I woke up to the halt of the car. I looked over to my right to see Rachel's face smiling at me.
"Welcome home baby girl, how do you feel?"
"Just glad to be with you" I said whilst returning her gesture of a smile.
We got out of the car and Rachel went to the boot to collect my bag, and then headed to the door. The house sat on a nice looking estate surrounded by fields, not so far from Stoke-on-Trent; this meant that Millie (Rachel's girlfriend) and Rachel could live together, as where they both trained was around 1h from there. (I don't if those facts are true but for the story purpose it is haha). As we stepped inside my nose was filled with the scent of cleanliness and candles instead of the usual stale smell I was used to. It was bright yet homely with the walls being white and wood lining the floors. This was my home and I was happy.
One of the first things Rachel told me when were discussing me moving in, was that she lived with Millie. I was excited to meet her but also nervous as I knew she made Rachel happy so didn't want to affect their relationship, so when she told me that Millie was staying with her United teammates for a few days whilst I settled in, I wasn't exactly annoyed.
After a quick tour of the house, me and Rachel made our way into the kitchen. She got me a drink whilst I found myself a seat at the breakfast bar and then she started to talk,
"So lily I want to go over some of my like rules if that's ok?" I nodded my head apprehensively.
"Ok, first of all I want you to know that if you don't like any of these we can talk about it and make some adjustments. That leads me onto the first one, communication; let me know what's going on inside your brain, if you can't speak then write it out but please don't suffer in silence, night or day. No drinking or smoking, you are only 13 and that one isn't up for discussion" she stated causing us both to giggle, "don't swear, I mean the odd one doesn't matter but it has to be used in fair context. Gay, straight or whoever you love i don't mind, just as long as they treat you right. Ummm... that's kind of all the things I can think of, if you think of anything else let me know. Final thing though, if you need space or time that you feel I am not giving you, or if I am giving you too much, please just tell me" she let out a big sigh to indicate she was finished talking giving me a chance to respond to the speech she has just given.
"That's all fine and yes I will probably need time to adjust because after all I am in a place where I don't know and literally only know you, but after all, I am where I need to be and with the people I need to be with" as I finished Rachel came round and placed her arms over my back allowing us to embrace.
We talked some more about my school and football etc, before I made my way upstairs to my room. I felt lucky to have a room that looked like this after the state of my old room. I was surprised that Rachel knew what I liked without me having to tell her.
This is what it looked like ⬇️⬇️⬇️
It was now around 5:30 so I decided to 'unpack' the very few things that I had bought with me and just look around my room to familiarise myself. Rachel walked in with her laptop in her hand, passing it to me before sitting on my bed signalling for me to join her.
"Hey kiddo, I found all of these things for you but be honest if you don't like them because I won't bother ordering them for you and you can find some other stuff instead" I scrolled through the numerous baskets on the tabs of Rachel's laptop. They contained sports clothes, casual clothes, smart clothes, underwear, bags, makeup, and lots of other lovely things.
"They are perfect thank you, who knew you would know me so well after all this time" I said chuckling.
"Well what do they say, motherly instinct" She said before scruffling my hair and getting up to leave. As she was about to exit the door I needed to say one more thing,
"Rachel thank you, thank you for everything. But I do have one more thing to ask you" She looked at me intrigued as she leant against the doorway.
"Can I start calling you mum?" Her facial expressions softened and she made made her way to my bed again. I lent against her, so that I was in her arms and she held me as tight as she could.
"Kiddo of course you can. I know I haven't been there physically to tell you this but I love you. Always will, always have"
Rachel's POV
My heart was melting. A few weeks ago I didn't know where my daughter was or what she looked like let alone her favourite food or colour. Now she was led in my arms whilst I stroked her hair, after asking me whether she could call me 'mum'. I was happy. The missing piece of life had been found and given back to me.
After around 5 minutes of sitting in a comfortable silence, following each others breathing patterns, i broke the silence to suggest an idea.
"Kiddo do you want to order in a takeaway and eat it whilst wearing our pyjamas and watching a movie?" She got up from my lap and had a huge grin on her face.
"Yes, yes and yes!" ok well that's a definite.
I went downstairs to order the takeaway (we settled on pizza) whilst lily took a shower. With the takeaway arriving in 30 minutes, it enabled me to go upstairs and get changed into my pyjamas. I got us both matching ones, so I put Lily's pair on her bed and took her drinks order so that I get those ready whilst she changed. Not so long after she came downstairs, the door bell rung signalling the pizza had arrived. With the drinks and pizza in hand, we made our way to the living room. I let Lily chose a movie on Netflix whilst telling me how daisy always chose the films so she never actually had scrolled through and seen all of the options. The excitement on her face led me to mixed feelings; sad she had never experienced it before but happy that I could be there with her to experience them. We settled on some cringey 2000s film and dug into the food.
As the credits of the films appeared on the screen, I looked down to see Lily asleep on my chest cuddled up to me. She looked so peaceful. I carefully tidied up the small mess we had made, trying my best to not wake her up. I achieved that but was left with how I was going to actually get her into her bed. Instead of waking her, I decided to carry up to bed. I lifted her bridal style and walked up to her room. Thankfully, as she was already in her pyjamas, so all I had to do was tuck her in under the covers. I placed a kiss on her forehead before I left the room, but was stopped by the sounds of her faint whispered.
"Mumma?" my heart was exploding.
"Yes kiddo" I whispered back.
"Thank you, I love you" her eyes glued shut as she spoke subtle whispers.
"I love you too, that's what I am here for" I placed another kiss on my forehead, before leaving the room feeling full. Happy. Loved.
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Hope you like this chapter as much as I do! If you haven't read my other book you won't know, but I have decided to not continue it as I have lost motivation to complete it. This means that all of my attention is on this one! I feel like this book is going real well and i can see that through the stats we are hitting, and all I can say is THANK YOU!!! Xx