Behind the Books | ✔

21. Be My Guest

RYLIE

IT'S BEEN THREE weeks since everything has happened. Three weeks since I went to Elias' house to hangout and three weeks since I figured it all out. I do—I most certainly do—like Elias Greene. I like how charming he is and how he's cute. I also adore how he's creative. I could go on and on, and that would take all day, however, that isn't quite the only thing I figured out. 

As Elias and I talked over the phone three weeks ago, I came to realization about the unthinkable. This school year caused me to step outside my bubble, one step at a time, and it's all because I took Mom's advice to make new friends. I could hear her urging me to make friends through multiple occasions in my head. It was annoying, like mosquitos on a hot summer day, but I was relieved. Elias pretty much allured me to step out of my comfort zone through the multiple occasions of us talking. I grew comfortable with him over time. 

And I'm grateful that I at least took a few baby steps. Even if I still feel the itching pain from the past, it felt good to try to move past it, even if it wasn't a lot. A little step could make a huge difference. 

I pondered about this over and over again for the past few days. It wasn't a distraction to school at all because it is Thanksgiving break. It feels so refreshing to finally have a week-long break from classes, time-consuming studying, and exams where there's like, a forty percent chance that I'm not prepared for them. It's not necisarily a good thing, but I can fix that after the break. There's plenty of time, right?

My mom and I just arrived at Walmart. It's four days before Thanksgiving and Mom decided that it would be okay to do some last-minute shopping. Normally, we spend this holiday at another family member's house, but this time, Mom decided to flip the switch and invite some family to stay with us for dinner. I never liked large family gatherings, especially if it's over dinner, but this year, I'm stoked for Thanksgiving day. Hopefully, dinner won't feel lonely like it always does. I'm sure it won't. 

"Aren't you excited, Rylie?" Mom cheered as we rushed past the Subway that was attached to the superstore. "Two of your aunts and uncles are coming over for Thanksgiving dinner. That means that you'll get to see your two cousins—Inez and Landon." 

"Yeah, sounds great," I tried to get my tone to match hers. As far as I knew, Landon is only a year younger than me and Inez is like, a eight years younger than me, so I'm the oldest out of the two. Unlike me, they're both Archers. I haven't seen them in a while, so it'll be nice to see them, I guess.

We rushed passed all the fruits to to vegetables. Mom placed a few bell peppers into a bag and placed them in the cart while I grabbed lettuce. Once we had everything we needed out of the produce section, we headed towards all the meats. There was an entire seasonal section for turkey and by the looks of it, there were only a few left.  

"Thank the Lord we got here before the store runs out," Mom said with a relieved smile as she picked one up to place in the cart. "Who knows? They may not have any more in stock since it'll be Thanksgiving in a couple of days."

I nodded at everything she said. Even if the store ran out, I wouldn't care that much. Turkey tastes dry to me, anyway—no matter how it's cooked. I guess I'm not a big fan of turkey. 

As we strolled through the store, our cart got fuller and fuller. Just like the turkey, there were several other items that were nearly out of stock. Going Thanksgiving shopping four days beforehand isn't a smart thing to do, so I'll keep a mental note for that in the future. You never know when my mother will decide to do late Thanksgiving shopping again next year, or the year after that. I wouldn't be surprised if she did. 

When we were finished with shopping, Mom decided to treat us both to a meal at Taco Fiesta. As we walked through the door, I smelled the mouthwatering, spicy aroma of food cooking in the kitchen. Elias was at the order station, like usual. Once we saw each other, I couldn't help but smile and he did the same.