rumour has it | ✓ [ old version ]

「 eighteen 」

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

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I breath in the fresh air as I begin to walk down the pathway and toward our mailbox. I'm still in pain and my period hasn't gone away and I hate it for that. It's been here since yesterday and it's over stayed it's welcome and it needs to leave now. The sun above me shines down on everything below as I reach my mailbox. I open it up and take the envelopes and the junk mail that is inside the small box.

As I turn around, my eyes notice Mitchell's mother who is kneeling down on the ground, removing the weeds from the dirt in front of her. Gloves cover her hands whilst a straw hat keeps the sun from out of her face, maybe if I move quickly without making any noise, she won't notice I'm here. I begin to make my way up to my door, not wanting to draw attention to myself, but I stop when someone calls out my name.

"Faye? Is that you?." Mrs Preston asks.

I put on a fake smile before turning around to face her "hello Mrs Preston." I say as I walk closer to her, not wanting to wake those around us by our yelling just so we could hear each other. I didn't look presentable enough to be talking with Mrs Preston; all I'm wearing is Minnie Mouse covered shorts and a plain black tank top.

Mrs Preston wipes away the sweat on her forehead "honey, you're dating my son, so I think it's safe to say that you can call me Natalie." She orders and I give her a small smile, one that isn't fake. Oh if only she knew the half of it.

"Do you need any help?." I ask her.

Why? Why? Why did you do that? I hate gardening and me being on my period isn't going to make me like it at all. Natalie looks around the garden and at all the weeds she needs to pull out from the ground. My dad nor I do the gardening at our house because we have a gardener and both of us are either busy or just lazy to go in the garden and do it ourselves.

"If you don't mind dear, that would be great." She tells me "there are gloves over there in that bucket." She says, pointing to the bucket that stands in the middle of the grass. As she returns back to pulling out the weeds, I walk to the bucket and grab the blue and pink gloves before putting them on the correct hand. I then return to Natalie and kneel down beside her. I am have no idea what I'm doing.

"What are we doing?." I ask.

Natalie chuckles "just pull out the weeds from their roots otherwise they'll grow back and if there're too hard to pull out just use this-." She pauses and holds up a tool that looks like a bigger version of a fork "and that should get them out." She finishes and I nod my head, understanding what she's saying. I can do this, it doesn't seem to hard.

I begin to do what she explained as silence falls between the two of us. I still hate it, but it isn't as bad as I thought it'd be. Yes, there are some weeds that are stubborn and refuse to leave the ground, but there are some that make it easier and just allow me to pull them out. A few moments pass and we make our way around the garden, goodness I didn't know that there was so much weed.

"You know my son isn't as bad as you've made him out to be." Natalie says out of nowhere.

"I'm sorry?." I reply, confused by her words. Where is all this coming from? And how did I end up getting myself into this situation?

"He's a good boy." Natalie begins "he may seem hardheaded and full of himself, but beyond that, he's a boy who loves and cares for his family. Yes, I will admit my son is an idiot-." Her words make me chuckle "but that's just one of his many flaws, we all have them and it's about what lies beyond those imperfection that make those who know him love him." She finishes and I smile at Natalie.

I can see Natalie clearly loves her son. It makes me jealous, I don't know what it's like to have a mum speak so fondly of me. To have a mum who loves me so much that she has a love filled smile on her features just like Natalie has. I don't have my biological mum or even my foster mum, both left me because they didn't want me.

"You sound like you really love your son." I state.

Natalie smiles "I do." She sighs "I just want to thank you Faye for looking past his flaws and seeing the good boy he is, he needs someone like you to keep him in check." She tells me and isn't that the truth. Mitchell is a hurricane and can get out of control if someone doesn't keep him in check like Natalie says, but I don't think that's me. I haven't looked past his flaws, I've hated him since our first meeting, but I didn't get to really know him before hating him.

"Why are you telling me all this?." I ask her.

"Well we were bound to have the talk where I tell you not to hurt my son, but I know you. You're a good girl Faye who wouldn't hurt anyone unless given a reason to and I can see what caused my son to fall for you." She replies and my cheeks flush at her kind words, but clearly she doesn't know the full story "I kind of saw you two as a couple even while you hated each other." She finishes the sentence.

My eyes widen "why?." Is all I can ask.

"There's a reason why many say that polar opposites attract." She simply answers. It's true that Mitchell and I are polar opposites, but that's the reason why we hate each other. He's an outgoing, annoying boy who enjoys pushing people over and acting as if he's the king of the world while I prefer to stay to myself and keep my nose out of everyone's business, I stay with the friends I already have because I don't feel the need to make new ones and I don't act as if I'm superior to everyone.

But us being polar opposites doesn't mean we're attracted to each other, those are the reasons we hate one another. Natalie said, I looked past his flaws, but I didn't. Maybe I judged him too quickly, maybe I took his first impression as a peak into who he really is without getting to know him probably.

Who is Mitchell Preston?