Love Is Flower Like

Chapter 19

Edited 05/30/21

Meadow was sitting in her room, avoiding her dad. He was a lot more interested in her life now that she had shifted. It was a given. She knew he would change simply because his whole life revolved around the legends. Maybe Rebecca and Rachel had the right idea in leaving so soon.

There was a knock at her door, causing her head to spring up. She removed her earbuds from her ears and tuned in to her surroundings. There was another knock, this time a little unsure. With a roll of her eyes, she stood up from her bed and opened the door.

"Hey," Paul said with a smile. He was wearing a long-sleeved shirt black and a pair of jeans. Meadow raised an eyebrow and appraised his figure.

"You wanna hang out today?" he asked.

"I'm trying to catch up on my work," she said while pointing to the textbook laying open on her bed.

"C'mon. Just for today. Then you can go back and do whatever it is you were doing," he said. She sighed and was about to reject his offer again when she remembered she promised she would try.

"Alright," she said. "Let me get dressed first."

Paul blushed a little when he realized she was wearing shorts and a tank top. She pushed him out of her room and closed the door in his face. Since Paul had decided to dress up, she sifted through her closet to find something suitable, as well. Most of her clothing was black, which she didn't want to wear because Paul was wearing black.

She found a navy blue short-sleeved shirt V-neck and threw it on, as well as a pair of skinny jeans. She grabbed one of her only pairs of sneakers and threw them in the hallway before closing her bedroom door and going into the bathroom to freshen up.

When she was done, she approached Paul, who was sitting on the couch with her father and gave him a bored expression. He leaped up from his seat and said his goodbyes to Billy before leading her out of the house.

"Where are we going?" she asked.

"We're going to go to Sue's diner for dinner," he said. "I don't have enough money to do anything better than that but....."

"It's fine," Meadow said. "I like eating."

She only said anything because she didn't want him to feel bad for not doing more. She really didn't care whether he spent money on her. She wasn't that type of person. She appreciated more so the fact that someone wanted to spend time with her. He led her to the diner, and they sat in one of the corner booths. Sue walked over to them and handed them a menu each and left them to decide what they wanted to eat with a wink of her eye.

"I know that last time we went out on a date was crap, but I promise it won't turn out that way this time," Paul said after they ordered. He sipped on a cold glass of Coke.

"Let's hope not," Meadow said as she glanced around the room. She was nervous. Now that she'd accepted Paul's offer to open up, she didn't know what to do with herself. She was scared to do so. She figured that if she didn't make eye contact with him, he'd cease all conversation. She should have known better.

"I'm gonna talk to you regardless of if you're looking at me or not," he said. Meadow made eye contact with him before looking down at the table. She watched her fingers dance with one another and silently wished she was better at conversing with people. Paul reached across the table and grabbed one of her hands in his. He squeezed it and looked at her with an expression of reassurance.

"I'm not asking for a paragraph. Just give me a few sentences."

She hesitated before she said, "I don't know what to talk about. No one's ever, well, no one's ever asked me to talk with them about stuff."