Fall With Me (UIC 2022)

10 - Familiar Places

Sawyer was proud of herself. Over the course of a week, she went to bed at a reasonable hour, got up before noon, and was eating three balanced meals a day. She also put on some weight, filling out the hollows in her cheeks and waist.

As promised, Mom took her to Hillsboro on a shopping spree on Saturday, where Sawyer bought new clothes, three bedding sets, picked up a new rug to replace the rose monstrosity, and upgraded her original cell phone. They even stopped at a nearby comic store after Mom caught Sawyer staring at it longingly.

As it turned out, there were a lot of issues for her to catch up on.

On Sunday, the whole family spent the day going from greenhouse to greenhouse, stuffing Dad's truck bed full of six different varieties of tomatoes, lettuce, broccoli, zucchini, squash, eggplants, and eight strawberry plants. That wasn't counting the vegetables Sawyer just tossed into the wagon on a whim.

During the day, Sawyer worked on her garden. In the evening, she spent time talking with or texting Caleb on his break. There was one thing she hadn't done yet—and that was contact her two best friends. They'd probably be mad at her, but Sawyer wasn't taking any chances someone would overhear and let slip to Alpha Owen that she was back.

Gradually, as the days unfolded, she felt more and more like her old self. She still flinched at strange sounds and kept looking over her shoulder while she was working, however.

"Here," Mom said, dropping a small box onto Sawyer's bed as she stuffed a change of clothes into her old high school backpack.

Sawyer glanced at the box and flushed to the roots of her lavender hair. "M-om," she cried, embarrassed.

"It's a small box!" her mother retorted, a sly smile playing on her lips.

"Goddess!" Sawyer swore as her face burned, snatching up the box of condoms and shoving it into the bottom of the bag. She'd grown up in a sex-positive household, as most werewolves were, but presenting your daughter with an entire box of condoms for an overnight camping trip was overkill. "I guarantee you that Mrs Stillwater didn't do this to Caleb."

"No?" Mom replied with a grin. "Are you sure about that?"

Sawyer's eyes widened. "You two are horrible."

Mom chuckled. "I want to be a grandmother, just not so soon."

Well, they were in agreement there.

"What do you have by way of food?" Mom asked, peering at the snacks strewn across Sawyer's new bed sheets.

"Caleb said he was going to cook us steaks."

"Just steaks?"

Sawyer's brow furrowed. "I think so."

Mom sighed and shook her head. "I'm going downstairs and put together a small salad for you two."

By the time Sawyer went downstairs, not only did her mother have a salad ready in a large Tupperware container, but there was also cheese, pepperoni, crackers, bagels and cream cheese, and a small bottle of orange juice. Plus utensils, plates, and napkins.

"Hi, Mrs Bloodmoon," Caleb called out, entering the house through the sliding glass door with Lee.

Mom paused in her rearranging of Sawyer's backpack to put her hands on her hips and look Caleb up and down. "Caleb Stillwater. Is it true all you were going to feed my daughter was steak tonight?"

Lee began laughing as Caleb blushed. "Yeah, well ..."

"It's a good thing I talked to your mother about this," Mom continued, zipping up Sawyer's backpack.