Foolish Summer | ✔

17 • S T E P H E N • 🙄

I was being strangled. My mom didn't seem to care as she tightened the tie around my neck.

"The Lawrence's will be here in about an hour," she said, folding down the collar of my shirt. I gave up trying to dress myself, apparently nothing I did was quite perfect enough for her.

"You know if it's an open bar?"

She stopped messing with my shirt long enough to slit her eyes at me. "Stephen, none of your usual antics. When you're out in public you're representing our entire family. Don't make us look like fools."

Of course. Everything always came down to how the public perceived us. All my usual grievances about that piled up on my tongue, but I bit them back. It wasn't in me to have that fight again.

After embarrassing myself in front of Waverly last night I knew for sure my game was off. She did something to me. In just a short few weeks she had me questioning myself. I never wanted a serious relationship, but the idea of having Waverly at my side didn't sound too bad.

Shit, at that point I would've even settled at just being her friend. Anything just to have her in my life.

"Yeah, okay," I told her.

She tilted her head to the side, eyes questioning.

"What?"

She lightly shook her head smoothing her hands over the shoulders of my suit jacket. "Nothing. Just admiring the fact that you're not in sports wear."

"Happy to know my suffering isn't in vain," I mumbled, loosening my tie a bit. When my mom narrowed her eyes at me I reminded her I needed to be able to breathe.

"Anyways, I'll be downtown looking at dresses with Alicia."

I tried not to roll my eyes. It was really happening. She had the venue, the colors, flowers and after that day she might have had the dress. I was hoping she'd realize how dumb it all was before anything finalized.

Then I realized what she said.

"Just you two?" I asked before I could stop myself.

"Yes. I decided to give Waverly and her friend some time off," she said, smoothing out none existent wrinkles on my suit. "They're young, they should be enjoying their summer not spending all of it planning a wedding. They said they planned on going to the beach."

That was uncharacteristically nice of her.

"Don't look at me like that," she said, placing her hand on her hip. "I can be nice when I want to."

"So, you choose to make my life hell?"

"Yes." She started to leave my room. "Don't mess this up, okay, Stephen? Make the right choices."

That was...weird. Maybe the wedding coming together had started to soften her up? Whatever it was had me on edge. I knew how to handle my mom when she was angry, but her being nice? It was foreign territory.

Shaking it off, I grabbed my phone from the charger and saw a few texts from Dev. Last night I gave him a heads up about my mom trying to set me up with Vanessa.

Dev:

Why would I care?

She hates you almost as much as she hates me

And you're still hung up on Waverly so I know nothing is going to happen

Even Dev noticed that since Waverly entered my life I haven't been myself. How was it possible for one person to come in and unravel everything you thought you were?