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10

I get home soon after promising Liam that I will go to his place tomorrow after school to officially start our training. I am nervous about it, but also pretty excited. I don't know exactly what he means by 'training', but if he manages to keep his promise to teach me how to defend myself, I'm up for it. 

I don't even know how to throw a punch because I never had to do it. I used to solve my conflicts without violence, using sarcasm and irony, and when those would not work, I always had Criss to finish my fights. She wasn't good with words, but damn, she knew how to fight. 

Seeing my parents' cars outside the house gives me even a better mood thinking my mom probably cooked and there's nothing better in the world than my mother's food. Trust me, this woman can cook like no other and, I know what you think, she's hot, smart and knows how to cook? Yeah, my dad is lucky like that. 

"Nat, is that you?" dad asks from the kitchen when he hears the front door opening. 

Indeed my mom is cooking, I can see her putting something into the oven and my dad cutting vegetables next to her. They each have a glass of wine in front of them talking and smiling like I didn't see them do in a very long time. It makes me so happy to see them like that that I can barely keep my eyes from watering, everything feels... not good, not yet, but better. Definitely better. 

"Smells good! I am starving."

I tell them pouring myself a glass of orange juice from the fridge and joining them. I kiss both of them before taking a seat at the kitchen table. 

"How were the first days of college, pumpkin?" 

I smile even if I don't really feel like it when talking about school, but I don't want to give them any more reasons to worry about me. I don't want to lie to them either, I am terrible at lying, so I chose the easy way: telling half the truth.

"Exhausting," I say rolling my eyes. "It looks like this year's classes will be much harder than before and waking up so early doesn't help me either."

Dad finishes chopping vegetables for the salad putting them on the table taking a seat, quickly followed by my mom who takes out of the oven the best-looking salmon. It's my favorite meal of all time and she makes with it some delicious baked potatoes and asparagus at the side which makes me gain 2 kilograms, but makes me so happy that I don't care.

"And your colleagues, how are they?"

My mum asks which might seem strange, she knows I don't get along with anyone except Mary, I barely know any of them, but I know what she means. She wants to know if I followed their advice to move on and make friends and in that area, I've been improving. It's true, isn't it?

"Well, Alicia, my computer science classmate and Mr. Miller's daughter, joined us for lunch today and she told me that she was in this IT or gaming summer camp, I didn't really understand what she was talking about, but she was happy she improved her skills. She's amazing with computers! "

They look at each other with huge smiles on their faces, it makes my heart glow with happiness seeing how they relax instantly like some high weight was lifted off their shoulders. 

"That's... that's amazing, honey!" my mum says with shining eyes.

And once I see their reaction to my news about making a new friend, I can't stop myself from sharing the news about my other new friends.

"Also, Mary started dating this really nice guy, Logan. He and his brother, Liam, just moved in a month ago from another town and they are both studying with us. Liam is the same year as us, but Logan is older. We still have one class with him though, history, because in his college he didn't study it last year so he has to catch up."