'Gail I'm home' the words of my mother, her stilettos tapping on the tiled floor as she walks towards my room. I look up from my book to see her unusually happy face. 'So how was it?' I ask raising my right eyebrow, she forces her left hand up pointing at the diamond ring on her ring finger.
'you brought yourself an overly priced ring?' I ask, she lets out a sigh 'no, I got married !'.I look at her blankly taking in my thoughts, who the hell goes to a stupid high school reunion and gets married, as much as I don’t want to yell at the top of my lungs, I can't help the rage building up inside me 'You what !?' I give her a second to explain before I continue my rant 'did you ever stop to think about how I would react to this?', she looks at the ground in guilt avoiding my eyes 'I umm'. 'What about dad, have you totally forgotten about him!', I take a minute to let her explain calming myself by placing the photo of my old dog jack in my book. 'He was my old boyfriend in high school, we broke up after year twelve, after that I met your father' she paused her frown soon turned into a smile, softly she said 'I love your father I really do, but we just clicked Gail ah it was like magic'. I try to swap my mood for a better one, she was right she does love my father, but maybe this was best for both of us to move forward. 'Do you really like this guy that much?' I ask 'yes I really do, but there's a few things you should know first?'. I start regretting accepting this new arrangement, 'his names Matthew, him and his wife divorced 8 years ago, he has a son who lives with him and he's 2 year older than you.' It didn’t sound that bad so far, he has a son I can deal with that. 'Were moving In with them this weekend,' my mouth instantly made an o shape as my brain tried to process the information. 'oh and where meeting them for lunch in half an hour'. She quickly walked out of my room hastily, to avoid me from having another rant, I was slowly realising this was not going to be a good day
***
As we entered the little café, my mother waved to a pair sitting at a table of four next to the window in the back corner, the older looking male waved back the awkward expression on his face explained to me he was dreading this as much as me. I couldn’t see the other younger males face apart from this short blonde hair. As we walked over to the pair time seemed to slow down as I processed every bit of information, my mother seemed very eager kissing Matthew on the cheek. I sit across from the blonde boy not fully taking in his facial features until I am comfortable in the wooden frame of the chair. I look up to see a pair of deep blue eyes staring into mine, he then quickly looks away his cheeks tint a light pink, his chin has a small dip in it and his hair is not all blonde but some brown streaks through. I fall into my own little world assessing all his features and how familiar they all are, then a light bulb forms around my head as I remember why he's so familiar. He looks at me again smirking proud because I've been staring at him for the last fifty seconds, 'By the way my names' I don’t even let him finish his sentence cause I can finish it for him 'Niall, I know'. He looks startled not having any idea who I am 'I know because you dated my friend Nat'. He still looks confused obvisly not knowing who I am. My mother buts into our little chit chat 'This is my daughter Gail' she smiles 'Hi Gail, I'm Matthew' he says holding out his hand as if wanting me to shake it, ' I know' I say shaking his hand . He gives me the same startled look Niall gave me,' Matt I told her' my mum whispers across the table .
