|CHAPTER ELEVEN|

Announcing to my mother that Bash would be attending dinner with us the following weekend was more terrifying than getting on a bus with a complete stranger to see an out of town concert. It was ten times more nerve-wracking than a dozen college essays. It felt sort of like sleepwalking, but also like word vomit.

It was an emotional influenza.

"God, you should have seen the look on her face," I moaned in despair while I cradled my head in my hands. Bash dropped a kiss onto the top of my head and pulled out a chair from the library desks I was sitting at. "It was like she was looking at me for the first time-like she had no idea who I was."

"I don't need to come," he reminded me. One of his hands found my shoulder and squeezed. "In fact, it sounds like I might be better off keeping my distance."

I snatched at his hand and held fast. "You're coming."

He let out a breath and looked around him. Four o'clock and the sun was casting orange across the floor of the library, highlighting dust on every untouched book. Quiet page turning scraped near us as a curious onlooker made an excuse to listen in by pulling a random book off a shelf and pretending to be interested in it.

"Jovie, if you're trying to prove your loyalty-"

I shook my head. "No offense, Bash, but this isn't about you."

He glanced at his hand in mine, then back at me. Slowly, he pulled our hands to his mouth and kissed my knuckles. His eyes fluttered closed for a second, and then he looked somewhere else.

"I get it, you're stressed," he began gently. "But please don't snap at me. I don't know enough for you to become frustrated with me-and that's not for lack of trying." He rubbed his stubbly chin against my hand and met my eyes again. "I'm just trying to understand, okay?"

It was like a dart to my chest, his composed tenderness. There was an edge. One I hadn't seen before in Bash's voice. The sugary sweetness of new love disguised the tart hard candy that was hidden underneath, and my neglect had brought it forth.

The guilt stirring near the dart wound was like that damp cold you feel in your bones around late fall. "I'm sorry, Bash," I whispered. "The thing about my mom is that she's worse than I am-with the sharing and stuff...and while you're trying to figure me out, I'm trying to figure her out, and I'm lost. You're lost. We're all lost. And, I'm sorry. I didn't want to involve you. I never wanted you to meet her-and now you are because it's the only way I can think of that will make her...I don't know, feel something. Share something? It's...so complicated."

One corner of his lips turned up. "You're using me to get your mom to open up?"

I cringed at how horrible that sounded out loud. "Sort of-I mean, I genuinely like you, and this wasn't my, you know, master plan from the beginning or anything...you're just kind of convenient." My grimace only deepened, but Bash stood and leaned over to kiss the corner of my mouth.

"No relationship is a coincidence. I've been waiting for this." He steps around his chair and pushes it in. "I've got to get back to work, Jovial. Don't be a stranger."

With the book cart in the lead, he moved down the nearest aisle and disappeared. How he did it was beyond me. He fixed some things, left others undone, and held everything together with temporary bandages when he knew better than to dwell. I think maybe it was his way of creating his own perfect masterpiece fit for a storybook.

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My mother avoided me most of the week. We chatted politely at dinner and that was it for the first half of the week; but it was so uncomfortably tense I ended up spending the other half at Henry's to escape. However, Friday was the day she was meeting Bash, so I had to be there.

When Meredith came home from work that Friday, the first thing she did was find me. Usually, she takes time to change out of her work clothes, but today was different.

There was a hesitant knock on my door, then without pausing, she let herself into my room. I glanced up from my homework and felt my insides constrict.

"What time is...your...Bash coming?" His name sounded a little funny coming from her, like she wasn't sure if his name was a real word-and, well, maybe it wasn't.

"In an hour," I replied slowly. "But, um, he wanted to help with dinner, so don't start cooking."

"He wants to help?" She asked, eyebrows hiked high on her head.

I nodded. "Something about chivalry-I don't know."

To my surprise, she grinned, and I felt myself relax. Then, she came to sit at the end of my bed and I closed my book.

"I know you think I'm mad," she said. My eyes widened, feeling a little like a deer in headlights, not sure which way to run. This could go one of two ways.

"Aren't you?"

She shook her head, and then sighed and placed a hand on the closest part of me, which happened to be my shin. "Jovie, your dad told me what you thought about me."

That made my heart pound and my cheeks flush a brilliant maroon.

"I guess I passed on some pretty bad traits, huh?" She looked me in the eye, and it felt like an apology. "Jovie, I want you to know that I don't regret bringing you into this world. I regret what happened between Henry and I, but I don't for a second regret you, okay? You're my favorite accident-the best thing that happened to me."

I stared at her for a moment, and she stared back, her eyes shining earnestly. So, I let out a deep breath, and then tossed my homework aside so I could scoot down my bed and embrace her. We were both a little awkward, arms not quite sure where to hold, and I held my breath, but we hugged, and tightly.

