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second I walk into the room. “What’s up with you?” she asks, pointing a spatula at me. “Sell more paintings?”
    “Yeah, actually. But that’s not why I’m smiling.”
    I take a seat on the barstool at the kitchen island and watch as she quickly chops up hamburger meat and then moves to grating a block of cheddar cheese. Immediately, I regret the last words out of my mouth because they make my mother give me one of her Mom Looks.
    “Really? Well then why are you smiling?”
    I shrug. Stare at the counter. “No big reason or anything.”
    “Park left kind of early, didn’t he? I take it you’re not fighting or anything?”
    I shake my head. “He had some appointment with Jace or something. Said it was boring motocross stuff. He’ll be back later.”
    “Ah ha,” Mom says, nodding to herself as if she’s suddenly got everything in the whole universe figured out. “So it’s something to do with Park.”
    “No,” I say with a groan. “Can’t a girl just smile for no reason?”
    “Teenage girls never smile for no reason. I think someone’s in love.”
    When Mom says it all plainly like that, my heart speeds up as if she’s just confessed my biggest, deepest secret. My love for Park isn’t a secret and I’d never be ashamed of it, but this is my mother who’s talking about it. Awkward.
    What’s even worse is the next few words out of my mouth. “I guess I’m just smiling because I realized he’s the one.”
    “The one ?” Mom says, placing a terrifying amount of meaning on that one individual word. “What makes you think Park is the one? You’re only nineteen.”
    I shrug. “You knew Dad was the one when you were sixteen.”
    “No I didn’t.”
    My mouth falls open and I stare at her waiting to see her laugh and tell me she’s joking. When she doesn’t, I say, “But you and Dad have been together since you were sixteen. At least that’s the story I’ve been told my whole life…”
    “We were, honey. We were high school sweethearts. But that doesn’t mean I knew he was the one back then. I didn’t know until I was much older.”
    “Well you stayed with him the whole time, so it’s kind of the same thing.”
    Mom dries her hands on a dishtowel and pats my arm. “If Park is the real deal for you then I’m excited for you. But don’t worry too much about putting labels on him. If it doesn’t work out the way it did for your father and me, that doesn’t mean anything. I want you to be happy.”
    “Thanks, Mom,” I say. Now that a sufficient amount of awkward chit-chat has filled the room, I am dying for a subject change. “So when will dinner be ready?”

Chapter 8
     
    I got the email two hours ago. I’ve been avoiding it like the bad omen that it probably is, wishing it would just disappear from my inbox and never resurface in my life.
    With November here already, the air is colder, crisper and somehow more annoying than ever. Nothing in my closet looks good and I wonder how I got through last winter with such a pathetic wardrobe. Then it hits me. Park wasn’t here last winter. I was able to go days without shaving my legs and I wore the same three sweatpants on rotation every day of the week. When I wasn’t wearing my paint pants of course.
    The paint pants are an old pair of yoga pants that I once got paint on while I was making a canvas. Now I wear them almost every time I paint, just in case I spill anything.
    Last winter was easy when it came to finding clothes to wear. However, it was the hardest winter ever emotionally. I missed him like crazy. His racing schedule was hectic and I barely saw him for Christmas.
    Now this year he’s here for good, and all of the time. As much as I love seeing that boy every day, right now my closet is looking pretty dreary.
    In an effort to prolong picking out something to wear, I grab my phone again and look at the stupid email. Midterm grades are in. I’m only taking two classes this semester, both because I suck, and because my