alaska had always sworn that she was never going to turn into ones of those girls and she was definitely not going to start now.
There was a new email from Max flashing on her screen telling her all about the plans he had ready for her arrival in the next few days, every time she thought of it she couldn't wipe the smile off her face, it had been to long since she had seen her brother and she was dying for a catch up. He wouldn’t let Alaska do anything to help prepare for the wedding except for allowing her to make the cake and Alaska was already deep in her planning to make sure this cake was going to be a master piece.
After responding back to the email and sorting out everything that was needed in preparation to the big opening of Darling Bakery the clock had chimed seven the ringing of the bells being accompanied by the pitter patter of Ava' s footsteps running down the hall looking for her mother.
“Mama why aren’t you in bed?” Ava questioned sleepily, crawling onto the stool, allowing the cascade of unruly dark hair to cover her face in their messy bed head curls. Alaska just turned to her daughter with a small smile, lifting a hand to brush the abyss of hair from her daughters eyes.
“Uncle Jack phoned and woke me up and I couldn’t sleep afterwards” Alaska sighed, giving her daughter a half shrug as she climbed out her seat, deciding it was about time to star breakfast, she hadn’t even managed to get the juice out of the kitchen before the front door was thrown open.
Alaska had never reacted so quick, in mere seconds a rolling pin was gripped firmly in her left hand, flour still dusted over it as she stood in a baseball stance, ready to swing the bat as soon as they entered the room.
The door had banged open so loud that Alaska was certain that it should of aroused Chris from his sleep and he would go and investigate what was going on, because even though Alaska put a strong independent front up, when it came to situations like this she was the biggest chicken.
As the kitchen door began to open, Alaska allowed the pin to swing forward, passed caring to whether it was the intruder or Chris at the other end, she just wanted to protect her daughter.
It was as if the rest had happened in slow motion, the door continued to open as a very happy Jack walked in, the grin nearly splitting his face open, but Alaska couldn’t stop her arm now as the rolling pin made a loud thud against his stomach causing the boy to instantly double over, clutching his stomach as he wheezed out in agony.
“Alaska, what the hell?!” he spluttered, one hand wrapped around his aching gut, while the other carefully lifted up his t-shirt inspecting the injured skin to see a dark bruise spreading across his skin.
“You don’t just burst into someone’s house uninvited Jack” Alaska scolded, dropping the rolling pin into the sink as she turned her back to the boy busying herself with preparing everyone’s breakfast, Ava’s attention already averted to her newest book when she realised it was only Jack.
“But still...” Jack trailed off, realising that he wasn’t going to win this round as he collapsed onto a chair next to Ava, turning to engage in conversation with the little girl about her book, laughing along as she told him all about the main character, Aurora.
Alaska merely placed a cup of steaming coffee in front of the boy before handing Ava a bowl of cereal as she sat in the last remaining seat, taking a long deep sip of her sweet tea, allowing the liquid to soothe the back of her throat before she even tried to tackle the situation of why Jack was sat in her kitchen, and to why he was even up before noon.
“Why are you here Jack?” Alaska asked, deciding to get straight to the point but all she got in return was a small frown contorting Jack’s face and making him look like a small wounded puppy.
“Do you want me to go?” he asked, pointing over his shoulder with his thumb, beginning to stand from his seat but didn’t get half way out of it before Ava and Alaska protested telling him to sit back down.
“Of course we don’t want you to go” Alaska chuckled, taking another sip of tea, only leaving her half a mug left which she swished around her mug absentmindedly as her eyes trained on her daughter before averting to Jack. “I just wondered what was so important that you practically broke in here” Alaska chuckled, leaning over to snatch a lucky charm from Ava’s bowl, placing it into her mouth before her daughter could protest.
“Well Lucy agreed to go out with me, but you already knew that, I just need your help with everything because I don’t want to screw it up and for her to bitch about me to all her friends about how pathetic I am” Jack finished, running all his words together before stopping to catch her breath turning to give Alaska his best pout before in his sickliest sweet voice adding “So will you pretty please help me?”
Alaska rolled her eyes, a soft chuckle falling from her lips accompanied by a small shrug of her shoulders as she stood from her chair, heading over to refill the kettle. “God that was awful, you’re mouth was practically spilling out the whole of Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory you were that nicey-nice, you been practicing in the mirror?” Alaska faked gag, pouring herself another cup of tea before returning to the table, looking at the boy over the rim of her mug.
“So what can I do to help?” Alaska smiled, watching as Jack let out a sigh of relief.
However this did not seem to be the case, instead on the other end of the cellular device was a very inebriated Jack Barakat slurring down the phone about how much he loved Alaska since Lucy had just texted him agreeing on a one off date, no strings attached.
As happy as she was to hear this news it was definitely not something she thought was worthy to be woken up at three am to be old by a drunk person. Instead fifteen minutes later after congratulating the young man numerous times she finally got him off of the phone after getting him to swear that he was going to phone Matt to pick him up from whoever’s party he was currently at.
Finally she returned back to her bed and placed her head on her pillow but it seemed like all the tiredness had drained out of her leaving her with no return to dream land. Carefully she exited her bedroom, trying to keep as quiet as possible in order not to wake anybody else up as she picked her laptop up from the living room and collapsed at the kitchen table.
The wedding was less than two weeks away, giving Alaska only a couple of day until Ava and herself boarded the plane to return back home. She still hadn't confessed to Zack her plans, never finding the right time to breach the subject worried that he would want an invited to tag along.
