Give Into Me.

Seeing Tyler before they left for their road trip proves to be more difficult than we ever thought it would be. Due to a lovely bout of thunder and a massive downpour of rain and hail, (what wonderful December weather right?) our flight back to Dallas is delayed from 11 AM to who knows when and my family and I are forced to spend the night in the lovely Corpus Christi International airport.

Thanks a lot El Nino.

"Well, find something to do kids we're going to be here for a while." My dad proclaims, shaking water droplets off of his Rangers ball cap.

"This is stupid, it's just rain." Asher grumbles as we walk along looking around for our terminal.

"Do you want to die? You cannot fly a plane in this you idiot." I add adjusting the strap of my backpack on my shoulder.

"Adleigh, stop I know you wanted to go home but yelling at your brother is not going to fix it." My mother gives Asher and I both a look we've seen a hundred times growing up.

"Sorry, Ash." I mumble as we finally find 13C thanking God it's not overcrowded with other travelers.

A pissed off Asher drowns out everything around him with his giant Beats headphones laying down near an outlet on the hideous airport terminal carpet. He pulls out his MacBook and begins streaming an old episode of Blue Mountain State as my parents complain about being bed-less for the night. Before I know it they're taking off to find a bar of some sort leaving me to my own devises. Leaving my wet coat by Asher I take off for concourse in search of food of some sort and a quieter place to call Tyler and tell him the not so good news.

Tucking earbuds into my ears I watch as the screen of my MacBook dials Tyler up on FaceTime, he's laying down smiling up at his phone when he answers but I know it won't last long.

"Hey!" He greets as his chocolate eyes dart around taking in my surroundings, "Why aren't you on an airplane? You were supposed to leave 20 minutes ago."

"Funny story? It's kind of a monsoon outside.." As if I needed reassurance a huge clap of thunder hits the building startling me and a few others around me.

"That's not funny." Tyler pouts.

"I know, it sucks Ty but I can't do anything about the weather." Pulling my knees up into the chair Indian style I can feel my face droop just like his.

"Yeah, I know. I just really wanted to see you before we left, this is a long trip."

"I know don't remind me, but I hear someone's birthday is coming up? We can celebrate when you get back." There's a early party planned for Tyler's 24th a few weeks early before he heads off to the All-Star game on his actual birthday.

"That's too long to wait, I haven't seen you in over a week already!!"

"Suck it up, Seguin. Now you know how I feel when you're always on road trips."

"Touché, so do I get to request what I want for my birthday?" Tyler asks with that signature smirk pushing himself up to lean up against the black headboard in his room, unfortunately he's actually wearing a shirt.

"No, I think you'll like what I have planned though."

"As long as it involves chocolate cake and you I'll love it." He smiles and I mentally note to order the boy a cake, "I'll keep that in mind, Ty."

"Perfect, damn I miss you Adleigh Ruth." His voice was so sincere and God did I miss him too, I needed him to hold me, might as well be all cuddled up as it rains cats and dogs and I wouldn’t mind finally kissing him either.

"Feeling's mutual babe, don’t worry." And I meant that in more ways than one leaning on my elbows onto the black plastic table lost in Tyler's words coming straight into my ears.

Tyler and I talked about anything and everything from Christmas and hockey, to his birthday and Asher's baseball schedule until my laptop's battery fizzled out and I had to retreat back to our terminal. Claiming a spot on the floor next to Asher using a wadded up North Face as a pillow I plopped down turned Spotify on on my phone and attempted to catch a few hours of sleep.

A few hours later we were awoken by our parents telling us to line up for boarding, the rain had calmed enough for a plane to take off and the Reichman's were getting the hell out of here. Like zombies my little brother and I gather up our stuff and crawled onto the puddle jumper, we crashed into our seats immediately falling back to sleep. When we landed back in Dallas in the wee hours of the morning I went home to my empty apartment knowing Hannah was still with Luke's family in Oklahoma and sulked in the loneliness missing my best friend and a certain number 91.

The days without Tyler felt longer than all the other road trips I had endured since meeting the dark haired kid in a bar months ago, and Hannah was the first one to point out my change in attitude. Instead of just dealing with it I was "sulking" her words not mine and she had finally had enough of it.

"Get up." Hannah stood in front of the couch where I had been laying since I got home from my last physical therapy appointment, now cleared for going back to work full time and free from the walking boot.

"Why?" I groaned trying to see the TV from around the blonde girls body.

"You're pathetic laying here waiting on him to come home, get up we're going out."

"It's Monday Hannah, I don't want to go out. Ty has a game later."

"I think you'll live without watching one Stars game, Adleigh. Let's go shopping, ooh let's go to the mall!" I looked at her like she had lost her marbles, I was in no form to go out in public.

"Do you see what I'm wearing?" I gestured down to the running shorts and hooded sweatshirt on my person.

"So, I'm wearing scrubs let's go! Now, get your ass up." She was not giving up so I huffed and pushed myself up from the comfort of our couch, threw on a pair of tennis shoes and slung my new purse over my shoulder (the only decent part of my outfit).

