I walked downstairs into my living room where my mom was sitting reading People. I had just got done with talking on the phone with Matt. He was the cutest thing ever. Just the way my name slid off of his tongue made me shiver, and I honestly don't like my name. Yet, he made my name likeable. I slid my hand through my hair and my bangs fell back onto my face. I smiled as I sat down on a recliner, remembering what he said to me. We were laughing so hard about god knows what, when he stopped all of a sudden and said, "I love you. Please marry me," which I responded with, "I love you, too, and of course I'll marry you." It sounds stupid, but that's the kind of relationship we have. We're extremely serious with each other about certain things but then joke around about others. I can't tell which one that was, and that kind of kills me.
"Who were you on the phone with?" my mom asked without even looking up from her magazine. I squeezed my eyes shut, dreading what was about to happen.
"M-Matt," I stuttered.
"Matt who."
"Matt Goodman, but that doesn't matter because you don't know him," I reasoned, being 100% honest.
"What school does he go to?" She shined the lamp that they have in interrogation rooms at my eyes. Oh wait, it was just the sun from the windows behind her. I squinted.
"I don't know, it doesn't really matter to me, it's somewhere in Indiana," I muttered.
"Indiana?! Where did you meet him? The internet?!??" she seethed. "How old is he? Oh that doesn't matter! HE'LL KIDNAP YOU EITHER WAY!" She threw her magazine on the ground.
"I met him on the internet, yes, but he is who he says he is, mom. He's 16." I talked to the desk in front of me, avoiding the sun's rays and my mom's wrath. She dramatically sighed.
"Why would a 16 year old be talking to a 14 year old, anyway? There's nothing there for him! You are both interested in different things at your age and you don't have anything to offer him!" she snapped. I felt the familiar sting of holding back tears. I closed my eyes calmly to avoid overspilling them. I got up and pounded up the stairs back to my room.
I have a lot to offer him. I have a lot to offer in general. But thanks, mom, for reassuring me that I'm worthless. From everything that happened those past few days, high school sounded like a lot of fun, and balancing my judgmental mother and my judgmental peers was only half of the battle.
