Sophomore Year || Parenthood Series, Book One || WATTYS 2018

Chapter Fifty-Four

SOUNDTRACK: "Cambridge" - Kina Grannis

"You know, you'd think that the AP exams would qualify as final exams," Jared remarked as he shifted Kate's heavy AP Chemistry textbook out of his way to sit on her bed.

"Yeah. One would think," she muttered, scrawling down a definition and highlighting it in bright blue ink. "What do you need?" she asked, looking at him.

He blinked. "Oh! I just wanted to check in and see how you were handling studying," he said, surveying the large spread of notebooks, textbooks, and the occasional pen or pencil.

"Well, this is it," she smiled weakly. "Exams are in a couple weeks. At least I got all of this shit compiled for the APs. I don't have to do anything but review it."

Kate had finished her AP exams and felt like she had done remarkably well. Jared was impressed that she managed to handle all of the stress pulling her in different directions. Though she didn't have soccer practice with Winterlake during the exam cycle, she did have practice in Santa Clarita. Jared knew his schedule was busy, but Kate gave the term a whole new definition.

"That's good, though right?" he asked, flipping through the Calculus book in front of him. The letters and numbers swam together and he shook his head.

"I have to leave for practice in twenty minutes. Is there something else you needed?" she asked, standing.

"I did want to remind you about our Mother's Day plans," he said as she disappeared into her closet.

"Right. Mother's Day," she replied softly, her voice muffled by the clothing surrounding her.

He knew it would be hard. Rachel had taken a turn for the worse right after Mother's Day last year. It was the last holiday Kate had spent with her - she was gone a month later. But he wanted to give her new memories to have for that day.

"Shannon wanted to know if there was anything you wanted to do. You know. For your mom," he said.

Kate shook her head. "I don't want to."

"It's okay to miss her, you know. It's okay to talk about her," Jared said gently. "There's so much about her that I don't know. I'd love to learn more."

She shrugged and sat on the bed to pull on a pair of knee socks. "What do you want to know?"

Jared had never really given it much thought. Rachel was kind of like this long lost relative he felt obligated to know things about, even though he barely remembered her. It would be nice to know more about her, especially since she was Kate's mother. But more importantly, he didn't want Kate to feel as though Rachel was a taboo subject around him, that he didn't like hearing about her or he felt threatened or insulted whenever she brought her up.

"I don't know. What was her favorite color?" he asked casually.

"Yellow," she replied automatically.

"What type of food did she like the most?"

"Thai," Kate said. "She loved the Pad Thai at this restaurant a couple blocks away from our house. We went there a couple times a month. The waiters knew us by name."

He smiled at the image. "What about a movie? Did she have a favorite movie?"

Kate sighed. "I don't really want to talk about this right now. I've got to get ready for practice."

He could sense the irritation in her voice and remained silent. She stacked her books and shoved them into her backpack. When she was done, she zipped it up and slung it over her shoulder.