Jade

Chapter 27

Jade Chapter 27, a romance fiction |

Jade was flabbergasted when she walked inside her house and saw her sister sitting down in the living room with Jackson Barrington next to her. Granted they weren't doing anything questioning but it was still a surprise to her.

In fact, they weren't doing anything at all except stiffly staring at the TV screen, until Jade walked in that is and their eyes turned to her, the both of them clearly nervous.

"Oh, hello." She said, her eyes landing on Mark's cousin.

She noticed his cheeks instantly went red. "Hi." He quietly muttered.

He wasn't the only one being timid. Her sister's cheeks had changed colors as well. "Hey, uh, Mom's in the kitchen."

Jade hid her smirk, amused that Joyce felt the need to share that they weren't unsupervised. "Ok...I guess I'll go say hi,"

The two kids turned their eyes back to the TV screen as Jade quietly chuckled to herself and made her way inside the kitchen.

Her mother was indeed there, cutting up vegetables as she prepared dinner. She looked up once Jade walked in. "Hey, how was school?"

"Fine," Jade answered absently, taking a seat on the bar stool. "I see that Joyce has company,"

Lynn smiled. "Yeah, apparently they really wanted to spend time with each other so I agreed to let him come over. He seems like a nice boy."

Jade made a sound of agreement, her thoughts momentarily wondering to the boys in her own life.

Her mother gave her a curious look. "Are you sure everything's ok?"

"Yeah, I mean..." Jade hesitated. She didn't know why but suddenly a part of her actually wanted to tell her mother everything that had been going on lately.

"Go on..." Her mother suddenly urged her, as if picking up on Jade's thoughts.

Jade took a deep breath. "There's so much to tell I don't even know where to begin."

Lynn stopped cutting up the vegetables and fully faced her daughter. She wasn't blind. She had noticed everything. All the changes, even the small ones. The transformation was gradual and painful to watch at times but also beautiful to see. Her daughter was turning into a young woman, one who would go away for school in the fall. She never thought she would be one of those mothers but the thought of her first born leaving the household already brought tears to her eyes. Despite the divergence in their relationship over the past few years, nothing would ever amount to the affection she held for her first born.

"You know, I received a couple of phone calls recently."

Jade's eyes widened at her mother's announcement. Usually phone calls about her never meant anything good so she held her breath.

Lynn kept going. "I talked to Mrs. Bernard a couple of days ago, and she had a couple of interesting things to say. Mrs. Rushmore and I also had a talk a few days ago, and she sounded very concerned. Your principal, Mrs. Sanchez, called earlier today and the most surprising of all, Mark's mother left a message as well."

What?

Jade didn't know what to say to any of that. So she didn't say anything.

All of them had called? About her?

"So I pretty much know everything that's been going on," her mother announced. "Although I would have much preferred to hear it from you."

Jade just stared at her mother, looking for the right words. "Well..." She thought about how to summarize the past couple of months in a nutshell. Although the drama started way before she met him, the change within her became more apparent once Ryan Parker became a part of her life. "I...,"