On Sundays, I usually do everything I don't have time to do on every other day of the week.

On this particular Sunday morning, I found myself busy folding clothes that had come out of the dryer. Mostly pink and purple pyjamas, some overalls, school's uniforms, jeans, and a load of colourful sweaters that were piling up on the corner of the dresser's drawer.

In the background, I could hear the sweetest little voice, mimicking, almost in a whisper, the words that the dolls would say to each other if they were real.

I looked up at the picture frame that hung on the yellow wall, standing above the dresser.

Framed it was a picture of my daughter - who all of these small clothes belonged to. My teeny tiny daughter. It was taken right after she got cleaned up and given to me by the midwives that helped me deliver her.

She was laying peacefully on my chest, my arms wrapped around her, not too tightly but not too loosely. She was so small and looked so fragile, I remember feeling scared that I would break her. Her blonde hair was covered with the cutest pink, tiny hat that said midwives had put on her head. Her body was securely wrapped with a warm blanket, but, as I remembered and as I could see on the picture, her tiny hands were trying to escape the engulfment of the cover.

Just below the picture, it read her full name - Lexi Marie Thompson - and below that line, it was the time and date of birth - 4th May 2013. 05:12 AM.

That was the exact date and time of the happiest moment of my entire life.

To this day, I still remember that moment so clearly and I don't think I'll ever forget it.

And just like that, on a regular Sunday morning while folding laundry, I was brought back to memory lane.

May 3rd was a typical London day. Cold, windy and rainy. But, believe it or not, on May 4th, by morning twilight, the dark clouds were gone. As the minutes went by, the blue sky turned into a lighter shade of that colour, and the sun - despite not being the warmest - was shining brightly and lighting up every corner of the city. (And every corner of my heart. To be fair, I don't think my heart's ever seen this much light, ever.) The rain, at that time, was long gone, its' only remains being the puddles that were spotted here and there on the side of the busy roads.

Love is such a vague, yet interesting feeling when you think about it. In a much easier way, we can think of love as a spectrum. It can be so intoxicating, it turns out to be toxic. So toxic that instead of care and affection, you get hurt. But it can also be so pure, so real and raw it turns out to be the best feeling in the world. Two ends of a spectrum - one that it's so bad and one that it's so good. I hate that I had to try the worst before I got to experience the best, but that was what got me here and what got me my amazing daughter, and I wouldn't change it for the world.

Nothing else will compare to that moment, I know that for sure. The minute I met my daughter, was the moment it all clicked for me. It was when I learned what true love meant. Meeting your own child for the very first time, that overwhelming feeling of pure joy? Unmatched.

But before this, I was on the other side of the spectrum. I was a wreck, scared to death. Not only about being a single mom, but also about what I did in order to actually become one, and protect me and my daughter. However, no one knows about that last part. Only I do, and I have every intention to stay that way.

I'd always dreamed of being a mom, I'd wanted to be a mom. I just never thought it would be under these circumstances. At twenty-one years old, unemployed, and a single mother.

That sounded exactly like the recipe for disaster my own mother had warned me about when I first told her about my pregnancy. But I would be damned if I would let her be right. I was going to do this, I was going to be a mother, better than she ever was for me or my brother. I was going to give my baby the best life that I could give her and hope for the best.

Because that was all I could do at that point. Hope for the best.

That had to be enough. And somehow, it was.

"Mum?" Lexi's voice interrupted me, causing me to drop the jeans I was folding as I was abruptly drawn away from my thoughts.

"Yeah, baby?"

"Can we bake cookies this afternoon?" She asked, putting a stop to playtime with her favourite dolls. I looked down at her, while she was laying on the floor of her bedroom, still in her pyjamas at nearly eleven o'clock.

"Sure, sweetheart. Let me just check and see if we have everything we need, alright?"

I finished folding the clothes and storing them neatly in the drawer and left Lexi's room, making my way to the pantry.

I was running out of chocolate chips and sugar, which meant that we had to go to the grocery store down the street. Doing some quick thinking about the meal plan for the upcoming week, I figured I'd also buy some fresh mushrooms and some spinach to make Lexi her favourite quiche for tonight's dinner.

Sunday had always been a big day for us. It was the day of the week she had no homework to do - because she likes to get her work all done on Saturday -, and the day when we had more time to ourselves, so we always cooked our food and baked cakes or pastries, and Lexi was more than happy to help me out.

She's got that from me, the passion for being in the kitchen for hours on end, cooking and baking and creating new recipes. Of course, every kid likes to cook a little bit and eat some raw cookie dough - God, even I do! -, but I truly think Lexi enjoys cooking on a whole other level. She truly likes to prepare the ingredients and cook them, bake and learn about ways to do things and tasting new flavours. She's got a gift.

"Hey baby, we've got to go to the store to get some ingredients for the cookies." I announced, standing by the doorframe, as I watched her, now back to playing with her dolls.

"Is it raining outside?"

I took a couple of steps to walk towards the window, and after pushing the white net curtains aside, I took a quick glance outside and turned back to face her with a smile on my lips, knowing all too well the purpose of her question.

"Yes, it is."

