30 Days To Fall In Love

Day Twenty - Jake

Day Twenty

***Jake***

It was a strange feeling, being in love. I’d thought I loved Emma from the moment I met her, but maybe that wasn’t entirely true. She was there before me, this image of beauty, the eighth wonder of the world, and I loved that. You see, there’s a big difference between loving someone and loving someone.

Before, I loved the way her hair ran down her spine, trickling like chocolate. I loved the way her eyes lit up as she smiled. And her smile? I loved that too. I loved the dimple in her cheek when she laughed; and I loved when her eyes creased up at the corners when she was with me.

But now I didn’t just love those things, I loved her - the Emma on the inside. The outside Emma was beautiful, all shimmery and stunning and easily confused with perfection, but so was the inside Emma and all the little things she did.

I watched her fall asleep, loving her a little more with every breath she took, my own breath catching just to hear her exhale. I loved the way her eyelids fluttered as she woke up, a combination of sleep and tears in her eyes. She was beautiful. I loved the way she panicked as I told her to borrow something clean of Sapphire’s to wear. I loved her when she cried about leaving her friends, and I loved her when she told me how worried she was about going back home.

I loved her even though I knew she didn’t love me back.

But that didn’t bother me because I knew that, at some point, she would. It sounded arrogant, but it was true. Callum made up that crap about it taking you thirty days to fall in love with someone. Of course it wasn’t true, but maybe Emma would love me by then.

I looked at her lying beside me on my tiny single bed, asleep even though she’d just gotten dressed again. Up close I could see all of her imperfections, and I didn’t mean the physical ones. I saw her fears and her bad habits and all her worst nightmares... And those things only made her more perfect.

She stretched, still looking wonderful, and her eyes snapped open. At first, she was confused, probably wondering where she was, and then she smiled at the sight of me. I loved that too - how she smiled because of me.

“Morning, Jake,” she whispered.

“More like afternoon,” I laughed. “You already woke up two hours ago to change into Saph’s dress and eat a muffin, remember?”

She looked upwards, confused, and then smiled, “Oh yeah!”

I was about to kiss her when someone knocked on my door. Crap.

“Under the bed, quick!” I whispered. Emma got up and dived underneath, hitting her head on something and whimpering an ‘ouch’.

“Sorry,” I whispered. Then louder, “Who is it?”

“It’s me,” a timid voice belonging to my sister said.

“Don’t come in, traitor,” I muttered. I was tired of being angry at them, especially Saph. I hadn’t had a proper conversation with my little sister in forever...and we were good friends.

She came in anyway, eyes full of tears, “I’m sorry, you know?”

I rolled my eyes, “Right, sure you are. Goodbye.”

Inside, I kicked myself for acting like such a dick. She probably was genuinely sorry, but I was still so mad at her for keeping a secret like that from me.

She winced, “Can’t you forgive me, Jake?”

“I want to,” I said. “But I just don’t understand why you kept it a secret from me!”

“Mum told me to,” Sapphire said, looking down at her feet.

“Oh, please! Since when did you ever do anything Mum told you to?” I snapped.

“She held a good argument,” Saph shrugged.

“What exactly was that?” I asked, forgetting all about Emma hiding under my bed.

“Jake, you do know that you are exactly like Dad, don’t you?” Saph laughed. “Whenever anything went badly for him, even just a tiny bit, he messed it up even more. He drunk too much when he found out Mum was pregnant. He started smoking when they ran out of money. We didn’t want you to freak out and start doing the same... But, well, clearly you did.”

“Hey!” I snapped. “I got drunk twice! And the smoking thing was reasonable. I had a lot of things going badly in my life!”

“Right. Emma doesn’t love you and your mum and sister are hiding a secret from you. Hardly worthy of getting lung cancer over,” she sighed.

“I’ve stopped now anyway. I smoked for like two days,” I said.

“Okay, that’s good,” she said. “I just want you to know that Dad is a good person, he can’t help falling in love.”

“I know!” I snapped. Why was she talking to me like I was the younger sibling?

“And he said he’s going to stay in touch this time. Mum is going to let him,” Saph said, smiling like it was the best news ever. Maybe it was.

“What if I don’t want to stay in touch with him?” I grumbled.

She sighed, “Well, then you’re the bad person.” Then she left.

I kicked my skirting board, furious at Dad for coming back. Then Emma crept out from under my bed, her hair tangled slightly and her eyes bright and shining - just seeing her there made me calm down. Sure, she made my heart race and my head stop working properly...But, right now, that was a good thing.

“Why do you hate your Dad so much? The other day when we were talking you said how much you missed him...” Emma said, using her fingers to neaten up her hair. It didn’t matter how it looked, I didn’t care how she looked, as long as she stayed that same beautiful soul inside. I wanted her to lean into me, lie with me and just let me inhale her.

I shook myself, “Yeah, well.”

She laughed, “Yeah, well what?”

“Uh...What did you say?” I asked, watching her every movement in awe. I felt like a fool, I’d never been this stupid and gormless before.

She frowned, “Weren’t you listening?”

“Yeah-well, no-but...only because I was too busy thinking about how I don’t care if you’re ugly,” I said. Crap. That was not supposed to come out like that. “I mean...”

“What’s wrong with you, Jake?” she asked, but she was smiling.

“I think I love you and now I can’t think straight cos all I can think about is...well, you...” I said, reddening.

Her smile spread even wider, “You’re cute.” She pushed me onto the bed so that I was lying down, then she snuggled down beside me. I put my arm around her, which resulted in a dead arm, but it didn’t really matter.

“I really like you, Jake,” she said. “And I don’t want to mention Darren, but I need to say his name just to explain this.”

“Okay, it’s fine,” I said, which it was. Everything was okay when I was with Emma.

“I’ve only ever had one boyfriend and I’m not even sure if Darren counts. He says it doesn’t. Anyway, I thought he cared about me and he didn’t. And I really liked him. And-”

“I really care about you,” I said. “And I mean it, I’m not lying.”

She nodded, “Yeah, I know you do. I just mean that it’s made it really hard for me to trust people, so if we’re going to be together we’re going to have to take things really slowly.”

I didn’t say anything. I couldn’t. Did Emma actually just say ‘if we’re going to be together’. I thought my brain was about to explode in a fireworks display.

“Is that okay?” she asked anxiously.

“It’s more than okay,” I said, kissing her quickly. Was that too fast?

She leant in to kiss me, my heart accelerating again. No. Apparently not.