What Tears Us Apart(Sequel to What Brings Us Together)

Chapter Forty-Seven: Highly Improbable

~~~Laura~~~

We headed back to the West house and Hannah and Cecile went to the kitchen to scour for snacks. I sat down on the couch, and Ralph sat down beside me.

"Hey, have you been ok lately?" Ralph asked. I furrowed my eyebrows.

"Yeah. Why?"

"I don't know, it just...you just have seemed a bit distant lately. I thought it might've been just because we've been so busy, but...I just want to make sure that you're ok." I nodded.

"I'm fine, Ralph. Promise." He nodded.

"So um...you know Thanksgiving is coming up." 

"Yeah."

"We need to figure out what we're going to do." He stated. "Because I'm sure your family wants to spend Thanksgiving with you, but Grandma Dibny is kind of strict about the family always being together for Thanksgiving, and she's kind of a terrifying lady so..." I thought about it for a moment.

"Well, what if we had a joint Thanksgiving?" I asked. "We could do it at our house."

"You sure that's such a good idea?" He asked. "I don't know about the Wilsons, but the Dibnys are very particular about their traditions-"

"Well, we're all a family now At least, we will be as far as they know. We're going to have to modify the traditions a bit. As far as food is concerned, my Mom and whoever traditionally cooks for your family can come over and help with the dinner. Besides, this is a good opportunity for our entire families to meet each other before the 'wedding'." He nodded.

"If that's what you want to do, that's what we'll do but...I seriously want to warn you about Grandma Dibny. She's not the nicest of people and she's not exactly welcoming when it comes to change, especially new additions the the family. My cousin Vin had a pretty serious girlfriend that he brought over for Christmas, the girl left that night with ruined mascara and a restraining order." I furrowed my eyebrows.

"I'm pretty sure I can handle your grandma." I told him.

"I'm sure you can too. I just want you to be aware that she's very overprotective of her family." I nodded.

"Well, I can respect that." He nodded. "You don't think I can o it, do you?"

"What?" He asked in a high pitched voice. I rolled my eyes, punching him in the arm and he laughed before leaning in and kissing me. It wasn't until that moment that I realized since this whole lie thing started happening, I haven't really kissed him. I brought my hand up to his face, lightly touching his hair and he put his hands on my waist, his fingers pressing lightly into my shirt.

"We leave you alone for five seconds and you're making out?" Hannah asked, coming into the room. "Are you two actually fifteen?" Ralph pulled away, laughing. I smiled but the whole thing felt off. Like, I'm supposed to sit her and laugh with my family like everything's fine and I haven't been lying to them this whole time. I put on a smile despite the fact that there is every possibility that the time will come when I have no clue who either of them are.

"What the heck happened back there?" Cecile asked, setting an armful of chips and candy bars down on the table. "I froze up." Ralph stood up from the couch, walking over to her.

"Look, when I got canned from CCPD, I fell in with some legally questionable individuals. These were some scary, scary people, but they all had one thing in common. They were all terrified of Ce-Seal-Your-Fate Horton.

"Talk about a moniker. That's legit." Hannah said through a mouthful of potato chips.

"And I don't believe for one second that that woman has gone anywhere."