How To Train Your Boyfriend

Chapter 25: What Now?

What Now?

"You need to get your head out of the clouds."

My mother's voice, stern and steady, jolted me from my adventure back in time. I hadn't realized how deep I had let myself go until I blinked away the tears that formed in my eyes.

Enough, Sutton. You're over that.

I was sitting at the dinner table. It was ten o'clock and I had already been scolded and forgiven for being out so late with James. My mother's typically thirty-minute long telling off was cut short. Perhaps the idea of graduation being so close had made her more lenient. Or, more likely, she was saving her breath for an entirely different lecture, one that didn't involve wasting my night away but, instead, wasting my life away.

"What are you talking about?" I asked, turning to face her.

She was in her sweatpants. It was a rare sight, even for me, but she wore them well. My mom didn't seem guarded or cold when she has her sweatshirts on and her hair down. She looked like a mom: normal, nurturing, and warm. It was her voice that gave her away.

"College, Sutton," she said, wiping off a dish with a towel. "You need to decide what you want to do. Before it's too late."

"You can go in undecided, mom."

This wasn't the first time we had had this conversation. For as long as I could remember, I never knew the answer to the oldest of questions: what do you want to be when you grow up? I honestly was never sure. It was not that my answers changed, it was that I was eternally uncertain about every last one of them. Princess? But what if I grew tired of the dresses? Astronaut? But what if I get home sick? Doctor? That seems like a lot of work.

"You need to figure it out sometime," she replied. "Better start thinking now."

To be fair I was thinking, just not about that future.

I was thinking of my future with James. And Sean. And Mia, Theo, and Francie. I was focused on the future that seemed more present, the one I cared more about. My college major didn't seem nearly as important as the relationships I was slowly but surely destroying.

I checked my phone to see if Sean responded to my latest text. He hadn't. I sent him a message the moment I got out of James' car, asking him to meet me at my house so that we could talk. I didn't know what I wanted to say to him, not exactly. I just wanted to see him. I wanted to see if there was still a chance we could be together.

What happened with James left me completely unsure. I didn't know where I stood with James, nor Sean, nor Mia. Of course, I knew where I wanted to stand. I wanted to want to be with Sean. I wanted to want to for Mia and James to be happy together. But the selfish part of my being, the honest part, was screaming at the thought of that being my future. Me and Sean. Mia and James. It made me feel as though someone took an ice cream scoop and scooped out my insides.

"Mom," I said, surprising myself with my own voice. "When did you realize that you liked dad?"

I never asked my mother about her and my father's marriage. It wasn't that I was never curious, because I was. I just always knew that those were not the kind of questions I could ask my her. She never warned me away from talking about it, or avoided the subject herself, emotions were simply not her forte. Asking her about her own feelings was like asking the blind about their favorite color. The question was unsuitable.

But in that confusing, twisted moment, I figured my mother's input would be better than no input at all.

"I always liked your father," Mom said, not looking up from the dishes. "I never had a reason to dislike him."