The child skipped across happily by her side before tripping on what seemed to be thin air, and Alice picked her up halfway when they were crossing the street since she was worried that the child to cause an accident. People around them were still bustling about since they were also trying to get to work not minding the fact that Alice had literally just picked up a random child.
Alice patted the girl's back for comfort as they got to the other side of the intersection. "Do you see your mother?"
The child looked around for a moment to no avail, and Alice sighed as she combed through the crowd to try and find anyone who seemed to be frantic or maybe worried by the fact they may have lost their child.
However, it was just more people in a wash of blacks and beiges as they all tried to make their way to work with her and the young child being in the way by standing in the busy intersection.
Alice was about to give up and call the police after a few minutes went by since the tiny girl in her arms didn't seem to know what to do either with her quivering lips being sucked into her mouth.
There was a soft shout in the distance, and Alice turned in that direction when the child suddenly waved, making relief course through Alice's body when a woman with a sunhat ran over in their standing. Alice set the child back on the ground, and her mother scooped her up.
"Andrea. Where did you go?" her mother asked quietly.
"I'm sorry," Andrea whispered.
"It's okay, baby. You need to stick next to Mommy, okay?"
Andrea nodded, and the mother shook hands with Alice. "Thank you so much."
"It was no problem," Alice smiled before lifting a finger at Andrea. "You need to listen to your mommy okay?"
Andrea tilted her tiny head down. "Thank you, Auntie."
Alice inclined her head in a formal departure to the young family and continued her walk down the busy street that went calm due to the fact more houses were the surroundings rather than busy office buildings all the way to Claudia's house which was located somewhat in the city and somewhat in the suburbs, so it was an odd in-between because the houses in her neighborhood were huge with large properties to boot.
She would come around to Claudia's place often when they were younger, but she hasn't been back recently as often as she would like. Alice adored Claudia's parents since they were so kind and humble despite being raised in wealth due to the long lineage of their family medicine business which has tons of loyal customers.
Alice would wonder if Claudia would also like to become a doctor like her parents, but Claudia was more against it than she thought. She didn't know what was going through Claudia's head about her future, but that question could be saved for later since they planned to study together later that evening as well.
She wouldn't go easy on her best friend, and Claudia knew it which meant that Claudia was begging to not study and just watch a movie to which Alice didn't budge since they were already going out this morning to catch up. She finally made it to Claudia's house and pressed the button of their intercom that was at the front of their gate.
As she was waiting, her thoughts drifted over to the other day when she and Noah were a part of the radio show for the academy, and it was so much fun. She was honestly glad that she did it.
To be fair, she should have given it more credit to start, but she was scared that she wasn't going to be able to present herself in the way that she wanted.
But the questions were light and fun, and she got to meet new people that she did actually like. Madeline had a good idea, and it finally pulled through. After they ended, she and Noah walked to the main gate of the academy just talking about random stuff when they parted ways since Noah had to head to the hospital.
She knew that he would usually walk her home, so she took in the freedom of sprinting home that day hoping that he and his grandfather got to spend a lot of time together.
The publicity was received well with many people liking her homeroom activity idea, and there was a slight buzz when she went to school the next day which was perfect.
It showed that her and Noah's hard work had paid off since they had the role to advertise to the school, and Alice was shocked that it was working well despite her being so against it in the beginning. It was odd that she did realize that she and Noah had practically been together since day one but had never truly had the time to speak to one another until this year.
She wondered if it would be different between them if they did speak earlier. Would they have actually been friends? Or would she avoid him even more? Either way, she couldn't turn back time to see, so she was going to be content with what she had considering she had never thought that she would be on speaking terms with Noah.