Sooner or Later (Feat. 1D and 5SOS)

9. Awkward Silence

"So did you have a good time?" asked Mrs. Walters during the ride home, finding her daughter's silence most unsettling. Normally, Emma was such a chatterbox in the car. Once, after getting picked up from a school field trip, Emma spent the entire ride giving a detailed and enthusiastic play-by-play of the day's events. By her excitement, you would have thought she'd gone to an amusement park instead of a natural history museum.

But now she couldn't get a word out of her. After getting into the car, Emma slumped into the back seat and laid her head against the window. She hadn't moved since. Every so often, Mrs. Walters would glance into her rear-view mirror and make funny faces to get her daughter's attention. A laugh. A smile. Even an eye-roll would suffice, but she received nothing. It broke her heart.

"Did you and Heidi get into a fight?" Mrs. Walters guessed. She could think of nothing else that would make her daughter so depressed.

"No," Emma muttered. Cupid has decided to play a cruel trick on my heart. If I could, I would ask him to take back his arrows and rid me of this heartache.

"Is it a boy?" her mother asked.

Emma grimaced. Talk to her mother about boys? Boys she wasn't supposed to be around in the first place? Somehow, Emma knew if she opened her mouth even a little, she was going to end up blabbing about the entire night and get herself and Heidi into trouble. Nope, too risky. Her lips were staying sealed.

"No, it's nothing. Just stupid school stuff."

"Have you made any new friends?" Mrs. Walters was smiling now, a hopeful yet pitiful smile that reminded Emma just how socially inept she really was.

"Nope, still the same."

"Well, don't worry. You just be yourself and everyone will love you."

"Every mother says that," Emma grumbled, "but it's not true. Not at all. In junior high, if you want to be popular, you have to mold yourself like a lump of clay. Over and over. Mushing and swishing 'til you take on an acceptable form. Only then, you no longer resemble your old self. You're just this blob. And you can't get that original shape back ever again."

Mrs. Walters nodded. "You've been sitting on that for a while, haven't you?"

"Couple years. It's hard being a kid, you know."

"And it doesn't get any easier, hon. I hate to say it, but it's true. Now, I don't know what you're going through right now, and I'm not gonna pry, but I can tell you that it's probably not as horrible as you think it is. Your life isn't ending."

"Yeah, I know ..." Gosh, she hated it when her mother made sense.

Mrs. Walters pulled the car into the driveway, and Emma hopped out and ran inside. The house smelled like freshly cooked pancakes and sweet maple syrup. In the kitchen, Mr. Walters was finishing the last batch of pancakes. As a self-proclaimed pancake-flipping master, he couldn't help but show off his skills to his youngest daughter. With every toss, Liddy would giggle and clap like she'd just seen a magic trick.

"Again! Again!" cried Liddy. "Flip it again!"

"No, I can't flip any more, sweetie. That was the last one. Now, go sit down at the table. Emma—" He turned around and smiled at his oldest daughter. "Hey, honey, can you get her something to drink?"

"I can get it myself," Liddy insisted, and then she climbed down from her chair and ran to the fridge. With both hands she gripped the handle and pulled with all her might, but it wouldn't budge.

"Give it up, shrimp," Emma said as she took the handle in one hand and opened it with a single tug. "Okay, do you want milk or orange juice?"

"I want chocolate milk—shaken, not stirred."