Holding on to you (girlxgirl)

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

"Liz, my sweet baby" her mom reached out to her for a hug. This was all starting to make a little bit more sense.

"Hi, Ma, this is a friend of mine Alessandra. Is dinner ready, I hope you don't mind I invited her over?" she walked past her mom and into the house and left me outside with her mom.

"Alessandra, that's a beautiful name. Come here." She opened her arms for a hug and I greeted her with my open arms and a big awkward smile. She seemed very nice and I could really see where Elizabeth got her beauty from. "Come on in, we're just about to sit down for dinner."

"Thank you, Ma'am." She looked at me

"You don't have to call me Ma'am, Alessandra. You can call me Ms. Rosa" I smiled and looked at her.

"Thank you, Ms. Rosa." I entered the house and it smelled like there was a thousand different smells in the air, all amazing."

"Come on Alessandra, let me introduce you to everyone before my mom takes you and doesn't give you back." Elizabeth grabbed my arm and pulled me into the living room where her dad and younger brother were sitting watching soccer. I knew they were her brothers because they looked just like the two boys in the picture she showed me, these boys were a bit older now, but they still had the same look. "Pa, Matthew, Jacob. This is my friend Aless, she's going to be having dinner with us tonight. They took a pause from the game and looked up at me with a smile.

"Hey Aless" her dad said "I hope you love Spanish food because Elizabeth's mother makes the best food around town. Her brother Matthew, about fourteen years old chimed in.

"Mom's, the best cook ever Dad, there is no ifs ands or butts about it. Just the best." Jacob, the youngest of the three at age nine nodded to agree with his brother.

"Ok, come on. I'll show you my old room. My parents let me keep some stuff here for when I sleep over or if I'm just here and need something to change into."

We make it up the stairs and past a few rooms on our way. I could tell when I saw the middle rooms that they belonged to Matthew's and Jacob's room, across from each other. They were both filled with soccer trophies and pictures of them in uniform on the walls. As soon as we go to Elizabeth's room I saw that through her childhood and adulthood nothing had changed. Her room was still pink with fluff all over. She had soccer trophies as well and various pictures of herself. To what I could see she was a cheerleader, she played soccer and she was a ballerina at some point.

"So, if you haven't figured it out yet, we're not going to a restaurant. This is where I wanted to take you. I have dinner with my family once a week. Today seemed like a good day."

I was wondering around her room looking at all her achievements and pictures, I turned around to look at her lying on her pink bed. "Well thanks for telling me, if I knew I was going to meet your family I would have changed before we left."

"You look fine."

"I would hardly call denim shorts and a tight-fitting shirt fine. I would have put on something more conservative." She laughed at me.

"What's so funny?" I stood with my hands on my hip.

"My parents have seen me in just about everything, I doubt your short shorts and tight shirt is going to bother them."

"Liz! We're about to eat, come down!" we paused as we heard her mother calling up to us from the first floor.

"Ok, Ma! We'll be down in a second." She gets up off the bed and we walk back downstairs and into the dining room where everyone else was already sitting waiting for us.

Elizabeth sat next to Matthew and I sat across from them and next to Jacob. Her mom began to plate the food as we past our plates clockwise and handed it to her. Everything looked really good and I could tell why there was such hype over Ms. Rosa's cooking. After everyone got their plates back we all bowed our heads as Elizabeth's dad said grace.