Love Bites [on hold]

☆|four

☆ picture of Natalie's outfit above

It didn't take her too long to get ready for the so-called 'date'. There was plenty of time left after she had found out, but who was she kidding? That was Natalie. She had to procrastinate until the last minute.

After having a giant mug of latte, she changed into her yoga pants and tanktop. She slipped on her running shoes, plugged in her earphones and went out for a run.

She had been running for so long now, almost ten years. At first, she did it only when she had been through an embarrassing or frustrating incident and she needed to clear her mind on her own, but after a while it became more of a habit to her. She couldn't skip a day without jogging around the neighbourhood. She had grown extremely familiar with their street by now that she could wander about it with her eyes closed.

When she was back home, her parents were both nowhere to be found. Her father was probably at work in his multi-national company while her mother spent the morning with other rich housewives whose husbands were too busy to give them even a small chunk of their time. She grabbed a big bag of ruffles from the pantry and headed upstairs to her room.

There, she did every silly activity that could cross someone's mind: she followed the instructions of a video to do some flat-belly exercises, danced along to Zumba on her brother's console, sang along to sappy romantic ballads despite her heinous voice, had a chicken wrap for lunch and surfed the web on her phone because she was too lazy to plug in her laptop.

Finally, around thirty minutes before Charles was supposed to show up, and after the multiple, vigorous knocks on her bedroom door, Hannah came in and kicked her lazy ass off the bed. She huffed and muttered a string of curse words as she made her way to the bathroom to take a shower. She wasn't exactly sure when the last time she showered was. Her mother said it had been ten days, but for some reason she couldn't believe her.

"What are you going to wear?" Hannah's voice boomed as soon as she stepped foot back into the room. She looked around, but no sign of her mother was to be seen. The lights to her closet were on, and she stepped forward, only to find her sitting down crouched over one of the drawer sets, fumbling through the articles of clothes.

She pulled out a red, cashmere top and held it up in front of her. "God, who in their right state of mind would buy this?"

Natalie rubbed her wet head with the tips of her fingers and looked around. She hadn't been here in so long. "Uh, you?"

And it was true. Her mother had bought that top. In fact, she had bought every single piece of clothing in that room. She was even the one to pick the theme of the hardwood and the paint on the walls. Natalie never saw interest in shopping for clothes, so someone had to do that job for her instead. Her mother had volunteered, but it didn't really help the situation that she was a shopaholic.

Hannah folded the top and put it back in its place. "Whatever," She mumbled, then turned on her heels to face her. She rose her head to look at her and repeated her question. "What are you going to wear?"

"I don't know," Natalie replied and threw her hand in.the air. "Where am I even going?"

Please, don't let it be a restaurant.

She hated restaurants. She didn't see the point in spending her time in one. It was a waste of time, money and privacy. Why couldn't people just eat at home?

"You're going to a restaurant," Hannah replied, and her mouth transformed into a wide grin.

Of course she was.

"I don't recall its name in particular, but I think it was a fancy one," She went on. Then her eyes gleamed. "No, like a really fancy one. I wish your Dad was that thoughtful back when we first met."