"So, I'm...not disappointing you...with Bash?" I asked quietly as I sat back. I feared I might shatter whatever this moment was if I spoke too loudly.

She squeezed my shoulder. "We'll see what I think of him first."

Bash arrived in a nice button-down and slacks with his hair tied back and a bouquet of wildflowers in his hand.

The long hair. That's what caused me to glance at my mother, who shook his hand a little stiffly. I couldn't read the expression on her face.

"Miss Sinclair," Bash greeted her respectfully as he handed her the bouquet. "It is an honor to meet you. Jovie absolutely reveres you and has made it explicitly clear how important this is to her."

This made her eyes slide in my direction, her lips turning up slightly like she might laugh. And, that was just Bash's way. His elaborate formalities made everyone look at him funny-even my mother.

"Your name is Bash, then?" She asked, bringing the flowers to her nose and sniffing tentatively. Hippie parents. That's what she was thinking. I could see it in the way she ever-so-slightly wrinkled her nose.

"Well, it's Sebastian, really. Sebastian Daley the Third," he told her. "It's a bit of a mouthful, though. Real confusing at Christmas. My grandmother screams Sebastian to get my granddad's attention and three of us look up. I've only got an identity when people call me Bash."

"Alright, Bash," she said.

There was more polite chit-chat, and then we moved to the kitchen where Bash insisted he retrieve the vase from the top shelf for my mother's flowers. After that, we struggled to find a rhythm in the kitchen while we cooked dinner.

My mother and I knew where everything was and Bash was like a chicken with his head cut off. Both my mother and I ran into him several times before we decided he stay by the stove and keep an eye on the pasta and the vegetables while we did the moving about.

He was reluctant and embarrassed about that despite my reassurances.

"Stir the vegetables," my mother would say curtly.

"Okay," he would reply with red cheeks. "I'm really better at chopping..."

"No," she would tell him, and he would send me a look of total helplessness and regret.

"I think I stepped on her feet and now she hates me," he muttered in my ear while I fiddled with the spice rack.

"You're fine," I whispered for the nth time. I looked over my shoulder at her placing rolls in a pan. Her face was concentrated as usual. "She would be glaring daggers otherwise. Besides, she actually talked to me before you came."

"Oh, really? I thought you two were avoiding each other."

"We were. And, I'm not really sure what all happened or why, but we ended up hugging. So, really, this is going better than I thought it would."

He took a turn looking back at her. "Is she usually...distant, or is it just me."

"Oh, no, this is normal," I said of the shallow conversation and systematic dinner preparation. "She's not the mom-home-makery type."

"Anything I should avoid saying?"

I shrugged. "Don't be philosophical because she'll shut you down. Also, don't ask about distant family-or family at all. She gets weird about that."

He nodded, and then we jumped apart because my mother was suddenly behind us asking if we could scooch out of the way.

When we finally sat down to eat, Bash thanked her a million times for allowing him to come to dinner, and then complimented her cooking a million more times than that.

Finally, she set her utensils down and folded her hands. "Bash," she said, and I felt his foot twitch beside mine. "I don't like brown nosers."

He cringed. "I apologize."

I watched his fingers tap impatiently beside his dinner plate, and I knew he wanted to say more of what she didn't want to hear anymore-because that's the only thing he thought he could do, compliment her until his tongue bled. It was strange to see someone who wore his feelings openly at this dinner table just by sitting there. I had learned to hide any emotion under a suit of armor, but all of his soft spots were exposed--even without being able to string together impressive analogies about life in her presence--and I don't think my mother knew quite what to do-because every time he twitched, she stopped to watch. She looked very confused in an unprofessional setting. I thought about the awkward hug we shared. Soon after that, she abruptly left my room. Now, as dinner was reaching its end, she started rushing things along.

"Thank you for this lovely evening. I'm sorry my foolishness was intolerable," Bash said at the door.

My mother sighed. "You were very polite. It was nice to meet you."

They exchanged another handshake, and then I followed Bash out the front door.

"Thank you," I told him.

"That wasn't so bad."

It really hadn't been. Besides the predisposed awkwardness of a parent-boyfriend meeting, it had been fairly pleasant. I knew my mother was uncomfortable with Bash's emotional vulnerability, which was obvious all night, but I had planned for that. She didn't ask him to leave and she didn't run off somewhere, so I considered this night to be a success.

I shared a brief kiss with Bash and then went back inside. My mother hadn't moved, though her arms were crossed and her eyes staring out at something far off in the distance.

She wrapped up the night by saying, "He reminds me of Henry," and then disappearing.

I didn't think much of it then. I just felt a sort of sadness weigh on my heart.

Now, I realize it was the cruelest thing she could have said, because if I was like her, and he was like Henry, this would go up in flames.