wander

28|our way home

We get close to our hotel and it's starting to get dark. It's only another 10 minutes to get there. Street lamps light up the street and it looks so pretty. We walk past a few shops and my stomach rumbles.
"I'm so hungry" I groan. "There's a shop here can we get something?"
"Of course Chiara. You know your way around, lead the way."

I walk towards a target and walk through the doors. Romeo follows shortly behind me. I walk down the isles and pick up a few sodas and ready made sandwich's. I'm not that hungry so I'll just have one of these sandwiches tonight.

Romeo looks at me and raises his eyebrow. "Not that hungry I guess" I answer his unasked question. He nods and picks out a sandwich too. I walk down the next isle and pick up a bag of chips. Salted, again. He takes all of the food from my hands and walks over to pay.

We wait in line to pay and Romeo holds my hand. I look up to him and he smiles down to me. I yawn and lean my head against his arm and he snakes his arm around my waist. It's our turn to pay and he takes his arm away from my waist.

We bag all the items and I try to take one of the bags but Romeo takes it out of my grip.
"Let me hold it."
"No I'm pretty able to carry a bag." But before I can pull away he takes the bag from my hold.

We walk out the store and I stop in my tracks. My Mom is walking up towards the entrance. She stops as we make eye contact. I feel my body tense up at the sight of her.

"Chiara what's wrong?" Romeo asks, worry written all over his face.

My Mother is right in front of me.
"Chiara nice to see you after a month." She says, rudeness lined in her whiny voice.
"What do you want?" I moan.
"I want you home. Where have you been! Who's this? Hi I'm Chiaras Mother, nice to meet you." She questions.
"Oh" Romeo gasps, not shaking her hand and stepping closer to me.

"Away." I said, walking away from the situation. I did not want to cause a scene.
"Chiara, do not walk away from me!" She shouts. Of course she'd cause a scene.
"Mom don't you get it. I moved away from you. You never gave a single shit about me. I moved on from my life here! If you must know I'm living with Dad. In Italy." I bite back.

I didn't feel bad about shouting at her. She didn't even try to make me stay home. If I was able to leave the country, why is she acting to care now. Probably because Romeo is here and she wants to act perfect.

"Chiara Rose Leia you are not walking away. You are staying home with me. This boy needs to go!"
Romeo steps in, "Chiara is staying with me. She's 18 and can do what she wants. She's an adult and she chose to do this. You are not forcing her anywhere. Leave now."
"Excuse me. I don't know who you think you are!" My mother storms. "She is my daughter and she is coming home with me."
"Leave now. Other wise I will call the police."

My mother gasps and storms away, her heels clicking as she gets further away. I try not to let the tears fall but I can't help it. This is exactly why I didn't want to come back here but I had to.

"Come here. I'll call a cab to take us to the hotel." Romeo comforts me. I don't say anything but I just nod. He calls a cab right away and it gets here in 10 minutes. We step in the car and I lean in to Romeo. It's been such a good day until now.

We reach the hotel and I thank the driver. Romeo follows and takes my hand in his as we walk to our room. Neither of us say anything and Romeo unlocks the door. I go straight to the bed and cover myself with the duvet. Silent tears fall in to the pillow.

"Chiara hey. Come here." Romeo pulls me in for a hug. I wrap my arms around his torso and he wraps his around my waist. I cry into his shoulder and I'm probably staining his white tee with running makeup.

"I'm sorry. I don't think you'll be able to wear this T-shirt again it's probably got makeup stains on it." I say with a small laugh. He lets out a little sympathy laugh to make me not feel bad I guess.

"Do you want to talk about it?" He asks sweetly.
"Sure. Um well. You've met both my parents now I guess."
"Yeah...I guess" he says rubbing the back of his neck.
"Anyways well it has always been me and her growing up. She would always control everything. I wasn't allowed to be out past 7:30, I had to come straight home after school, I had to look perfect when I was allowed to go out. I never followed half of her rules. I would stay out from 10 in the morning and not come home until late. I wouldn't take my phone out with me. I wouldn't tell her where I went."

"We would move around all the time. I never had a constant in my life. Like I said before when I was 14, she forced James to 'break up' with me, she made him ignore me and then we moved because she didn't like the idea of me hanging out with people. I don't know what her deal is. She's so fucking strict and I'm sick of her."

My tears start again and Romeo hugs me tighter. He tells me to stop talking about her and he suggests that we watch friends. He flicks through the channels and I settle down. In the adverts I decide to pull out my phone and there's a text message from Rose.

'How are you? Call me I miss you!' It reads. I mute the volume of the TV and FaceTime Rose. Romeo walks up behind me and gets in the camera. Rose picks up straight away.

"Hey girly!" She says cheerfully.
"Hi Rose." I reply.

We talk about our day and I exclude all parts of my Mother from the conversation. I can't even mention it otherwise I'll break down again. I tell her all about my place at the lake and Romeo sends her a few pictures. She compliments me and I blush.

We say our goodbyes and Romeo shows me his screen. It's from when we were at the lake. It's a video of me dancing to 'Somebody to you" by the vamps and I cringe. I didn't even know he was filming.

He comes up to dance to in the video and I'm glad that he did film it. It was such an amazing moment. I can watch him singing 'Let it go' by James bay whenever I want and can relive the moment.

Then the video goes on and we kissed. All the feelings I felt that moment come back and I look away. Not because I regret it but because I know I'm blushing so bad watching it.

"I loved today." Romeo says dragging my chin to look at his face.