Hey There, Delilah

Hey There, Delilah (40)

“Are you sure this dress doesn’t make me look fat?”

“Yes, Mom.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes, Mom!”

“Well, you look very pretty today, Delilah,” my mother smiled, obviously trying to calm down her nerves. It was obvious how nervous she was about getting married, even though this was what she really wanted to do. But she looked so nervous that it was almost scary.

A tiny part of me still didn’t want her to go through with this wedding, though. A tiny part of me wanted her to go back to my dad and have my life be normal again. But I knew that that wasn’t going to happen. After what happened with Mr. Higginson, and everything that followed after that, I didn’t think my life would ever be normal again. It just didn’t seem possible.

“Thanks,” I mumbled, only a little embarrassed. I hadn’t ever been to a wedding, so I didn’t really know if I looked nice or not. I thought I looked nice, but nothing to really fuss over.

I didn’t even know how to act at a wedding. Polite was the only thing I could think of, but that was it. Other than that, I was just going to stay quiet and watch, which I was sure I was supposed to do.

The wedding was only in an hour, and I was pretty nervous. If I was nervous, I couldn’t even imagine how my mother must have been feeling right then. She looked nervous, but she was always good at hiding the way she felt. So she must have been even more nervous on the inside. And that kind of scared me a little.

Now that it was the middle of June, it was warm outside, and I knew one of her main concerns was sweating. She already looked like she was kind of sweating now, but that was just because of how nervous she was. But that still wasn’t a good thing. She wanted to have the wedding in the backyard, since it was supposedly so huge, and no one argued with her. I didn’t really mind.

At least she let me invite River, Rex, Seth, and Gabe, who had actually become a very good friend of mine now. Kind of shocking, isn’t it? It took River and the boys to get used to the fact that I was now friends with Gabe for a little while, but they were okay with it and it was like the whole prank didn’t even happen.

“This is so nerve-racking,” my mother groaned, facing the mirror once again and breathing in and out deeply. I hated when she was nervous. “Exciting, but terribly nerve-racking.”

“Well, if you love Lieutenant Shrew--I mean, Nick, then everything should be fine,” I assured, coming up beside her in front of the mirror. I still wasn’t used to calling Lieutenant Shrew Nick, and I knew that I wasn’t going to be calling him by his first name for a while. I just wasn’t used to it.

“I’m sure everything will be great,” my mother side, smoothing out her dress as she continued to look at herself in the mirror. She still looked nervous, and that worried me a little. “Everything’s been great ever since you joined Arkwright! In only two months you’ll be a senior, and then after that you’ll be going off to college, and then you’ll get married and have children of your own, and--”

“Mom!” I cried out, cutting her off before she could go any farther. She was seriously going too far into the future. I was still seventeen; I was still a kid, technically.

My mother sniffed, wiping her eyes. “Yes, yes. I suppose I’m going too far. But you’ve grown up to be such a beautiful, independent woman. You’ve found love, and you were able to get through being stalked for three years. Oh, Delilah! I’m so proud to be able to call you my daughter.”

I felt tears well up in my eyes as my mother said this. I was growing up, wasn’t I? I was in love, and I was going to be a senior in only a few months. I was attending school all the way across the country, like I was in college or something. I understood why my mother was upset. I was pretty upset when I thought about it like that, too. Who wouldn’t be?