Fallen for you

Part VII

"Oh, my god! I hate you!" a feisty youngster yelled at her mother before slamming the door in her face.

I bet being a mom is hard, right?

I've never met mine.

I have heard so much about her, though.

My dad used to tell me she was the greatest form of a human he's ever met and I never understood that phrase.

I always thought it's weird that he didn't have any pictures of her, but I realize now my dad wasn't a regular person.

I was told that I have the same big red curls that she had, and that I got my honey-brown eyes from her, so I always imagined her kind of like me, but older.

Sometimes I tried talking to her, as a young kid I kinda hoped that she'd just reappear one day and stay with me forever.

As I grew up that hope faded away, but it will always linger in me.

I jumped out of my seat and walked towards the young mom who was just yelled at by her own daughter, she was now sitting in Butterfly Café while her daughter went across the street.

"Hey, are you okay?" I asked carefully.

"You saw that, huh?" she asked looking down at her cup of coffee.

I hesitated for a minute but decided, eventually, to sit across from her.

"I did, I actually wanna apologize in the name of your daughter, I am sure she doesn't mean that." I said smiling at her.

"Sometimes I am actually not sure of it, like, does she actually hate me? I feel like I have raised a monster and she's only fourteen!" the woman said with an agonized look on her face.

I felt genuinely bad for her.

"I'm sure she doesn't, it's just a phase, she'll grow out of it; I know I did." I answered.

She finally raised her gaze and looked me in the eye.

"I'm Jennifer, Jennifer Wang" she said, smiling at me and reaching out her hand.

She looked like she was about thirty- which was weird considering she had a daughter who's fourteen.

She was tall and skinny; she had short, black hair and was wearing a bright pink and white pantsuit.

"I'm Halo Moretti" I replied with a grin and shook her hand.

We sat there and talked for a long time, I found out I have so much in common with her, it was incredible!

She told me how her father is Chinese and her mom is white, how she is actually thirty one and made a stupid mistake when she was 17- got knocked up, but wanted to keep the child- Emma, the feisty rebellious teenager we already know.

At some point Stewart joined in and it was a great afternoon overall.

Stewart and I exchanged numbers with her, and Stewart was quick to open a group chat of us three.

As we were talking I got a call from Richard.

"hey Rich, is everything okay?" I asked when the first thing I heard was him saying "hold the napkin to your nose" in the background.

"I think you should get here halo, things aren't looking good." He said, sounding like he was doing a million things while speaking to me.

I felt like something was seriously wrong, my stomach just turned and my throat was dry.