Adore You | ✔

Chapter 78

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Chapter 78

After the accident, my mom flipped her lid. She went on a long rant where I put my phone on mute and painted flowers on my cast to match Lana's art. At the end of the rant, she almost bought me a plane ticket and demanded that I come home right away. I spent three hours with her on the phone, calming her down. She finally agreed to let me finish the year in New York, but my butt was on a plane back home the first day of summer vacation.

I agreed to it, hoping she wouldn't force me to stay for the following year as well. My mom could be very irrational when she was stressed or worried. I also figured she was blowing it out of proportions as a way to get one on my dad. They were officially getting divorced and not on speaking terms. She was distraught that I had not taken "her side."

Whatever the reason, Summer was a compromise I was willing to make. The end of the year dance was next week on Friday, and I had been looking forward to it all exam season. I did not want to miss it because my mom decided to become a helicopter parent. The moment we hung up, she booked me a ticket on the flight the morning after the dance; I think she was afraid I would find an excuse to stay. To be honest, I wasn't going to; I missed my brothers, and Robbie said he could stay at his family's beach apartment all summer. Not to mention Maria and Lana spent a month down there every summer anyway.

Either way, we would be apart for a bit, so I had been spending my days at the Bennett's. I had already completed all of my exams and gotten the grades I wanted on my finals. Despite being shaken up by that car accident, everything seemed to be going well.

The only thing that really worried me was Maria's strange behavior. Ever since the accident, she was nervous around me and always seemed like she wanted to ask me something but didn't really know how to approach the topic. 

If I was around her for too long, she would get extremely anxious to the point she would excuse herself.

 I told Robbie, and he wasn't worried about it; he said she was probably just stressed with her exams and realized that she should have studied more. Lana said something similar. She was also not done with her exams and realized she procrastinated a bit with her studies. This past week she pulled a disappearing act, and Damien said she was studying at her desk for hours at a time.

On Wednesday after Robbie finished his last exam, I went to his house to watch a movie we were going to dinner to celebrate the end of exams later that evening. Maria knocked softly on Robbie's room and asked me if I could help her with calculus studies tomorrow. She hadn't taken the test for it yet. She had been so nervous she asked to take it during makeup because she didn't feel prepared.

"Sure," I said when she asked.

"I could help you too," Robbie said. "I don't know why you wouldn't ask me; you're two doors away."

"I want Lia to help me. We haven't had a day just us the two of us in a while. I was hoping to study and then hang out. "

Umm, okay, I thought to myself. Usually, Maria was begging Robbie to join us. Something was up.

"Sure," I said, and Robbie and I shrugged our shoulders at each other.

"Sounds like a fun night for you two," He said, choosing a movie.

"Do you want to watch a movie with us?" I asked her as I lay down next to Robbie.

"No, no, it's fine. I don't want to intrude; I need to study anyway," Maria said, her voice hitching in her throat as she left the room quickly.