Bears Know Best

Chapter 9: The Truth

WHEN WE PULLED up to the house, I was kind of surprised by how much energy I still had. Mom seemed to be fairly alert too, considering she had been at work this morning. "Taylor, why don't we put away the things we bought today, and then you take a bath with part of one of those bubble bars?" She seemed intent on getting me hooked on them.

I nodded, "And then?"

"Then we'll have some hot chocolate, and talk for a while?"

The 'and talk for a while...' part I wasn't looking forward to. I had promised though, so the two of us quickly cleared tags off the new clothes we had bought for me. Except for the nicer dress that we had purchased, we were going to wash everything before putting it away. For now, we just put it in the laundry room so I could take care of it in the morning. Mom helped me clear the tags off of the hair accessories and other goodies from Target, and then helped me set up the boxes with them in it on my dressing table, for now next to my computer.

"We need to get you a desk," mom said, "don't we?"

I nodded.

She looked around the room a bit before saying, "Well, we can't do this much running around every week, but if you want, we could go to Pittsburgh and hit IKEA there on Saturday."

"Really?!?" I asked.

She nodded.

"Cool!!!" was my excited reply. They always had a lot of neat things there, and not for the first time I wondered why my reaction seemed so girly already.

"Maybe Alyssa would want to come to?" she suggested.

"I'm sure she probably would, I hope I'm not keeping her from her other friends though," I told her.

"She's a smart girl, she'll work it out." Mom said with a smile. "Now, why don't you go try that bath," she insisted.

She came into the bathroom with me and turned on the faucets like I was three or something, "Mom, you know I can run a bath myself." I said a little indignantly.

"I know," she sighed, "I just want to show you how much of this to break off," she finished as she grabbed the bar in question and crumbled up about a third of it in the water and then swished her hand around. Already the fragrance in the room was very sweet and sugary. "Okay, I'll get out of your hair," she told me.

"Mom?" I said suddenly feeling bad.

She turned around, "Yes?"

"Thank you," I told her.

"You're welcome sweetheart."

I ran back across to my room while the water ran to get my pajamas and a fresh pair of panties. The water still had plenty of time to run, so I began cleaning off my face like Mom had shown me the night before. I scrubbed every inch of the makeup off of my face. She had also bought some shower caps for me, and I carefully put my hair up in one of them to avoid having to fight so hard to make it look that good in the morning.

I had done my duty as a friend and texted a picture to Alyssa on the way home of course. Her response of 'OMG, OMG, OMG, U LOOK GR8!!!!' had been amusing. I personally loved it as I looked at it one last time before covering it. The water had just about run to where I wanted it, and was a great temperature, when I turned it off and climbed into the bath. The smell and feel of the water on my body was amazing. The bar had some sort of oil in it that I could feel moisturizing my skin. As far as the smell, it reminded me of sugar heated up to make cotton candy, but not too overpoweringly sweet.

I found myself relaxing a lot as I lay down in the water up to my chin.

'I shouldn't be enjoying this, this much,' that annoying voice in my head said again. 'What do you think the other boys at school and back home in Atlanta are going to say when they see you?'