Outsider

Chapter 5

The doorbell rang causing my dad to jump out of his chair. "That should be Patric, I'll be right back." "Mhm." nodded my mom. "So Zane, how old are you?" asked Theodora. "I'm eighteen." "Whoa," gasped Theo and Helena in unison. "Is that is wrong, or?" "Of course not, you're just older than we thought," says Helena. Theodora nodded her head in agreement with the statement.

"I'm eighteen." "I didn't think you had a thing for men." teased Helena. "He's still in high school." "You go to school with us?" asked Helena.

"No, I go to a different high school, but I take the honors classes at your high school." "Hmm, smart." nodded my mom. "Yes, the limo is on its way." laughed my dad walking into the living room.

I spun around to see Nick and his parents walk in. "Hey, Nick have you met Teddy's boyfriend?" "Boyfriend?" asked my dad. "Dad, he's exaggerating." corrected Helena.

"She better be." "Who Zane? Yeah, I ran into bad news." "Oooh, you have a bad boy?" asked Theodora. "Are you seriously going to listen to jealous Nick?" asked Vance. "No, no, you're insecure." nodded Theodora.

"Cathrine." smiled Deeva. (Nick's mom) "Deva." I smiled giving her a hug. "Wow, you look stunning this evening, doesn't she Nick?" Nick gave me a quick once-over and nodded his head.

"Doesn't she always?" asked Nick. I felt confident to wear clothes that showed my scars, that exposed the ugly side of me, but I did feel vulnerable to peoples stares and gazes.

"Thank you, Nick," I say with a small smile. "The pleasure is mine." An awkward silence fell over the room as Nick stared at me.

"The limo's here. Let's get going." says my dad trying to raise back the atmosphere. "Yeah, let's see what hot investors son I can get my hands on." joked Theodora shadowing my dad out the front door.

"I don't think I can do this," I whisper grabbing Zane's arm. "Why?" he whispered breaking away from my family. "People are going to stare."

Zane looked at my arms and nodded his head. "I'll be there to make sure they don't say anything." "Or we could stay home." "Come on, I got dressed for you, I actually put thought into how I look for you. Now I can't go around looking this good and not have someone perfect by my side."

"Don't try and sweet talk me into this." Zane cupped my cheeks in his hands and smiled. "You look like a chipmunk." "Not helping."

"I want to make up for being a dick." "Then we can stay home." Zane raised one of my hands and tossed me over his shoulder. "We're going whether you want to or not. You should spend as much time with your family as possible," "What's going on here?" asked Theodora.

"Someone not backing out."

And sadly, Zane was right. I did enjoy going out for the night. I had fun with my family, danced my way through the night, and Zane enjoyed himself.

****

The days turned to weeks and weeks to months. Soon enough it was December which meant we were going to have a true Stone Christmas.

Zane and I had been dating for three going on four months, but we never made it official. I would've loved for it to be but, I enjoy being a cliche. Him asking me for everything... and that meant I did think about marriage.

We had been looking in colleges together because even if we didn't make it official, we wanted to stay close. He wanted to "protect" me. He can't lie to me.

A week before Christmas I decided to drag Zane along with me for Christmas shopping. He had nothing else to do with his day, besides shop with me.