My mother was such a free spirit, it was strange to hear her talking like this. Maybe Lorelai was right and Joe had been a good choice for her, but this was still weird to me. Or was she sick? Panic flooded me for a moment, then quickly passed. She wasn’t sick, maybe lovesick, but not actually sick.
Just then I felt my phone vibrate in my pocket and I pulled it out in time to see Dylan’s name flash on the screen. I was still feeling confused about the other night and really wanted advice from someone. Then I caught my mother smiling at me.
“Mom, can I…talk to you about something?” I questioned.
My mom stopped walking and turned to me, an odd look coming over her face. I could recall one other time I’d actually called her Mom in the past few years. It was always Penelope to her face, except for when I’d panicked at Joe’s house because Dylan had been there. She was fine with it. Penelope said she actually preferred being called by her actual name instead of mom. She said it made her feel younger.
“Is everything okay?” she asked, taking a seat on a park bench and tapping the space beside her.
I sat down beside her and looked out over the park, not sure how to answer that. Was everything alright? I supposed so. I was more confused than anything.
“Mom, I want to ask you about relationships.”
My mother perked up. “Alright, what would you like to know?”
I thought for a moment. She probably wasn’t the right person to ask, or maybe she was because she’d had tons of relationships, but what I wanted was sound advice, not Penelope’s flighty wisdom.
I continued to sit there, thinking about how to ask what I wanted to know, when she patted my leg and leaned back against the bench seat.
“Does this advice you need have anything to do with Dylan?”
I bit my bottom lip and nodded. “It’s weird to me still, but I don’t know what we are to one another. I don’t know how to tell if this is something serious, or something I shouldn’t invest my time in.”
I’d been in one relationship, or what I would have called a relationship, with Greg. Other than that, I’d had the occasional date, but none of them ever went anywhere. I’d also always invested way more time than the guys had and that ended up leaving me getting hurt. I also felt different with Dylan than I did with Greg. I didn’t know how to break this down to something I could understand.
“Do you like him?”
“Yes.”
“And we already know you’ve had sex with him. Which, I’m sorry to say that I still find hilarious in some ways, Aurora. Honestly, you really shocked me with that piece of information.”
I frowned. “Why?”
“Oh, my dear, you aren’t the spontaneous one, not in the slightest, so to find out you had a one-night stand nearly made me want to pee my pants. However, I think it’s wonderful that you took control and loosened up a little, but we won’t dwell on that.”
I let out a sigh. This was my mother, not the greatest advice giver there was. It was good to know she had a chuckle over my admittance.
“First, it’s not weird.”
“Really?”
My mother nodded. “Really, it’s spontaneous. Some of the best lovers I’ve had were spontaneous.”
She sounded exactly like Willow. Walker and I had heard her and many of her spontaneous lovers many nights through the walls from the confines of our bedroom. The next morning, the both of us shared in the embarrassment to see whatever flavour of the month had left the house.
“What if it's more than that, though?” I questioned.
“More than…spontaneous?”
“Yes.”
“Are you asking me what to do if it’s love?”
I shrugged, not entirely sure what it was I was asking. I thought back to the other night, in his apartment after all hell had broken loose in the club, how the sex that night had been different. It wasn’t commanding like before, and there had been no laughter. Instead it was slow, passionate, and just… different. In the morning, we’d taken our time together, shared coffee and breakfast out on the balcony before we made our way into his shower before I’d left to go pick up Lorelai. Each time felt different, and I didn’t know how to handle it.
“I don’t know?”
“Well, only you can answer that, Aurora. I can’t. You are the one who knows what you are asking.”
