Behind Classroom Doors II

LXXXVIII- Relationships Are Hard

I walk down stairs to see Shawn staring at the papers on the counter. "Have you been down here all night?" I ask, walking up behind him to start the coffee. It's like six am and he's still down here just debating with himself.

Shawn rubs his face, "Yeah, I couldn't sleep."

I turn him around to face me. "You're thinking too hard."

He chuckles, "I can't help it, Dianne is going to be here in a few hours and I have no idea what to tell her." He leans against the counter, watching me make the both of us some coffee. When he takes his cup he smiles, "I know, we can talk about something else."

"Like what?"

"Like, you moving in with me."

I stop, the last time we talked about moving in together it ended in a fight. "I don't know if we're ready for that yet."

Shawn frowns, "I thought you said you were going to tell people." He's right, when I came back from Ty's and Layla's I mentioned it.

That doesn't change the fact that I don't think we should move in with each other. "We can talk about telling a few of my friends, but my parents would never go for it." If I'm being honest it's my parents that I'm actually worried about. They could tell the school and get Shawn fired if they wanted to.

He drinks from his cup, "Your parents love me."

"Yeah as my teacher, not my boyfriend."

Shawn gets close to me, wrapping his arms around my waist and pulling me in. I look up at him, "Okay." He simply says, leaning down and kissing my forehead. "I'm going to go for a run and clear my head. Maybe I'll have an answer about what I want to do by the time I come back."

"I'll take the time to catch up on my history assignments." I smirk.

Shawn pulls away from me with a grin, "If you need help, I make a great tutor." He says as he walks away to get changed.

Shawn comes back an hour later to shower and get dressed. He still hasn't told me what he decided on, if he even has. The doorbell rings at nine am. I know it's Dianne, so I take the liberty in opening the door and letting her in. "I guess he hasn't signed the papers yet." She notices after looking at them still sitting on the countertop.

I shake my head, "Not yet."

Dianne nods curtly and sits down on the couch. She crosses her legs and looks pointedly at me. "I don't know why he's being so stubborn about this. I was trying to do something nice for him."

I sit beside her on the couch, not sure if what I'm about to say will go over well. "I think the problem is that you waited a long time to start being nice."

She stares at me, wide eyed and slightly flustered. "I don't know what Shawn told you but I-"

"I like you, Dianne." I interrupted. "I like you but I know Shawn's side to it now. I know you stopped being his mother when he was nine. So coming back, years later trying to reconnect with him isn't going to work. Especially if your way of reconnecting is to buy his trust back." I can understand that she doesn't know what else to do, but to me the answer is clear as day. She just needs to get to know him, and be his mom again.

Dianne sniffles, wiping the water away from under her eyes. "You're right." Is all she responds with.

Once Dianne calms down a bit, Shawn walks down with a black pen in his hand. I stand up, "You're going to sign it?" I ask.

Shawn nods, "Yes, Matt's house is mine and he would want it to stay with me. That'll be a lot easier to do if it's paid off already." It looks like his run did wonders.