Chapter 5
Shawn had escorted me to my car like the gentlemen he was and had held the umbrella the whole time, making sure that I wasn't getting wet.
I had just pulled into the driveway of my house and was getting out to go into my house.
I ran in, silently thinking what Shawn was going to say to me earlier. Who knows, but I wasn't going to worry about it.
"Mom I'm home!" I shouted, dropping my stuff onto the floor in the living room. I would pick it up later, but right now I just felt lazy. I skipped to the kitchen and saw my mom sitting at the dining table. I quickly approached her and saw that she had her head bowed down with a hand on her forehead. She always did that when she was stressed. It surprised me when I saw her sobbing uncontrollably.
"Mom!" I ran up to her and hugged her from behind. "What's wrong? Why are you crying?"
"I'm fine sweetie, go get ready for dinner." She waved her hand, putting the whole scenario off like nothing had happened at all. Her short brown was all tangled and hung down lazily from her head. I pushed it aside to take a look at her face and her eyes were red and puffy from crying.
"Mom. Tell me what happened." I said, more fiercely this time.
"Nothing." She repeated, shaking her head. She moved her head up, wiping away the tears and pulling her hair back. She fixed herself, making herself look more presentable, even though she didn't have to in front of me.
She forced a smile at me and laid her hand on my arm. "Go get cleaned up for dinner."
"Mom please tell me why you're crying. This is serious!" I retorted, almost shouting at her.
"It's not a big deal Ava. Now I'm going to count to three and you better be in your room or I'm grounding you." She spoke with authority, her lips pressing into a tight line now.
I glared at her, with my hands on my hips. "One.." she began the count down and I huffed in frustration and then ran up to my room, taking two steps of the stairs at a time. What had happened to my beautiful mother and why wouldn't she tell me? We used to tell each other everything.
I quickly put some stuff up when I got to my room and changed into comfier clothes. As I took off my jacket I could smell a subtle, yet distinguishable warm, vanilla scent. I thought back to the short hug me and Shawn had shared on his porch and how great it had felt to sense his strong arms wrapped around me.
I shoved my face into my jacket breathing in the scent for a second and then bursted out laughing, thinking how weird I was. And somehow, I could still feel Shawn's touch on my hand as our hands had touched when sharing the umbrella. It was definitely strange how I was starting to remember every single detail of what I felt when I was with him.
I put my phone on my charger glancing at my messages and seeing one from Sydney but feeling slightly disappointed when I didn't have a little blue dot beside Shawn's name. Why the helł was I acting like this. I placed my phone face down, shrugging, and then went down to the kitchen. Buddy, my golden retriever, ran up to me as soon as I got to the foot of the stairs and licked my hand affectionately. I patted his head and scratched him behind his ears, and then walked away to see what mom was doing.
Mom didn't say anything to me as I entered the kitchen and I sensed that she wanted silence right now, so I complied with her wishes. I saw her heating up our food and I set up our table.
"Ava," she called and I went to the kitchen to see what she had to say. "D-don't set up a place setting for your dad." she choked out and I felt a pang of dread going throughout me. Maybe dad was just at one of his frequent business meetings, like usual. But that didn't add up to why mom was crying or why she had just stuttered.
