Chapter Twelve
1034 Words
LIZ'S POV
It was strange but I had been expecting Will to show up at the house. I hated to admit it to myself that I missed him dearly, I wanted to see him again, wanted to feel his breath on my face and see his bushy eyebrows lift in question when I said or did something.
He didn't know, but he possessed a charm that left him permanently on my mind, no matter how much I talked about abstract things with Amma, he was still on my mind. No matter how much I immersed myself in school work and other engagements, he was constantly on my mind. It was enough to drive anyone crazy and I would have taken to smoking if it was my thing.
There was a small part of me that wished that my mom was not married to his father at all. But I had always wanted my mom to be happy. She had stayed single years after she and my dad divorced and my dad had remarried and relocated with his new wife. But it had not made me feel any less sad when I had to move in with my mom into her new matrimonial home.
Part of that was because prior to her marriage to Greg, I had no relationship with Greg at all. He was merely a man my mom was going to marry, an acquaintance at best, and so it made me almost die of panic that I was going to be moving into the home of someone who was a stranger to me.
How long the relationship with my mom had lasted before they got married was something I knew absolutely nothing about. My mom did not see the need to let me in on her affairs and I did not bother to ask, I only let her tell me what she felt I needed to know and I could totally understand that.
I was an adult too, had my own life and my own relationships that I didn't tell her about because it was simply not the way we did things.
Looking back at all those times made me sad. We didn't share enough and as the days went by, it made our relationship with each other grow weaker until mom slowly started to become selfish, thinking only of her happiness and comfort and sometimes forgetting that I existed. I didn't exactly blame her, not when I was an adult who was old enough to take complete responsibility of my life.
I did not also want to be the reason why she was not happy in her new marriage so I let her have all the time in the world that she needed to stay happy. I caught myself hoping that Will was going to show up days after I returned back to an empty house. It would be just us at home and we could talk before mom and dad showed up, but he did not. My expectations were dashed. A part of me was relieved that he had not come because I wasn't certain that I could control myself around him, and another part of me desperately wanted him to come, no matter what.
The next day at school, I was not the happiest girl. Amma was with me as usual, having broken up with Jason and willing to stay single with me and pretend to have all the good time in my company when I knew that I could be a total bore sometimes.
"You know, I got thinking that maybe I should just quit dating."
Amma said while we stood by the counter to place our orders. She looked the same, ebullient, pretty, skin glittering and mouth speaking almost non stop.
"I told you before, it is the best decision you could ever take. Stay single and you might be happy."
She was silent for a bit and then she asked,
"So, are you happy being single?"
Maybe she needed some sort of affirmation to strengthen her new resolve. I did not reply immediately, I took my tray of lunch and she did too. We were going to look for a suitable place to sit first before I gave her an answer.
"Why, you are yet to answer me."
She said behind me. I reached a table and placed my meal.
"Ammy, at least, I can say I'm not sad. I don't have to cry over someone whom I claim to love. Until someone else who is going to love me without causing me pain shows up, I'm staying single and sane."
I tried to make sense to her and she stood with her tray for a while, mulling over what I had said. When she finally sat down next to me, she said,
"Maybe I should not have dated a basketball player. I should give Oscar a chance. He is from the football club and I want to know how it feels to be with one of those guys from the football club."
I rolled my eyes, only stopping myself from telling her that she was, after all, one of the many ladies who could not stay single to only to sustain their sanity. She was one of the chicks who used one guy to move on from the other, not entirely a bad thing. I was not judging her, but fact was, she was never going to truly move on totally from one guy before she went to the next, and she could end up hurting whoever she got into a relationship with inorder to move on from another.
I sighed as I picked up a spring roll.
"Maybe you should stay single until you are sure you have moved on from Jason. It has nothing to do with whether or not you are going to be with someone from the football club."
She frowned at that, "Have you seen Oscar? He is like the Will Rodriguez of the football club and he just got out of a messy relationship. It is me he wants now and I want him too."
I only rolled my eyes and didn't respond, picking up my utensils to start eating.
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