You're Probably Fine There

ii. if this is calm or if this is the storm

The rest of the day was remarkably Luke Patterson free, which Stella used to not to think about they're early morning interaction, instead favoring her usual, casual solitude. By the time the final bell rang, she was bolting for her locker, just to get out of the building, so over the lights and noise. She got there in one piece as she fisheed out her board and did her final notes change so she could pretend that she had homework when it was convenient. Despite the fact that she had done all of the immediate homework about two periods ago because she didn't want to pay attention in the art class where she'd already finished the menial project with way too many rules that their teacher considered worthwhile "art", that the class had been working on. She weaved her way through bodies and pushed her way out the door and onto the sidewalk. After clearing school grounds, she put her board down and started skating at a casual pace as she made her way home. She ignored the anxiety that always gnawed at the back of her brain that was her natural survival concerns, despite the fact that she had run this route for forever and while she couldn't quite do it in her sleep, she was getting pretty damn close to being able to.

After about 30 minutes of skating that would be 10 by car, she made it home. Her mom's car was in the driveway and Stella smiled slightly at it. She popped off the board and grabbed it as she walked to the front door, swinging her bag off her back slightly to fish out her house key. With a little bit of tugging because the lock was a bit stubborn, she stepped into the house.

"Mom, it's a burglar with a key!" Stella called into the house.

"Kitchen!" was the response. Stella shoved her key back into it's the pouch in her backpack and dropped it by the door. Her board was placed on its back on the small end table by the door and she kicked her shoes off. With a slight stretch out of her back, Stella made her way to the kitchen. There she was greeted by her mom 5 pans deep into cooking something more elaborate than their standard dinner fair.

"So, what's his name?" Stella asked, knowing her mother only cooked this hardcore when she was planning on introducing someone to her. Stella's dad had been out of the picture since Stella was about three years old, and she didn't know too much about him. At first her mother hadn't dated, but once Stella got old enough to cook dinner on her own, she'd started going out more and more. Some were good but fell apart due to circumstance, some were bad, some were awful, and some were wolf in sheep's clothing who triggered a Shit Year from Hell™.

"Steven,"

"And do we like Steven more than Scott?" Stella pressed.

"I do,"

"Does he know about me or should I go skate to In and Out?" It was standard policy that dates didn't learn about her until at least date six. If they had lasted that long, they had a right to know, or at least had been her mother's logic. Most ran off at hearing that there was a kid in the mix. The ones that didn't ran off when they realized that Stella wasn't a baby or a toddler but a full teenager and full of the connotations that came with that age bracket.

"He knows that I have a daughter named Stella, hence why we're doing dinner here," her mother said as she briefly looked up from her cookbook.

"Has he been the past weeks of dates?"

"He's been the past month of dates,"

"Since post Scott?" Stella asked.

"Yes,"

"Alright,"

"Please,"

"I will mom, I won't even bring up the Shit Year from Hell." Stella said with a smile as she wandered over to the fridge. Her mother let out a small scoff of a laugh at what Stella had deemed it.