30 Days To Fall In Love

Day Seventeen - Emma

***Emma***

I was swimming, gliding through the water more easily than one glides through the air. I swam deep, nothing stopping me, not even the beautiful fish that surrounded me. Then, without a warning, I was drowning. Something had me anchored to the sandy bank and my lungs were filling up with water. It was suffocating. I tried not to breathe but it didn't help. I kept choking.

All of a sudden, I was lifted from the water. I looked down to see two strong arms around me, lifting me up. I tried to turn around to see who my saviour was, but I was too weak. It wasn’t until I was finally out of the water that I could see who had rescued me.

“Jake!”

I woke up with a start, tears steaming down my cheeks. Raven was next to me sitting upright and cradling herself. She turned to look at me, “Who’s Jake?”

I turned crimson: had I said his name out loud? 

Peter sat up grinning, “Emma has a boyfriend!”

“Shut up!” I snapped. Well, I tried to sound angry, but I really just sounded playful. 

“You can trust us,” Raven said. What she really meant was: ‘I told you my secret, now speak up!’

I shrugged, “There isn’t really much to say, except...” My eyes filled with tears, “I miss him!”

Peter jumped up from his sleeping bag and put his arm around me. Raven kept her distance, watching me curiously. I felt stupid for saying it: I could miss him and get him back, she missed her boyfriend and could never get him back. 

“What was he like then?” Peter asked me.

“Very tall-”

“Ah, of course,” Peter nodded.

I laughed, “He was nice, liked the same music as me, played guitar, wrote me a little note, always listened to me and tried to help me out whenever I was upset... And I really broke his heart and I am so stupid!”

“You broke his heart,” Raven said. She didn’t question it or press me on it, she just said it like a statement. I wasn’t sure if that meant she expected as much from me.

“How?” Peter asked.

“I told him I didn’t love him, I told him I loved someone else. As soon as I said it I knew it was a lie, but it was too late... He was gone and I couldn’t find him...” I looked up at them, Raven was gone and Peter was chewing on his lip.

“I broke someone’s heart once,” Peter said sadly. “Worst thing I ever did.”

I didn’t ask him to say anything, I was too busy feeling miserable about what I’d done. Poor Jake, lovely Jake. He didn’t do anything wrong: he only wanted to love me, and I pushed him away. It wasn’t really until now that I realised how stupid I’d been.

All I did was run away screaming and afraid. All I did was act weak, when I wasn’t. Was I?

Oh, God. I’d turned into my mother.

“I should never have done it,” Peter said quietly, perhaps to himself. “She told me her biggest, darkest secret... And I told Harry. And he said he’d keep it quiet, but he didn’t. Soon everyone knew. And it wasn’t Harry’s fault: it was mine.”

“How did she react?” I asked.

“At first, she was broken. She told me she never wanted to see me again, then she burst into tears. For a week or two she wouldn’t stop crying. Then she turned cold, and that scared me. She was so tough and hard and new. She acted like I was nobody, she just walked on past me without looking, sometimes pausing to speak loudly and rudely about me to her friend... And then I stopped seeing her...” he looked sadly at the floor.

“I’m sorry, Peter,” I said. “Sorry you couldn’t sort it... Do you... Do you think Jake could ever forgive me?”

He looked at me, “I don’t know. Maybe if you proved you loved him he might forgive you. It depends on the relationship you had before, and on him, and on a million other things.”

I nodded, “I really need him back, though, Peter. He was the only day of sunshine in the darkness I had. My parents, Darren, my lack of friends... He just helped.”

A warm grin spread across my face.

“How long have you been together?” he asked me.

“We weren’t even together, not really. I haven’t even known him three weeks...” I said, amazed at that realization. Crazy that less than a month ago and Jake wasn’t in my life. Well, he wasn’t in it anymore, but he would be soon.

“Wow, sounds like something real,” Peter said. 

Did it?

We spent the day at the cinema. We all bought tickets with the money we’d raised from busking, and then we snuck into random movies after the first one finished. Nobody checked our tickets so whatever. It was terrifying but thrilling at the same time.

I went off to bed early, whilst Peter went out to beg a cigarette off a stranger. I tried to tell him quitting would be easier but he just laughed a throaty laugh (and now I knew why it was so throaty: the smoking).

Raven was getting ready for bed next to me, pulling on a jumper with holes in and gathering blankets. I watched her, feeling bad for what I said in front of her. Her boyfriend was dead and there I was moaning about a boy that would almost definitely take me back.

“Stop feeling sorry for yourself, Emma; it looks ugly on you,” Raven said.

“I don’t feel sorry for myself!” I insisted.

“Fine, stop feeling bad for me. He died, I’m pregnant, and I’m still here,” she shrugged.

“How can you be so nonchalant?” I cried, fumbling around for the zip on my sleeping bag.

“It’s just what I’m like,” she said with another shrug. “My life’s crap, the world is full of crap... I accept it and I move on.”

“Oh,” I said.

“Emma, please stop feeling guilty for missing your boyfriend or whatever he is. My boyfriend will always be dead, whether you miss yours or not. So please stop sniffing and crying like a baby and find him, show him you love him, do something!” Raven said, smiling slightly.

“How?” I asked.

“Gosh, you’re hard work!” Raven said, feigning frustration. “I guess you could start by letting him know you’re not dead.”

“What?” I said.

“You ran away, you’re not at school or anywhere. You might have said you don’t love him, but that won’t stop him looking for you now you’re missing...” Raven said with a small and secret smile.

“Oh yeah...” I said, I hadn’t thought about anyone noticing I was gone; I’d only noticed they were gone from my life.

Raven sat up, tossing her dark hair back so that it rippled down her back, “Just think how you’d react if you were him...” Then she crept under her blankets and closed her eyes.

I thought about it: how would I react? Then I realised... This had happened to me already. Darren. I’d been ‘with’ him and we’d been happy, I hadn’t suspected a single problem, when, suddenly, he told me he loved someone else and not me. It tipped me over the edge, made me lose all faith in love... And I went to a very dark place.

Oh, Jake... What was I thinking?