"Dinner?" My mom asks, as she sucks on one of the lollipops I brought home from the store. "I don't see why not," she shrugs as if it's a good idea, when in fact it's so far from it. "Your dad is going to be gone tomorrow night anyway, and since she has no husband to entertain him, sounds good to me."

"What if they're killers?" I sigh dramatically. "We're basically walking into our own funerals."

"Crystal, you drank lemonade with her in her kitchen, did she seem threatening?" She rolls her eyes.

"No," I sigh. "Niall does, though," I whisper under my breath.

"What's that?"

"Nothing."

"And I thought you said this Irish kid was interesting. The good interesting. You love Irish accents, I'm surprised you aren't beating down their door to get to him," she half laughs.

"Mom!" I almost whine, internally begging her not to bring that up. Especially not tomorrow night.

"Isn't it true?" She shrugs, as she changes the channel from Suits to Paw Patrol for Joshua.

"I'm going to read," I sigh, not wanting to hear anymore about Irish accents or certain neighbors.

Walking into my room, I shut the door before taking down Hollow City from my bookshelf and getting submerged in the world Ransom Riggs created.

**********

I wake up to the sun streaming through my window, and the noise of my mother preparing breakfast in the kitchen.

Sitting up, I close my book, before getting out of bed and placing it back onto the shelf. I happened to have finished it before falling asleep, and I find myself retrieving my laptop from my desk to write a review on my blog.

I give it fours stars and explain my enjoyment of it, before closing my laptop and changing into different clothes. I'm not as warm today, so I decide on a pair of capris and a T-shirt. The whole time I was getting dressed, all I could think about was tonight's dinner and how awkward and un-fun it's going to be.

"The dead has arisen!" Mom laughs, as she scoops pancakes onto a plate and hands them to me. "How was your book? Did you get to finish it?"

"It was good," I yawn as I take the outstretched plate from her. "I liked the first book better, though."

"You going to start another one later? Or are you going to spend the day watching TV?" She asks, and I can tell she's hoping I spend my day doing something completely different than both things she just asked about.

The thing is, when school is out, school is still all I think about. I need to do good, I need to be Valedictorian, I need to succeed. Reading and TV and all of that, gets my education off of my mind for a bit. It's almost like the break I need, but don't actually want, if that makes sense. Especially since I'm going to be taking psychology class this fall for my senior year, that seems to take up a lot of space in my mind as well. I think it would be awesome to be a psychologist, but I also want to do journalism. So many options, yet life is too short. I've been thinking about taking a minor in psychology, and I might still do that if I get accepted into Columbia, of course.

"I don't know," I shrug as I smear butter on the cakes, before drowning them in syrup. "I might call Makayla. I haven't seen her for a little while."

"You should go visit her, she'd like that."

"Yeah, she would," I agree as I try to chew my food. "I can imagine she has probably lived her summer so far doing exactly what I've done."

"What? Watch TV and read?" She laughs, already knowing the answer.

"Yep," I smile. "TV and books are good, then you add music and you're just set!"

"Don't be gone all day, however. We have dinner tonight, don't forget," she reminds me.

"How could I?" I mutter to myself, before finishing my breakfast, trying to get that snotty nosed Irish kid out of my head.

"Alright," I sigh, after taking the last bite. "I'm leaving now. I'm leaving to better myself without books and TV," I announce dramatically.

"The world is a grand place that has lots of things in it, you just need to discover them when school isn't around," Mom suggests.

"School is very important to me, Mom, I want to be smart," I point out.

"And you are. Let your brain have it's three month rest, you deserve it." She kisses my temple, before I tell my family goodbye and walk outside.

The weather was cooler than yesterday, and I was glad. Makayla doesn't live right down the street like Jerk does, so I accept and embrace the cooler weather with the longer walk. Too bad she didn't move into the little red house across the street, it would make life even better.

"Good morning, Crystal!" Maura calls across the street, as I pass her house.

"Good morning!" I wave, still wondering how she could spawn something like that little devil.

"Where are you off to? And are we still on for dinner tonight?" She asks, as she sits in the sun, sipping her grand lemonade.

"I'm going to a friend's house, and, yep! Mom said it sounds great. Dad won't be able to join us, however, it'll just be my mom, my sister, my little brother, and me," I inform her, just so she'll know how many places to set and an estimation on how much food to prepare. However, she reminds me of the type that would cook an army sized meal just for one guest.

"That sounds fine to me!" She smiles. "Have a lovely day, dear, I'll see you tonight!"

"Thank you," I wave, before continuing my walk down the street, wanting to share this information with Makayla about the Irish boy that I have to have dinner with.

However, as I reach her house and we embrace each other with a hug, I begin to tell her about my problems, and she begins to laugh.

"This is great, honestly. You have no idea how entertained I am," she laughs, before I fall back onto her bed.

"I'm glad you're amused, Kay, but I'm far from it. This kid, is like Satan. I never met his dad, but I'm guess he's the reason why, because his mom is a sweetheart," I inform her.

"Maybe, he didn't want to come to America, and the idea upsets him. Think about it, he moved away from all his friends, all his family, to come to a small town in the middle of nowhere. I'd be pretty pissy too," she points out.

"But I didn't do anything to him!" I defend.

"You crushed his pasta," she points out, trying her best not to smile.

"He crushed my ego!"

"And how did he do this?" She asks.

"By - by being himself," I sigh. "I wanted to have dinner, okay, just to torture him. However, I never knew the plan would work so fast, and I never imagined it would make me feel this ill to imagine it."

"How bad can it be? It's not like he's going to be a jerk to you in front of his mom or your mom," she shrugs.

"He snapped at me when he seen I was in his kitchen sipping lemonade with his mom. He was pretty rude, and she didn't even seem to mind. All she cared about was that we knew each other and her precious Niall was making friends," I scoff.

"She was probably so happy to see him meeting new people, she didn't even notice him snapping."

"That's exactly what happened. Does any of your family members have the flu? Chicken pox? Poison ivy?" I practically beg.

"No," she laughs. "And if they did, they wouldn't give it to you, anyway."

"Can you punch me in the nose? I can say I ran into the wall and it's too swollen to entertain people?"

"Crystal, you are going to the dinner, and you're going to survive. It's going to be okay. You can deal with a jerk for one night. However, text me while you're over there, it might help. Plus, I want to hear all about this Irish kid, for it's making my summer a whole lot better," she winks.

"Glad it's making your life better," I mutter, before breaking out into a smile. "You're so amused by everything."

"Why wouldn't I be? All I do is read and watch TV," she giggles.

"I understand that on a spiritual level," I laugh along.

"Besides, if it was me in that situation, wouldn't you be entertained?" She raises her eyebrows.

"I would be so entertained," I admit.

"There you go! Jesus is getting you back for all those times you were entertained by my struggles."

"You're probably right," I agree. "But I still don't want this."

"Well, if I could take this problem off of your hands, I wouldn't. I can't, however, so I still won't," she chuckles, before I throw a pillow at her.

"You're terrible!"

"Tell me something I don't already know," she requests, before chucking a pillow in my direction, resulting in things getting out of hand and a pillow accidentally flying into her lamp. Lucky for us, it didn't fall off her stand, however, but it resulted in us spending the rest of the time just talking, the risky pillow fight and Irish Jerks seem to be too much to handle in one visit.

***
:D next chapter is the dinner hehehehe