Raura's Daughter

three.

Ross' POV

Sunday morning had rolled around much quicker than I had expected it to. The weekend that I'd spent with Isabella had been perfect in every sense of the word but after a quick cuddle and a baby food breakfast together, I sadly had to take my little girl back home to the Marano's household.

I sat at the small coffee table in the living room with a pencil in my hand and what felt like a million sheets of paper to fill out beneath me. I was finally taking a music class for my last year of high school. I'd been desperate to take a class for years and finally they'd accepted my submission form, or in other words, Mr Swan had. I'm not sure if it was a guilt trip scenario where he felt sorry for me after becoming a young father and splitting up with Laura, but either way I was extremely grateful to be in such an awesome class. I won't deny how hard the work is though, it's definitely a lot to take on.

I squinted at the series of questions on my paper and I began to wonder when the hell we had been taught half of the topics that I was coming across. I was finding it slightly harder to concentrate than usual because Rydel and Ratliff were sitting extremely close to me on one of the couches discussing wedding plans and what people they should avoid inviting to the ceremony.

"So I was thinking of this dress with rose petal detailing around the waistline." Rydel announced excitedly to Ratliff who was sitting beside her on the couch looking completely bored out of his brains. "Babe! Aren't you listening? This wedding has to be perfect!"

Ratliff glanced at me with a quick roll of his eyes as he wrapped his arm tightly around Rydel's shoulder. "Baby you know that I care about this wedding but that's all we talk about lately. Can't we act like a regular teenage couple for a little while?"

"It's not all we talk about!" Rydel scowled as she pouted her lips and folded her arms across her chest in a child like fashion. "At least I care about it."

Before the two of them could start an argument, I decided to intervene. "Delly, you both care about each other and this wedding equally. If you didn't you wouldn't be sat there discussing it for hours on end every single day."

Ratliff smiled at me as he stood up from the couch with the wedding planner in his hands. He dropped it carelessly onto one of the spare coffee tables and shrugged his shoulders at my older sister, who sat with her mouth wide open and her hands on top of her head. "You did not just drop that!"

As Rydel chased Ratliff angrily around the living room I decided to give up with my studies for music altogether. I had other things on my mind, more important things; or as my father liked to say, social things. "I'm going out for a walk to clear my head!" I called out to whoever could have been listening. To my surprise, nobody was.

I closed the front door gently behind me and inhaled the sweet September air. As I strode through the various different parks and sights my mind began to wander to places it had never been before. Since Laura and I had decided to go our separate ways I'd done nothing but avoid the subject of thinking about her, discussing her or seeing her. It wasn't that the love I had for her had faded or that it had been buried somewhere, never to be recovered again. I suppose I was just to terrified to open that door with Laura again, I didn't want it to end badly like it had done the first time. After all, we had Isabella to think about, it would be selfish to make her think that we would be a family again when it was a fifty percent chance of happening.

You see, the conclusion that I have come to in the last eight months that Laura and I have spent apart is that you can go years without seeing the one you used to love, but the moment you lock eyes and have to talk to them again in a full length conversation, that's the moment you know that you're still madly in love with them.