Shelby and Toni

Chapter Twenty

**Toni's POV** 

"Motherfucker," I said as I climbed into Martha's car to escape the rain that was pouring down. 

"Here," Martha said as she reached behind her in the back seat and grabbed a spare sweatshirt she kept in her car. I took it hastily as I ripped off my damp one and threw the dry one on. "What the hell happened?" Martha asked. 

"Shelby's dad walked in on us," I said as I put my hands in front of the vents to warm them up. 

"Wait wait wait, what?! I thought you guys were fighting," She said. 

"Not the main point of what I just said, Marty," I replied, still a little shaky as my mind replayed Shelby's dad walking in over and over again. "But no, we weren't even fighting, I was just being stubborn, it was dumb, we're fine. Well, we were fine, I have no idea what the fuck is gonna happen now," I said. 

"How bad was it?" Martha asked as she pulled away from the curb and started driving. 

"Well, she was on top of me, so we couldn't even try and use some bullshit excuse," I said as I pulled out my phone to text Shelby. 

"Oh shit," Martha said as she looked at me for a moment and then back at the road. "What did he say?" 

"He told me to leave," I replied as I typed out a message to Shelby before deleting it, not really knowing what to say. I did this two more times before I finally sent one. 

To: Shelbs

Me: im so sorry Shelby, is everything okay? 

"Did Shelby say anything?" Martha asked. 

"She started to but he just cut her off and told me to leave again," I said as I ran my hand through my wet hair, trying to calm myself down. "He seemed pissed, Marty, like, extremely pissed." 

"Fuck,"  Martha said, clearly just as worried for Shelby as I was, "what do we do?" She asked. 

"Can we go by her house?" I asked as Martha pulled up to a stop sign and she looked over at me. 

"Do you think that's a good idea?" She asked hesitantly. 

"No, probably not, but I need to make sure she's okay," I said. Martha looked at me for a second, obviously agreeing with me that this was in fact not a good idea. 

"Alright, let's do it," she said as she looked back at the road and headed to Shelby's house. I had walked a few blocks away while I was waiting for Martha to pick me up, and we had only driven about two minutes away so we pulled up to Shelby's house fairly quickly. I didn't really know what I was looking for, I just needed to feel like I was doing something. 

"Her cars still there, I guess that's a good thing, right?" Martha said and I shrugged my shoulders. 

"I guess," I replied and I looked down at my phone, checking it for the eighth time in the past minute, "the fact that she's not replying isn't though." 

"She's probably still talking to her dad," Martha said as she reached out and grabbed my hand to try and calm me down. 

"I just have a really bad feeling about this," I said as I stared at the cross that was hanging on their front door. I felt myself get angrier and angrier as I kept looking at it, that damn cross that was supposedly a symbol of 'love' and 'compassion' had brought so much hate into my life. I couldn't tell you how many Christians had told me that I'm going to hell, or that I'm disgusting, sinful, deviant, the list just goes on and on. It made me even more mad to think about how Shelby was gonna be exposed to it even more than I am since she's religious. 

"Hey," Martha said as she squeezed my hand to get me to look at her, "everything's gonna be okay," she said. 

"You don't know that, Marty," I replied as I looked back at Shelby's house. "What if her parents are spewing that Christian bullshit and it makes her feelings about me change?" 

"I know last night I was being over-protective and skeptical, which wasn't fair to you or Shelby, I know the situation it's much more complex than I was making it out to be and I'm really sorry for that. But she's not dumb, Toni, she knew how her parents felt about being gay and she still chose to be with you, I think that itself says a lot about how strong her feelings are for you," Martha said and I smiled softly at her response, really appreciating her input and it actually did make me feel a lot better. 

Martha smiled back at me before we both looked back at Shelby's house and stared at it for about ten minutes, which felt like thirty. We weren't talking, the loud sound of the rain hitting the car filling up the silence. 

"Maybe it went w-" Martha started to say but stopped as the front door swung open and a second later Shelby stepped out, bags in her hands and clothes over her arms. 

"Fuck," I said as I opened the car door, flew outside, and ran up to Shelby. She was closing the front door as I yelled, "Shelbs!" over the noise of the rain. She looked back as the door closed and I could see her eyes widen as she saw me. 

"Toni!" She said as she set her suitcases down on the porch, the awning cover them from the rain, and set her armful of hangers on top of them. She started to run to me and jumped in my arms as we met in the middle of the driveway, wrapping her legs around my waist and her arms around my neck. 

"You stayed," she said as I held her as tight as I could. 

"Well, technically Martha picked me up a few blocks away and we came back, but," I said and I could feel her laugh against my chest which made me smile, "I wasn't gonna leave you alone," I said and she leaned back slightly, her hair already soaked from the rain. I could tell she had been crying, her eyes puffy and her face still red, but she smiled at me and I couldn't help but return it as she moved her hands to the back of my neck and leaned in to kissed me.

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little bit shorter but will most likely do another chapter tonight!!! hope you guys liked it!!!