Lexi dropped her dolls and got up from the floor in excitement, jumping up and down and giggling.

"I'll go get ready, mummy." She said before running off to her closet and picking out an outfit to wear, which included her favourite attire - yellow rain boots - to top it all off.

I made my way towards the closet in the hallway to pick out a raincoat for me and a matching yellow raincoat for Lexi. After grabbing my bag and an umbrella for each of us, we made our way out the door.

Besides cooking, there's only one more thing my daughter loves to do unconditionally - jumping in the rain puddles. Any other child - or adult, for that matter - would feel blue that it was raining outside but Lexi, just like in every case, always saw the good in every bad situation, and when it rained, she jumped in the puddles, causing her to giggle unstoppably.

Being a single mother is not, by all means, easy, but having a daughter like Lexi sure makes it a hell of a lot easier.

After locking the door behind me, and hand in hand with my daughter, we made our way to the store.

Living in London sure is a nice place to live. But it's only this nice when you live far away from the city centre and the tourists. That, and the enormous rent prices are the reasons why Lexi and I live in the Northwest area of the capital.

Our house was a good house. But most importantly, it was a good home.

When I unexpectedly discovered I was pregnant and made the choice to raise this child on my own, my parents wanted to leave. However, they didn't. At least, not right away. They stayed around and helped out for those nine months of pregnancy and the first couple of months after Lexi was born. Then they left. They left me and my brother, Lucas, all alone in London while they moved away to Bristol, where my father's from.

They claimed that they considered me and Lucas, who was almost twenty four at the time, capable of living by ourselves, and that they wanted to go back to Bristol to grow old.

But that was bullshit. I knew they were ashamed of me, for choosing to be a single mother, with no University studies in plan, no job and no resources whatsoever. And people talked, and they hated it just as much. So they left.

For the first year of Lexi's life, it was just me and my daughter. With the endless help of my brother, Lucas, the sweetest human being I know.

Our parents left me and my brother in the house which the four of us lived in. But since I had no job and his didn't pay that well, we rented out a room we didn't use. Our renters were usually overseas students or young adults that moved to the city with big hopes to restart their lives.

Every month, Lucas would always insist on offering me his half of the rental money, but my consistent denial was unsuccessful so, I saved up.

Once Lexi was old enough to go to a nursery, I started working, joining every job imaginable, from waitress to housekeeper, to English tutor. I even got to sew for an old woman that lived down the street, who paid me more for a simple hem fixing than she should have. But Mrs. Drayton insisted and I accepted it. I worked all the extra shifts I could, whenever I had the chance to and I saved and saved until I had enough to ask for a loan from the bank, which was what allowed me to rent this place.

Our home was a one floor house, with a bedroom for Lexi - which was a must - , a smaller bedroom for me, a small living room and a nice kitchen. Not too big, not too small, but nice.

"Can we get some croissants from the bakery on the way back?" Lexi asked, while we walked towards the grocery store.

"Sure thing, my love." I replied.

Once we bought what we needed, we left with a bag full of groceries in hand. It had eventually stopped raining, and after a lot of begging from the little one, we made a quick pit stop at the park before heading to the bakery, so she could feed the squirrels and jump on some more rain puddles, while I sat on a bench to watch her.

After a while we then fled the park, and made our way back. We were walking down the street, hand in hand, with Lexi happily skipping here and there, with the intention to go to our favourite bakery, when I came to a stop in front of it. Lexi stopped in her tracks too.

Closed until further notice. It read on the paper, written in poor handwriting, taped to the glass door.

"Oh no." I said, muttering under my breath. My smile turned upside down into a frown.

"What is it, mum?" Lexi asked, and I pointed with my index finger, in the direction of the sign on the door.

"Closed?" She asked, right before popping another question. "What does until further notice mean?"

"It means it's closed... Indefinitely." I looked down at her. "It means they don't know when they'll open again."

This was quite sudden. Just last weekend, we came here to get some cupcakes and it was open. And there was no sign of the place closing anytime soon.

"What now?" Lexi said, her smile turned into a frown as well.

I searched my brain for the right thing to say, but between trying to find some logic for this situation and trying to think of another good bakery where we could buy the croissants, I wasn't left with much.

So, I told her the next best idea that had come to mind. "We can make our own croissants, sweetheart."

"Yay!" Lexi said, jumping up and down on the sidewalk, pulling my hand up and down with her as she jumped.

That was my girl. Always seeing the sunshine on a rainy day. The good in a bad situation. Always making me smile when I feel sad, and right now, it was no exception.

Hand in hand, we went back to our original route, heading home.

Guess we'd be baking croissants on this Sunday. 

 * * *

AUTHOR'S NOTE: 

Hi everyone! Welcome to Plot Twist  ❤ First of all, thank you for checking out my new story, I really hope it finds a home within you as much as it did within me. This story means the world to me because I relate to a lot of things, so this is a special one for me. 

I wanna know  e v e r y t h i n g  - thoughts, opinions, likes, dislikes, first impressions!

If you liked it, please vote and comment - I love reading your comments, so don't be shy! -, share this story and add it to your reading list so you don't miss out on any updates!

Xoxo, Mars