The Knowing Secret

Chapter 13

The dinner party was going well that night. I stayed at the table with my family so I would stay out of any trouble. I had seen Sara earlier, but I was trying my best to stay out of her way. She loved having a reason to get dressed up; it didn't matter if it was to honor someone she didn't like.

I hadn't seen Jay, then again I was trying to avoid seeing him. I could feel him and I knew he saw me. I also knew he wouldn't want to make small talk with my parents right now with all that had been going on between us. So again staying at the table was safe.

My parents had put me in charge of Leah that night. I was to make sure she was entertained so that she wouldn't get restless. I was completely okay with sitting there playing tic-tac-toe with her because it also kept me busy. I also thought it was my mom's way of keeping me out of trouble.

About three quarters of the way through the dinner, and after our millionth tic-tac-toe game my mom said, "Riley, why don't you get up and walk around. You've been sitting here all night. I saw Jay earlier, I'm sure he'd want to hang out for a little."

I wanted to say no, that I was okay sitting at the table, but I knew if I said that she would assume I was just giving her an attitude for making me come. So I took a deep breath and replied, "Alright, I could stretch my legs." I forced a smile as I stood up. I didn't want to talk to Jay, especially after the flowers he sent, and with what happened with Sam. The thought of Sam made me sigh. I knew he was upset about what he thought he saw, and I knew I would have to explain it to him, if he would even listen to me. I also knew I had no way to get a hold of him and the next time I would see him was tomorrow evening at work. So all I could do was wait until then and try not to stress too much about it. So instead of talking to Jay like my mom suggested, I walked around the edge of the room and quickly ducked into the bathroom.

I figured I could wait in the bathroom long enough that my mom would think I was hanging with Jay. After leaning up against the wall for a minute I wanted to smack myself for forgetting to grab my purse, which had my cell phone in it. At least if I had that I could play a game or something. With nothing else to do I walked over and looked in the mirror. My mom made me wear a dark blue sleeveless dress with a silver beaded brooch in the middle right below my breast. The dress hugged my body and ended an inch above my knees. My mom did my hair in a loose classy up-do and on my feet were her dark blue high heel sandals. I felt like I was a doll my mom dressed up. I knew she enjoyed dressing me up, but I couldn't wait to get home and change into sweats.

I spun around at the sound of the door opening. "Great, it's you," I muttered when I saw Sara walk in the door.

"Riley Austin, I almost forgot you were even here," she smirked as she pushed her way to the mirror.

"Wish I could say the same," I mumbled under my breath and turned to walk out of the bathroom.

"I guess it's a good thing Sam had to work tonight." She went on as if she didn't hear me. "We wouldn't want more of your jealousy drama here."

I stopped at the door and turned to say, "Sam wouldn't go anywhere with you."

"Really?" She laughed. "Then why did he show up at my door this afternoon with flowers to apologize and asking for another chance?"

I froze and thought back to when Sam showed up at my house and remembered a small detail I had over looked. When I saw Sam standing there he was holding what looked like a dozen red roses mixed with baby's breath. "Flowers?" I asked quietly.

"A dozen roses. It was beautiful," she said. "I asked him to come along tonight; too bad he had to work."

When she said that I knew she wasn't lying and I could feel the joy she was getting out of telling me this. Instead of responding I quickly turned and headed out the door. Before the door closed I heard her starting to laugh. I started to head quickly across the room back to my table. I had glanced behind me to see if Sara had left the bathroom yet and I hit the edge of the tray of glasses someone was holding, causing me to trip and get whatever was in the glasses spilt all over me.