As much as Alaska liked him, she didn't want Zack to be there. After all it had been nearly five to six years since she had seen her family and she thought it would be a big enough shock to introduce them all to Ava let alone her daughter and a new boyfriend. No, all she wanted to do was catch up with her brother who she had dearly missed with no distractions, because Zack Merrick was definitely a distraction.
Ava still didn't know they were going away for a little while and she wasn’t going to find out until they were on that plane, things just seemed so off at the moment, she had thought everything was fine between her and Zack, great even, but he hadn’t been returning her calls or texts since the day he took Ava to school and honestly Alaska didn't know what she had done wrong.
After a while she stopped trying to contact him with the fear that she was going to come across clingy, something that Alaska absolutely despised. She hated the girls in books and on TV whose lives completely revolved around their boyfriend/husband who were always dictating everything they did in their life around what made him happy, girls practically not taking a single breath unless he allowed it. Alaska had always sworn that she was never going to turn into ones of those girls and she was definitely not going to start now.
There was a new email from Max flashing on her screen telling her all about the plans he had ready for her arrival in the next few days, every time she thought of it she couldn't wipe the smile off her face, it had been to long since she had seen her brother and she was dying for a catch up. He wouldn’t let Alaska do anything to help prepare for the wedding except for allowing her to make the cake and Alaska was already deep in her planning to make sure this cake was going to be a master piece.
After responding back to the email and sorting out everything that was needed in preparation to the big opening of Darling Bakery the clock had chimed seven the ringing of the bells being accompanied by the pitter patter of Ava' s footsteps running down the hall looking for her mother.
“Mama why aren’t you in bed?” Ava questioned sleepily, crawling onto the stool, allowing the cascade of unruly dark hair to cover her face in their messy bed head curls. Alaska just turned to her daughter with a small smile, lifting a hand to brush the abyss of hair from her daughters eyes.
“Uncle Jack phoned and woke me up and I couldn’t sleep afterwards” Alaska sighed, giving her daughter a half shrug as she climbed out her seat, deciding it was about time to star breakfast, she hadn’t even managed to get the juice out of the kitchen before the front door was thrown open.
Alaska had never reacted so quick, in mere seconds a rolling pin was gripped firmly in her left hand, flour still dusted over it as she stood in a baseball stance, ready to swing the bat as soon as they entered the room.
The door had banged open so loud that Alaska was certain that it should of aroused Chris from his sleep and he would go and investigate what was going on, because even though Alaska put a strong independent front up, when it came to situations like this she was the biggest chicken.
As the kitchen door began to open, Alaska allowed the pin to swing forward, passed caring to whether it was the intruder or Chris at the other end, she just wanted to protect her daughter.
It was as if the rest had happened in slow motion, the door continued to open as a very happy Jack walked in, the grin nearly splitting his face open, but Alaska couldn’t stop her arm now as the rolling pin made a loud thud against his stomach causing the boy to instantly double over, clutching his stomach as he wheezed out in agony.
“Alaska, what the hell?!” he spluttered, one hand wrapped around his aching gut, while the other carefully lifted up his t-shirt inspecting the injured skin to see a dark bruise spreading across his skin.
“You don’t just burst into someone’s house uninvited Jack” Alaska scolded, dropping the rolling pin into the sink as she turned her back to the boy busying herself with preparing everyone’s breakfast, Ava’s attention already averted to her newest book when she realised it was only Jack.
“But still...” Jack trailed off, realising that he wasn’t going to win this round as he collapsed onto a chair next to Ava, turning to engage in conversation with the little girl about her book, laughing along as she told him all about the main character, Aurora.
Alaska merely placed a cup of steaming coffee in front of the boy before handing Ava a bowl of cereal as she sat in the last remaining seat, taking a long deep sip of her sweet tea, allowing the liquid to soothe the back of her throat before she even tried to tackle the situation of why Jack was sat in her kitchen, and to why he was even up before noon.
“Why are you here Jack?” Alaska asked, deciding to get straight to the point but all she got in return was a small frown contorting Jack’s face and making him look like a small wounded puppy.
“Do you want me to go?” he asked, pointing over his shoulder with his thumb, beginning to stand from his seat but didn’t get half way out of it before Ava and Alaska protested telling him to sit back down.
“Of course we don’t want you to go” Alaska chuckled, taking another sip of tea, only leaving her half a mug left which she swished around her mug absentmindedly as her eyes trained on her daughter before averting to Jack. “I just wondered what was so important that you practically broke in here” Alaska chuckled, leaning over to snatch a lucky charm from Ava’s bowl, placing it into her mouth before her daughter could protest.
“Well Lucy agreed to go out with me, but you already knew that, I just need your help with everything because I don’t want to screw it up and for her to bitch about me to all her friends about how pathetic I am” Jack finished, running all his words together before stopping to catch her breath turning to give Alaska his best pout before in his sickliest sweet voice adding “So will you pretty please help me?”
Alaska rolled her eyes, a soft chuckle falling from her lips accompanied by a small shrug of her shoulders as she stood from her chair, heading over to refill the kettle. “God that was awful, you’re mouth was practically spilling out the whole of Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory you were that nicey-nice, you been practicing in the mirror?” Alaska faked gag, pouring herself another cup of tea before returning to the table, looking at the boy over the rim of her mug.
“So what can I do to help?” Alaska smiled, watching as Jack let out a sigh of relief.