I Love You More

Chapter 21

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"I'm glad that we're spending time together." My mom tells me as we walk inside the mall, browsing around for mother and daughter time. "I will try and make this fun for us, sweetie. How are you liking it in San Diego so far?"

"It's fine. I miss everyone here in Calabasas though." I tell her.

"Have you talked to Gale at all? I know he misses you like crazy." She mentions. 

My face expression slowly falls into something that displayed sadness and guilt. I don't know if it's because I'm thinking about that fight I had with Gale or if it's because I know he's usually at the mall here with Eisen and Tyler. Now that he has Tayla though, his girlfriend, I doubt he doesn't want to go anywhere without her. I remember telling him to leave and forget about me, and boy, he's doing a good job of that so far.

"Honey, did you hear me?" Mom suddenly questions to me.

"Sorry," I tell her vaguely. "What were you saying?"

"I said...have you and Gale talked at all?" 

"Um...sort of." I mumbled.

"What do you mean 'sort of'?"

"It's exactly what I mean. Sort of." I didn't want to drag on this conversation.

Spring break is officially over, but it's the weekend and my dad drove me to Calabasas to spend it with my mother. I didn't really want to go. For one, I know she'll probably make me see all of my old friends. And for two, I'll probably retort back to how I used to be since I'll be sleeping in the same house as Jason. I don't want to go back into that dark era in my life, but whenever I see him or his stupid cat Nibbles, I just get all these thoughts. 

I miss Fallon and Drew and I even miss Ace. We're not official yet, even though he said he loved me and I told him the same in return. I guess things are still complicated, you could say. I looked around constantly, feeling all paranoid. The last thing I would want to see is Gale or Tayla or any of my other friends to be honest. Since I'm mad at Gale, I might as well be mad at all of them since they've probably forgotten about me too.

"So, let's talk SATs and college." Mom suddenly says, "Do you have a plan?"

"My scores are great. All I have to do is wait for some responses for the colleges I already applied for in the fall..." I trailed off.

"Good, good. How is Lizzie and your father and Evan?"

"They're good, I guess." I looked at a pair of shoes through the window pane that a store mannequin was modeling. I studied the dangerous pair of shoes, observing the stilettos on them. I squinted my eyes for a short second until my mom called out to me. I turned to her in curiosity.

"Ready to head to the house?" She asked me while rummaging through her purse.

"Sure..." I slowly tell her. 

The ride was silent. I frowned as soon as we pulled up to the house. I already noticed Gale and my other old friend, Tyler, outside. They live in the same neighborhood. I stepped outside and my mom started to go inside the house. I couldn't help but look over at Gale, who was playing basketball with Tyler. 

When they stopped for a second for a break, he looked over at me. He had no form of expression on his face. He just stared at me, with the basketball in his hands. I stared for a second and started to make my way inside. Jason was in the kitchen cooking, I could smell it.

"We're back, hon." Mom said to him while putting the keys down.

"Is Ellie in yet?" Jason asked.