Hannah drove us to the mall in her Ford SUV with the music blaring, the longer I spent out of the house the less I thought about Tyler. Where was he? Somewhere in Canada but I didn’t need to worry about it. So we shopped until we dropped, or rather the mall started closing down. I walked out with a new outfit that would be perfect for a certain someone's birthday party and a pair of sandals hoping spring time purchases would influence the weather to turn back up. As we headed back towards our apartment I made sure to thank Hannah, she was right I was sulking and I was a little pathetic. Waiting around on Tyler wasn’t going to make me any less confused or worrisome so why torture myself?

Hannah only said few words once we got back to our apartment but they stuck with me as she went off to shower away her day spent in a hospital laboratory, "It’s okay to let go sometimes, Adi. When the right person comes along you just have to let go of all your fears and try it, it's time to try with Tyler."

And that's what I planned to do, but when you're afraid of losing everything you've worked so hard for it's easier said than done.

Throwing myself back into work also help to distract me from my overwhelming feelings for Tyler and the fact that he's not here for me to do anything about it. I made it through the first part of the road trip but when the weekend rolled around with most of my "going out crew" skating on ice somewhere in New York I had to find new plans. I just didn’t think my parents would be my only option.

Hannah and Luke had date night plans.

Maddie was at a conference and Olivia had tickets to the Mavs game.

My cheer team was at a competition in California so making my return to the gym was out the window, I had no other choice.

So I wound up heading home to hangout with my parents.

Yeah, I'm one of those really cool 23 year olds, even after spending a whole week with them at the beach I still find Ben and Shayla somewhat entertaining. Although hanging out with the old folks does have it's perks, like having my mom order my favorite pizza a family run place I frequented a lot in high school. After grabbing it on her way home from the office she finds me holding down the couch in the den, Mo and Jude curled up with me enjoying having someone to hangout with for once. Smelling food I rise from the couch and head into the kitchen the two dogs following close behind, "Hey mom," I greet her as she puts the box on the countertop followed by the heavy thud of her purse and tote bag full of 'lawyer junk'.

"There's my girl, how are you?" She smiles and I walk into her arms letting her hug me with a sudden need for my mom.

"Good, I'm good."

"No, something's up. You don't come home like this very often." Shayla has my chin between her fingers her dark green eyes glaring into mine.

"What I can't just miss my parents? By the way dad said he'd be late."

"Of course he will, and yes you can it's just rare. Are you sure there's nothing wrong?" You can't lie to your mom when she's a lawyer, she can see right through me.

Fighting a losing battle with the woman I let out a long stream of air, "Fine, it's Tyler."

At the mention of his name she smiles and reaches behind her to the wooden rack by the refrigerator grabbing a bottle of red wine. Shayla is a wino no doubt about it so I had definitely learned my habits from the best.

"Well, you talk I'll pour." She grabs two glasses from the cabinet as I situate myself at one of the bar chairs facing into the kitchen leaning my head onto one of my hands.

"I think, I uhh, I might be," I rub a hand across my face as she slides a glass filled with red liquid towards me.

"You're in love with him." Instead of even trying to dance around it again I just nod and take a giant gulp of wine.

"Yeah, maybe, I mean I'm pretty sure? I forget what it feels like and I'm scared to death."

"Adleigh, honey I know what Noah did to you was wrong on so many levels, and it caused you so much mental and physical pain but you have to move on eventually. You're ready, I know you don't feel like it but you are."

"How do you know? I'm scared to even kiss him let alone tell him I'm kind of in love with him!"

"Adi, sweetheart that boy really cares about you. He spent the night with you at the hospital, he didn’t have to do that most guys would have left the second we got there. He went to a family wedding with you, he sat with just us at football game, he shows you off to his friends. Adi there is no doubt in my mind that he's a good person, and you know that." I nod as she takes a sip out of her own glass.

"I know that, I know he cares about me and I care about him too. It's just the whole, I don’t want to lose myself again thing. I'm finally in a good place mom, if he hurts me I'm not sure I can go through all that again."

"You can be in love with someone and still love yourself, you are much different now than you were with Noah. You're strong and Tyler is much different than Noah, they may both be athletes but it's not what defines them." Why is it that your mother is always right?

"Why are you always right?" The dark haired woman standing in front of me just grins and shrugs her shoulders.

"I'm a mom, it's what we do. Now, no changing the subject what are we going to do about this? Are you going to open up and tell him or are you going to keep dancing around it like a child?" Bluntness, it runs in the family.

"WE aren't going to do anything. I however am going to somehow tell him that if he'd like to try the whole dating thing I wouldn’t be opposed."

"You're going to phrase it like that? It's not a business proposal, dear."

"Okay, well what do you suppose I do? Do I just walk up to him and say, "Hey, I'd like to be your girlfriend now." That's not practical mom."

"No, it's not but you've gotta do what you've gotta do sometimes dear, put your big girl pants on and go get your man. Now, let's eat." She pops the lid of the box open and grabs a slice of the pizza, I grab a slice too and sit back down my mom sitting next to me wine in hand.

"For what it's worth, we really like that boy Adleigh." She says sipping her glass and I nod chewing my slice of greasy deliciousness.

"Yeah, well me too Mom, that's the problem." I shove more pizza in my mouth deciding to eat my feelings for the evening.