Forever & Always

Chapter 19

My mom was busy unpacking her bag when I slowly made my way down the stairs, Shane following close behind me. I told him to wait out of sight for a minute, while I broke the news slowly that this meeting was about to happen. He stayed and I walked into the kitchen, where my mother was unpacking the empty containers from the lunch she had brought for the day.

"Hey, honey," she sad with a tired smile. "How was school? No one was giving you any trouble today, right?" 

I laughed, waving her off. "Mom, I think you've scared them into submission."

She laughed at me sarcastically. "Ha ha, very funny. I wasn't that threatening. I could've been so much worse, trust me," she said rinsing out the dishes. 

I was nervous, I wasn't going to lie to you. I was twisting my fingers in my hand and started to play the end of my hair, something I always do when I'm anxious. I didn't even realize that I was this on edge, so when my mom pointed out that I was doing these little neuroses, she knew something was up. 

"Riley, honey, you look so wound up, what is wrong?" She said, resting her hands on the island, looking suddenly very authoritative. 

I took a deep breath and sighed. "Mom, there is someone here that I want you to meet," I confessed. 

She looked at me sideways for a minute, as I walked backwards to make eye contact with Shane and give him the signal to come down. 

Obediently, he came down the stairs and grabbed my hand. We walked back into the kitchen where my mother stared at us, the only change in her expression being wider eyes. I wasn't sure what to say, besides, "Mom, this is Shane," so I blurted that out in a much hastier way than I had originally planned for and left the rest up to her. 

"Oh my God, look at you two," she said, a smile creeping onto her lips. Thank the Lord.

She came over and hugged us both. "Shane, you have grown so much," she said, shocked, looking up him up and down. "I mean, I don't normally curse, but holy shit, this is weird," she laughed. 

I laughed too, more nervous than humorous. 

"God, it's good to see you again," she said, giving him a huge hug. 

"It's good to see you again too, Miss Jackson," he said, returning the hug and shooting me a thumbs up over her shoulder. I winked at him. 

We were in the clear, guys. Yes, at this moment I was tempted to make a Taylor Swift "Out Of The Woods" pun, but I decided against it. However, if you too were thinking that, I'm mentally giving you a high five. 

I left Shane and my mother to talk for a minute, while I went upstairs and cleaned my room up a bit. I was more than happy that they were getting along and that things weren't so awkward since my mother found out about us dating in such a weird way and that so much trouble has been caused since our first date. 

I collected everything and replaced all of the papers back only my desk. I threw my bag over my desk too, since Shane had something planned for this evening and I wasn't going to be doing homework until later. Then, like the typical teenage girl I am, I ran into the bathroom and quickly checked my hair before returning back downstairs. 

Shane was sitting with a glass of water in his hand across the island from my mother as they talked. I stopped right before I would have come into view past the wall of the stairs to listen to what they were saying. 

"Oh Shane, honey, that's really sweet of you," she was saying. "I'm really happy the two of you have reconnected. You know, as soon as I got word about this job, I told Riley there was a chance that you two could reconnect and look at this!" I could tell she was happy, which made me more relieved than I could begin to tell you.