The Wounded Love novel Chapter 32

I nodded, shoving a big spoonful of pasta into my mouth. Talking with your mouth full was forbidden in her world, so as long as I it was stuffed, I wouldn't have to talk. "He's very handsome." She observed. I almost choked on my food. My face must've been the color of a tomato. "Well I'm glad you fixed that. Getting to know him is much better than doing it one time."

"I agree." I said in the middle of chewing, mostly just to bother her.

"Skyla, don't talk with your mouth full." So I shut up. She seemed to be in the talking, maternal mood.

"I want us to start over." She said to me. "It really breaks my heart that we can't seem to act like mother and daughter. We used to be close, do you remember?"

I nodded my head. "Yeah, but then I got older and you wanted to control everything about me. You have to realize that I now make my own decisions, good or bad. And it's nobody else's business. You don't need to make up excuses for me, or try to fix things. Not unless I ask."

She gave me a closed smile. "So how do you feel?"

"Better. I'm just bruised."

"I can see that." She pushed my hair out of my face, exposing my purple cheek bone. "I'm just offering, but if you want I can make sure they keep Angela away from you until everything settles down. I'm sure once it does she'll apologize. She isn't a bad person. She's just a girl who thought she was in love. Love makes people do crazy things."

I nodded. "That would be good, and I'd also appreciate it if you didn't talk to Nick anymore. He screwed us all over, and from what I can tell he isn't very stable either."

"I can do that." She got up and served me more pasta. I wondered just how long this would last. I believed her when she said that she wanted us to have a better relationship. I wanted a better relationship, but would we be able to pull it off? We had very different personalities.

"I was wondering if you wanted to go on a cruise with me." She offered, sitting back down. "It would only be the two of us. I already bought my ticket because I've been wanting to go anyway, but if you wanted I could buy you one too."

"When is it?"

"Two weeks after New Years."

Who would say no to a cruise? Especially when it was paid for. "I'll go."

December ended up turning into one big snowy nightmare. Three days in a row the clouds dumped that cold wet stuff all over the city. As much as I didn't like it, it was a great excuse for getting out of plans that you didn't want to follow through with.

"I'm not a stalker."

"That's not being a stalker. You yourself said that you guys are a thing, whatever that means. Besides haven't you already slept together like a thousand times?"

"Not a thousand."

She laughed as she held up a comically ugly Christmas sweater. "Not." So she held up another shirt. It was nice, but I couldn't picture him in it. "He likes batman." I said. I wasn't planning on getting anything batman related but that's the only thing I was sure he liked.

"Leave me to the shopping. Go get something for your mom and I'll pick something out for him."

I was a little hesitant about leaving her alone with my credit card but she managed to convince me. I roamed around the stores and ended up picking out a blouse with matching earrings for my mom. Mother was easy to shop for.

Somehow I ended up in a Brookstone, and after browsing around at the massage chairs and weird wine glasses I came across a really fancy looking coffee maker. A smile crept onto my lips as I remembered our conversation that morning at breakfast. Beside it lay hundreds of flavors of different types of blends. I wasn't a huge coffee drinker so I wasn't sure what tasted good and what didn't. I decided to get him a box that was a mixture of multiple different flavors so that he could decide what he liked.