The Bet That Broke Me ~ Book•1 ✔️ (this book is currently being rewritten)

The Bet That Broke Me: Chapter Eighteen

By the time Lily and David got home Aiden had already left. After I had woken up from my nap we talked for a bit about different things. One of them being him staying for dinner, to which he declined. I shouldn't have expected him to agree it was dumb that I even bothered asking. A normal couple should have met each other's parents by now but I found myself doubting that it would happen at all, at least not anytime soon.

To be fair it was only a few hours ago that I had voiced my thoughts on how things should work between us. Aiden's parents were ghosts. They were off god knows where too busy running companies to remember they had a son at home. Aiden never talked about them but I thought for him. I wasn't quite sure if I wanted to meet his parents or not. They practically abandoned him and I imagined myself hitting one of them if we ever had the chance to come together.

I never pried or mentioned it to him, but he was the way he is now because they had left him. I knew what it was like to be in that situation and to still be in it. My parents obviously didn't have a choice to leave me but I still felt the emptiness when they did. And my brother, I felt it even more when he never came back because he did abandon me, right out.

I wish he would have at least met Lily and David. David mentioned that he didn't want Hailey or me bringing home any guys until after college but that wasn't going to happen. I was leaving Florida after graduation without a plan of coming back, ever. California was my home and that's where I would go if I was able to make it that far. Lily would have loved to meet Aiden.

At first she would have been weary of his appearance but she would see the light in him eventually. It wasn't hard to see if you really look. At first, I won't lie, I didn't see it. My eyes were sewed shut until I let my heart look. After, it was almost impossible to miss it. And every time I looked at it or spent time with him the small  fleck turned into a shining beam and then into a flaming star.

"I'll call you later." Aiden kissed my forehead one and my lips twice. While his taste still lingered, I zipped the zipper on his jacket up and down a few times before pulling away.

"Bye."

Maybe it was better if we waited. Lily and David would be focused on me tonight after the nurses phone call. Lily didn't answer but she left a message which I'm sure they both had listened to now. Lily worried enough at dinner usually so I knew she would be in overdrive tonight.

I wasn't wrong. To my favor, she had waited until we all sat down for dinner before she said anything. "I'm worried about you." Was the only thing that came out of her mouth as we all sat in a circle around the dinner table.

"I'm fine."

"And what does fine mean Alison? You say you're fine or that you aren't hungry whenever I make you food. Usually I'll let it slide but it's got to the point where it's affecting your health. The nurse said it was obvious that you hadn't eaten the whole day and maybe even the one before." Her volume increased as she spoke but it never reached a yell or shout hardly even anything close. She was too gentle for that.

"We were running laps and it was hot outside. It just happened and I am okay." She looked at me with doubt so to prove myself I held out my covered arms, "Look I don't even have any scrapes." Beside the huge one on my elbow and knees.

Lily just sat and stared for a minute. "Do you not like my cooking?" I almost wanted to laugh at her question. She figured that I didn't eat because she cooked bad? See, too gentle.

"Mom, that's a stupid question. You're cooking is fine."

As if she couldn't bare it her eyes dropped with a quiver of her chin, "I just don't understand." David's hand glided across the tabletop to meet hers. At the touch of her husband's hand her head lifted slightly and soon enough all the way to look at me. Hailey sat back in her chair. I knew what she was thinking and I begged for her not to say anything.