Today is the day we are going to finish the last part of the short dance! I kind of can't believe it with everything going on that we are able to finish it.

Last week was pretty hectic with finals and lectures about having to really commit to skating with Coach Bryan. He's pretty intense when it comes to figure skating he wants the best and expects the best from us.

It's really cold when I walk out of my dorm, it's only 5:30 but Derek and I really want to finish the dance. I walk out of Herring Hall down to Egan Hall where Derek is waiting for me.

Derek looks up at me while I walk and smiles, "You ready for this today?" I nod "I'm not sure, it's going to be tough with two more lifts and a Triple Axel for the grand finale," he takes my hand and kisses my cheek to relax me, "We will do it,

we are the dream team after all!"

He knows I always laugh at him when he calls us that, but he's right we can do it! We get to the rink and Coach Bryan is looking over his notes with his Starbucks coffee in hand.

"Good morning are you ready for today?" We both reply and Coach tells us his game plan for us. The ending will be tricky but I'm excited to learn it.

Derek and I both take the ice and warm up for a half of hour. We skate over to Coach who is going to tell us where to go from where we ended last time. After skating for two hours and coming close to perfecting the dance we stopped to shower and get ready
/for class. Thank god I don't have to go back to the dorm and shower and I can just do it in the gym locker room.

45 minutes later Derek and I are walking hand in hand to English Class. We sit next to Cristina, Owen, Alex, Izzie, Callie, George, Lexie, and Mark when Mrs. Bailey walks in we all stop talking and get out our textbooks.

After class I got a text from my mother saying, "Hello Meredith, I'm in town tomorrow and I would like to meet at 9:30 at the Café on West Avenue next to the Target."

I showed the text to Derek and my friends at lunch, they all agreed that I should meet with her, but that I should have someone go with me. My mother wasn't one of those warm and gooey people. She left after my father died and moved to London with her
/boyfriend when I was just 15; now I'm 18 and I'm really unsure about seeing her again.

In the afternoon after classes Derek and I head back to the rink to skate for 2 hours until 5. We finally have perfected the short dance I only fell once, which didn't hurt too badly doing a triple salchow. At 5:15 we started to walk down to "The Blue
/Flash," they have the best seafood and sushi.

The hostess seats us right away since it's a Monday and pretty empty. Derek holds out the chair for me and then goes and takes his seat. We both study the menu even though we both get the same thing every time, he gets the salmon and I get the red snapper.
/After the waitress takes our order we both begin to discuss my mothers' visit tomorrow.

I told Derek how nervous I am meeting my mother, I can barely eat or think about it. "Do you want me to come with you? I can miss morning skate and classes to come with you?" I shook my head, "I think I'll be ok once I get it over with and just see her,"
/I tell him, "I just don't understand why she comes in here like this, I hate seeing you all bent out of shape." As I was going to answer the waitress comes back with out meals. "I guess we will find out what will happen tomorrow."

We finish our meals and then get cheesecake and fruit cobbler for dessert. We split them which I love doing with Derek, I couldn't really imagine my life any other way as chessy as that seems.

-The Next Day-

I roll out of bed when I see it's 6am because I know I won't get any more sleep until I figure out why my mother is here. I went to take a shower in our conjoined bathroom trying not to wake up Cristina, or Callie. In the other room is Lexie and Izzie
/and I didn't want to wake them either.

I take a quick shower, and get dressed in Derek's navy Polo sweater (that I have deemed mine), white jeans, brown riding boots, a scarf, and my big peacoat. By the time I was done it was only 7:15 I had a lot of time still to kill so I wrote Cristinaand
Callie a note saying I'm out and I left.

I walked down to the Library to start a neurobiology paper that is due next week, my teacher Mr. Webber is really awesome he gives us a lot of time to do papers. We had to write about a disease that is concerned with the neurological system that can be
/prevented. I'm still figuring out what disease I want to do so I researched that for a little while.

I couldn't stand waiting to see my mother any longer I decided to just drive around. I took my time over to the café and I got there at 8:50. I texted Derek telling him that I got there and I'm just waiting. He asked if I got any sleep and to text him
/when she showed up.

I didn't have time to text him back because I saw my mother pulling into the parking lot in her rented BMW and knew it was go time!