The Second I Met You ✔

Chapter 6

As I walked through the door, Rachel and Mark are both ready and they're on the couch talking. Walking up the stairs I'm stopped mid-way when Rachel calls out my name.

"Emma, what happened?" I can see she's trying to hold in her laughter so is Mark. I look down to see my sweatpants and shirt all smeared with sauce from when Matt put me over his shoulder and my face all covered with sauce when he wiped sauce on my face. Looking at myself in the mirror on the wall from downstairs I laugh letting them know it's okay if they laugh too.

"Matt and I maybe have gotten into a food fight but the good thing is that we finished dinner before that, I'm gonna go shower"

"Okay" she sits back down on the couch and I hear them laugh when I walk up the stairs.

After my long shower, I decide to wear high waisted jeans, black tank top with a grey cardigan and black low heels leaving my hair natural and did my makeup, going back downstairs this time Sophia was already down there. Walking over to his front porch we are greeted by Matt himself, opening the door wider to let us in he hugs both Rachel and Sophia but shakes hands with my uncle, me being the last one to be greeted he wraps his arms around me pulling me towards him giving me a quick peck before releasing me and grabbing my hand to walk over to the dining room. I walk around the table to hug Clarissa and Daniel before sitting down at the table. My uncle and Daniel are sitting on the chairs of the ends of the table, on their right sides were Rachel and Clarissa and on their left, Matt and Sophia while I'm in between them leaving the seat in the middle of Rachel and Clarissa empty. We start eating having a great time not awkward at all between us laughing at jokes and different conversations, well that was until I ruined it. 

"I'm so glad Matt found a daughter like yours," Clarissa says towards Rachel and Mark, the table falls silent while they exchange looks and me with Sophia, Clarissa sees our sudden tension raising an eyebrow looking worried that she said something she wasn't supposed to. 

"Ohh um Emma was my sister's, she's our niece" Mark pointed out, Clarissa does an 'O' shape only for her to change her gaze towards me looking at me in pity a look I've gotten good at recognizing this is why I don't want people knowing about my parent's death they look at me differently. 

"Was?" not her fault for asking but I started to lose it. 

"Mom!" Matt says making that was the last thing I hear before I start zoning out to a memory of my parents.

Flashback

I look around my surroundings and I immediately recognize being back home in my backyard in Chicago. I see the little sitting area around the campfire and the pool of the right and I see my parents and me, we are eating outside like we occasionally do. My mom and I are laughing about something that happened at my dad's work. I told my parents about Miranda, my best friend, making a mess in the lab at school looking at a guy while pouring chemicals, she got detention but luckily she got the guys number. My parents both laughed and my mom asked when was it my turn to get a guy's number, in the meantime, I was drinking so at the mention of 'boyfriend' I choked on my drink while my dad told my mom not to give me any ideas. I look around once again enjoying what's around me but he memory was stripped away because now I'm in a car feeling the familiar pain in my stomach only to notice the car in front of us heading towards us. "DAD WATCH OUT!" I screamed just to be back into darkness. 

End of Flashback

Remembering the accident doesn't help the situation, I'm used to seeing them at night but during the day they feel more real. It feels like I was just there, I try to think of it as just a nightmare but it's a memory that haunts me forever. 

"Babe, you okay?" Matt asks looking worried and I look around the table and everybody has the same expression as Clarissa except for Matt he has never looked at me with pity but I can't take it anymore. I can't have the mother of my boyfriend be another person that looks at me like that.