Strangers

Chapter 11: Weeks 3 & 4

Week Three Without Harry

“Come on love, in out of the cold.” Anne ushers me through the front door.

“It’s not that cold.” I laugh, walking through to the kitchen.

“Please, once Summer’s over it’s a hop skip and a jump to winter around here.” She says, such a Mum thing to say.
“Cup of tea?” She asks, already pouring me one as I lean across the kitchen counter and watch her.

“Yes please.” I love the smell of this house, it’s so nostalgia-inducing and homely, the kind of house you walk into and just assume there’s pumpkin scones or roast or something in the oven.

“Here you go.” She hands me the floral decorated mug before picking up her own mug and a plate of biscuits from the counter and sitting down at the dining table.

“So, tell me all the goss. What’s new with you?” She asks, sipping her tea.

“Um…not a whole lot really. Just kind of killing time till Harry gets back, focusing on uni.”
“And how’s that going? Your new course, are you liking it?” She questions, she always sounds so interested in my life it’s so comforting since I haven’t heard from my own parents in a while.

“Oh it’s good, I don’t know. I’m not convinced I’m doing the right thing, but I kind of like not knowing for once, like I was always so confident about law and look where that got me, so it’s nice just kind of figuring it out for now.”
“Yeah well you’re still so young, you’ve got plenty of time.” She says exactly what I want to hear.
“I’m 23, I feel like I’m way too old to be starting a degree.”

“Oh nonsense, no one gets it right the first time.”
“Yeah, I guess. What have you been up to?”
“Oh the usual, I’ve been focusing on my garden at the moment and it’s starting to get to where I want it to be, I’ll have to show you before you go.

“Definitely. That’s so good, I want to love gardening but I don’t really have a garden at the moment and even my apartment in London only has a small terrace and I never had any time to actually plant anything in pots, so I don’t know if I’d be any good at it.” I muse, taking a ginger biscuit.

“Oh well Harry has plenty of gardens at his house.” She says with a sly quirking of her eyebrows, to which I laugh.

“Oh Anne you really are the master of subtlety.” I say with a knowing smirk.

“Well, I’m just curious to know what your plans are with my son.” She says, impersonating the stereotypical father-boyfriend conversation but personalized to our situation.

I laugh at her and put my tea down, “Oh my intentions are noble, I’ll make an honest man out of him one day.” I joke, wondering how I got on the conversation of marriage with my boyfriend’s Mum who’s also kind of like a friend/second-Mum to me. Eeep.
“One day? Or some day soon?” She asks, smiling at me across the table.

“Mmm, well I’m keen for whenever so I think it’s up to him from now. I think he knows that even if we got engaged now we wouldn’t be able to get married for a while anyway, like if you look at Zayn and Perrie, they’ve been engaged for two years.” I shrug. “Besides, I don’t know why you’re hurrying me and Harry along, I think you’ll be planning a wedding soon enough if Gemma has anything to say about her relationship.” I look into my mug as I take another sip, trying to seem nonchalant but I’m really just digging for Anne’s opinion on the whole Ashton/Gemma relationship.

“Yes well, we’ll see. It would be lovely but Ashton’s very young.”
“He’s the same age as Harry.”

“Yeah but I’m not sure they’re mentally the same age, you and I both know Harry had to grow up from the age of 16, whereas Ash, as lovely as he is-“ She pauses, as though she’s choosing her words carefully, “is still growing up I think.”