Over Again | ✓

K i l i g

Chapter Seventeen

❝ love breaks my bones

and i laugh ❞

;

Charles Bukowski

Whoever said that wearing heels on the first date was mandatory is a total idiot.

          "Mom, for the third and last time, I am not going to wear seven-inch heels!" Darting in and out my room, mom watched from my bed with her legs crossed and a smile gracing her lips. She looked years younger, in my opinion. "I think Adam would like it very much if I stick to me."

          My toes curled just by the brief mention of his name. Last night... it was something that should be left unknown for everyone. Let's just say, Adam was true to his words. A beast, as he so defensively said for the past days. Gentle as a rose; touches like one of a beast. Thankfully, mom wasn't home last night.

          "I'm pretty sure Adam would appreciate it if you'd dress up a little bit nicer. It is your first date after all. " Mom said, unbeknownst to the dirty thoughts running in my little head. "And Harper, have you told him yet?"

          I froze, the ring I was about to put on dropped down the carpet floor silently. I took it by the tall mirror and met my eyes. I didn't see the girl who cried herself with every passing night; the girl who walked the hallways like a ghost; the girl who lost everything. Instead, I saw me. Or what I used to be before everything happened.

          Her smile was radiant, showing a perfect set of teeth. And when she does, her nose, so alike to her mother, would scrunch up as smile lines appeared on the corner of her eyes. Her hair bounced like flowers against each other in the middle of her back. Lips as soft as petals of flowers on a beautiful spring day and as red as roses.

          "When you were born, everybody thought you would look like your father." Mom brushed a stray hair out of my face and stood behind me. Our eyes met in the mirror. Standing there like that, we could almost pass as twins had it not been the years of living and growing showing on mom's face. "Then you grew up and you were the prettiest flower in a field of dandelions."

          I looked at the ring she gave me years ago as a birthday gift, six years right after he left us, and inserted it on my ring finger. "Because I look like you?"

           Mom shook her head almost sadly. "No, because you reminded me of him." She pointed to a mole on my neck. It was barely a point. "Your father had the same one on the same exact spot. Trust me, I used to kiss it every night before we go to bed."

          "That information wasn't necessary, mom!"

          "I'm just saying." She shrugged and led me to my dresser where she started working on my hair.

          "Mom, what was your first date with him like?" I asked after a moment of silence, admiring her slender fingers as they inserted pins where nobody would see.

          Mom, despite the question, seemed unbothered by it. "It was every teenager's dream. I wore a yellow sun dress that day and I used to think yellow was a stupid color. Very bright yet dull. Your grandma forced me to wear it. But then, when he picked me up at night, I was so surprised to see him in a suit and guess what?"

          "He wore a yellow tie?" I said to which mom gushed at, almost messing up the process of fixing my hair.

          "Yes! And it was stripes! Can you imagine? I laughed myself hoarse all the way to our restaurant." And now I know where I get my craziness from. "But then, karma's a bitch. Halfway through our meal, when he was talking about how he managed to kill a wild board during a summer trip with only a machete, I saw a dark red stain on the front of my dress."