Not Good Enough (On Hold)

10) Mummy, Daddy & Little Zach

Remind me why I agreed to this again.

Abi and I were heading out of the school gates, towards my house, her arm linking mine, and her fingers entwined with my own ones.

"Is it weird that I'm really excited to meet your family, even though I'm not your girlfriend or anything?" Abi was a bundle of excitement; she had a bounce to her step and kept smiling a huge grin, that lit up her face and made her blue orbs shine with happiness.

At least one of us was happy to see my family, even if it wasn't the one who actually belonged to said family. I was silently praying that my parents, specifically my mother, wouldn't say anything bad about me, or talk me down during dinner - my mother had a bad habit of constantly remaining me that I wasn't good enough at the dinner table.

The thing I wasn't looking forward to was most was mother's reaction to meeting Abi. I didn't know how she would react to me bringing a friend home, especially when that friend was a girl - I had never brought a friend home before, because I never had the need to; both Deeks and Dylan understood my situation at home, so never pressured me into letting them meet my family. I was grateful for having friends as great as them.

"Why are you so tense?" Abi asked as we neared the street I lived on - it was only a fifteen minute walk from Harton.

Abi didn't know what I had to put up with every time I stayed at home; she didn't understand why all the muscles in my body tightened, at the site of my house near the top of Grange Avenue. Had Abi not mentioned that I had tensed up, I wouldn't have noticed myself - that's how used to it I was.

Without bothering to grace her with an answer, I squinted my eyes to the short driveway in front of my house.

My mother's sleek, black Merc CLA was parked on the drive. Fuck! The bitch was home.

I kinda felt bad for calling her all these names, seeing as she was my mum... the woman who gave birth to me, clothed me and fed me, and showed me a modicum of affection by not kicking me out of the house and sending me to some shitty boarding school. Deep, deep down, I still cared for her and wanted her to show me affection like any normal mum would do. But that wasn't likely to happen anytime soon.

Abi stiffened slightly, tightening her grip around my arm and fingers, and leaning slightly further into my frame, as we moved further up the street. I didn't know why she was so nervous all of a sudden, it's not like she knew what my family were truly like, underneath the caring, loving façade they presented to the outside world. She didn't live with them 3 out of the 7 days in a week - I usually spent the other four nights at Deeks' place.

"Now who's the nervous one?" I teased her trying to ease away some of the tension that had developed.

"Shut up," Abi growled. "You're not the one playing the friend's version of meet the parents. What if your parents think I'm some random girl you're messing around with, rather than just a friend?"

The worry was evident on Abi's face; she was genuinely worried about what my family would think of her. Too bad for her though, my mother would probably think that she was some slag I was messing around with.

"Technically, you are some girl I'm messing around with," I informed Abi with a sly grin; I loved teasing her. Abi pouted at my statement.

"Hayden!" Abi whined thumping me on my arm. "I'd like to think that I was your friend before being the girl you like to neck on with!"

I didn't know how to reassure Abi that all her worries were irrelevant, but I didn't know how. Instead, I settled on teasing her, at least that would lighten her mood slightly. I winked at Abi and wrapped my arm around her waist. "Nah. You're always gonna be just the girl I make out with. You do some amazing things with that tongue of yours."