Hey There, Delilah

Hey There, Delilah (30)

I had to make up a bunch of excuses to Julie about why I didn't call her and tell her about River and me. My phone was dead, I was so busy with school, River would distract me... and that got a very perverted comment from her, which didn't really surprise me at all.

Jake luckily didn't kill River (even though I could tell he kind of wanted to), and I didn't talk to Lieutenant Shrew even once. I still hated him for invading and ruining my family. Who knew where my father was right now? I didn't even think he cared. He used to be friends with him, did he? He should care! But the bastard only cared about going after my mother, which he accomplished after he ruined our family by telling us that my father was dead. Jeez, I hated him so much!

My family had forced to go out to dinner (which unfortunately included Shrew), and it was super awkward. I didn't want to go out alone with them, mostly because I knew that it was going to be awkward. But my mother forced me, because she said that I hadn't seen her in so long that she wanted to catch up with me. But I knew what she really wanted to talk about. She was my mother, after all.

Arianna and the girls got to stay at their hotel, and my mom said that the boys couldn't come with us, so they just stayed at school. But I think Rex probably went home, much to his dislike. Either that, or he was with River and Seth in their room. I knew that he would much rather do that than go home.

It was either silent at the table, or my mother wouldn't shut up about River. I didn't think a mom should get so excited about her daughter having a boyfriend. She thought he was my first one, but that was only because she didn't know about Avery. And I wasn't about to tell her about him, because I just wanted to forget that I was ever interested in a jerk like him. The less people that knew, the better it was.

My mom just wanted to talk about River.

Jake didn't want to hear anything about him.

Lieutenant Shrew just sat there.

Awkward, awkward, awkward!

Hadn't my mother said the day before over the phone about how she didn't like River? What happened to that? I didn't want her hated River, but right then it was a lot better than being obsessed with him. And she had been so angry with me for my hickey just hours before, but now she was perfectly fine, as if it never happened. I just didn't understand my mother sometimes.

The dinner luckily didn't last very long, and I was able to get back to Bentwood and away from my mother right after it ended. She would just ask about River over and over again, no longer angry but now giddy, like a high school girl. It was like I was talking to someone who was my age, which was super weird since it was actually my mother. She asked even more questions than Julie, which is seriously way too much. But I was glad that most of them weren't perverted questions, like Julie's.

She asked me how far River and I had gone, if I knew River's parents and family, and how long River and I had been together. She asked why he was attending Bentwood, and I was definitely not going to answer that. River could tell her, if he wanted to. It wasn't my secret to tell. It was River's secret, and I knew that he was ashamed of what he had done to himself. But he stopped now. He had me with him now, so he was fine and happy again. It was my fault that he started cutting himself even more.

My mother even asked about how he first told me he loved me. There was no way I was going telling her that! It wasn't like it was anything but, and I knew that I would tell her one day, but I wasn't about to tell her in the middle of a restaurant with my seething, overprotective brother sitting at the table with us! And especially not with my future step-father either!

Ugh. I hated calling him that.

Step-father.

Step-dad.