Just A Classmate [H.S]

4

I knew my mum was eavesdropping by the way she smirked when we entered the house with the many bags. I shook my head at her, following her into the kitchen where she was preparing dinner. I took the bag that had some jewellery I had bought her. I handed it to her as she picked out the golden earrings and the matching necklace. She gasped as she wrapped her arms around me in a motherly embrace.

"They are just so beautiful sweetie, must have cost a fortune!" She beamed as she tried them on. I smiled, watching her from behind the island. El rushed back down the stairs with the blouse mum had being eyeing on for the last 3 weeks.

Her eyes widened even further as she pulled El in for a hug too, beaming about how grateful she was to have kids like us.

"If I had known you were going to go through all this trouble for me, I would have cooked you guys your favourite!" She playfully pouted, continuing to stir the full pot of bolognese. She always cooked more than we needed for dad to take to work or for us to take to school.

"Anything you cook is amazing mum, we just thought of everything you had done for us and wanted to give you something sweet." El commented, looking up from her phone. Mum blew us some kisses as she sighed happily before her eyes widening again.

"Oh! I almost forgot, we are having a barbecue tomorrow, family friends and others. You can invite some friends. And Lauren is coming down tonight, but she'll get here when you're asleep." I choked on my saliva when she mentioned Lauren. I really wasn't willing to see her yet. After knowing what she did back then, I couldn't look at her the same way.

El looked at me, basically understanding my sudden frown. Nope. I couldn't handle that right now.

"Is she bringing the whole family...?" El asked. I looked down on the floor and fiddled with the chair I was sitting on.

"Yes, I'm so excited to see little Alex again!" She beamed. "Anyway, how was your shopping trip?"

"Oh yes! It was so much fun. I met Lana's new boyfriend and he's a total babe, not to mention he's super funny. And then we got free food and IceCream f-" she rambled, completely ignoring the fact that she brought up Harry.

"Wait, hold up, you got free food? Who gave it to you? Was it drugged? El and Lana, please tell me you didn't accept food from a stranger!" Mum cried out. I rolled my eyes at that. She always either exaggerated or rambled when she was nervous or worried.

"Relax mum, It was from Harry, he bought us the food," she mumbled, finally catching onto my glares. She mouthed an apology to me but I kind of ignored it. I just really didn't need my mother on my case about the Harry situation.

"Oh, okay; that's sweet of him. Speaking of Harry, the entire Styles family will be at the barbecue too tomorrow night. I told Anne how excited you were to see Harry considering you haven't seen him this holiday," She said, completely oblivious to the fact that I didn't want to be involved anywhere near Harry.

"T-tomorrow?" I stuttered. I glanced at El who turned her head to look at the floor. Mum looked up and stared at me as if she was confused by my nervous response. She narrowed her green eyes at me and placed the wooden spoon down, folding her arms across her chest.

"Yeah sweetie, why do you sound nervous?"

"I uh..." I searched for words to make up so she didn't ask questions. I hated to lie to her but I wasn't going to tell her everything. "No I'm just surprised because I haven't seen them in a while,"