How You Get 'Em

Chapter Four

It wasn't just raining. It was pouring. Hurricane style was more like it.

Trees creaked and bent, their leaves rippling from the wind that showed no mercy on them. Through the screen of my open bedroom window, a dewy mist blew through the tiny squares, dampening my hair as I sat on the bench attached to it, staring out at the wooded land that stretched acres past the back of my mother's house. Times like these made me miss the quiet and calm, but I wouldn't trade it for the freedom I had now.

Time was forgotten as the storm carried on with the occasional claps of thunder and strikes of lightning, my mind filling with the events of yesterday afternoon. The middle of my palm still tingled from where a pair of lips touched it, and that had been all I'd been able to think about since then. It was impossible to stay in that house afterwards, so I made my escape, using a stomach ache as an excuse and feeling horribly guilty later on for running like a coward.

What did he mean by it? Was I thinking too much into it? It was only a simple kiss, in a place that wasn't even really intimate. People kissed all the time, but why did this one feel like it was the start of something that would end horribly?

The possibilities of what it meant were put on hold as I showered and dressed, surprised at how my mother hadn't woken me or come to complain about how I'd slept in. She was probably still hung up on the whole me being a lesbian thing.

Down in the kitchen, she was dressed in a dress and heels with a full face of makeup on, a mug of coffee connected to her mouth. Her eyes never lifted to acknowledge me, but she set the cup down and closed the newspaper she'd been reading, moving to slip on her raincoat and grab her car keys from the hook next to the door leading to the garage. With a grip on the handle, she paused to look back at me before opening the door, saying, "I'm stopping by the florist to make sure everything is set for tomorrow and meeting your aunt at the funeral home. Do something productive while I'm gone, and for the love of God, put a bra on. One looks like it's trying to hit Mexico and the other Canada."

Even I had to laugh at that after she slipped out the door. It wasn't my fault that my chest was a little on the larger side with a mind of its own, but the not wearing a bra was understandable. The feeling was just liberating and now that I didn't have to worry about scaring Stephan in our apartment, I was going to let it all hang out. And boy did it feel damned good.

Minutes ticked on and it had been a while since I'd been left alone in the kitchen, and other than the rain pounding on the roof and sloshing against the windows, the silence was deafening, causing me to get lost in my scattered thoughts.

Loud lion roars coming from my midsection snapped me from my daydreams of a certain bar owner's son. And like the caring mother she was, Dianne left me with nothing to eat before she left, though there was a frying pan with the remnants of eggs in the sink. Was it too hard to add two more to the pan? Only a couple more days, I had to remind myself.

She might not have been the nicest or most sentimental person, but I was surprised to find that my mother had kept the birthday gift I'd given her a few years ago. After some exploring around the house, I found it sat on either side of the television stand in the living room, unplugged, but the stereo system was still there with a thin layer of dust coating it. Even if I hadn't spent hundreds of dollars on it for her to loosen up to the sound of music, I would've still been surprised to find that she'd actually kept a gift from me. Normally, they were nowhere to be found.

Well, if she won't use it, I will. I grinned to myself, rushing over to untangle its cords. When done, I hooked up my phone, scrolling down to find the song Harlem by the band New Politics before setting it to repeat.