Psychoburners

Part 20: An Irish in Los Angeles

February 1st, 2016

    Emily woke up after sleeping for what felt likeages. She slowly opened her eyes and saw her blue-haired boyfriend petting herhair with love. When he noticed she was awake, he smiled at her.
- Good morning, babygirl.
    Emily smiled back and lay down at her boyfriend's chest.
- Good morning, my blue boy...
She replied, and John chuckled with thenickname. He hugged her tighter and whispered:
- I missed you waking up in the morning next to me...
- Did you also miss being a stalker and looking at me while I'm sleeping?
    John chuckled and admitted, rolling his eyes:
- Yeah, I guess I missed that too.
- I knew it!
- Yep. You're a genius.
- No... I'm a stand-up comedian. These two can't be combined!
- I believe they can to you, because you're smart and amazing...
- Awwwww, you!

    Emily kissed John's nose, who smiled widely andheld his girlfriend tighter. They both stayed quiet for a few moments, eachlost in their own thoughts. Emily spoke first again:
- Can you believe it?
- Believe what?
- That Evelyn and Michael are actually getting married in four months?
- It's a little hard to believe, but on the otherhand, they've been together for more than three years. It was time to movetheir relationship to the next step.
- Good point... But...
- But?
- I don't know, I may be wrong, but...
- But what?
    Emily bit her lip, hesitating for a moment, but inthe end, she decided to confess her doubts:
- Lately, Michael and Evelyn hadn't been... youknow... They hadn't been very close as a couple. You remember when I wastelling you Evelyn barely had time for Michael, right?
    John nodded and whispered a "yeah, I do", his mind wandering at that day and to the conversation that had happened. Emily continued talking:
- At least that was happening until Michaelproposed to Evelyn. Now, they both act differently: they feel like they need toget married fast, else they can't be a real couple. It's like they believemarriage will solve their problem of barely spending time as a couple, whichkind of does since they are preparing their marriage together. What will happenafterwards, though?
    Emily sighed and whispered:
- I don't know why, but I have a feeling this marriage was not meant to happen that soon...
    John didn't respond. He was looking at theceiling, thinking of everything his girlfriend had spoken. He knew she had apoint. On the other hand, she wanted to ignore that Michael and Evelyn weren'tthe only ones who had that specific problem: she and John were facing it aswell.

    They had both noticed that, yet they were tooafraid to even talk about it. Emily wasn't as busy as Evelyn, but doingstand-up comedy was taking her time. She usually spent hours trying to form agreat performance to entertain the audience at the best of her abilities. Shespent countless extra hours by practicing.
    John was as supportive as he could be.Sometimes, he was helping Emily by watching her rehearsal and pointing what shedid right and what she did wrong to improve herself. However, on other times,he himself was busy as well by editing, reading comments and generally doingYouTube stuff; not mentioning the travels he and Michael had done to visitconventions (and there were more to come).
    Even though it wasn't as clear as in Michael and Evelyn's case (at least before Michael's proposal), it was still clear enough: John and Emily had the same problem.

    Emily suddenly released herself from John's arms and got up, making him get his mind off his thoughts. She grabbed her clothes and started getting dressed. John lifted his upper body and watched her as she was wearing her upper clothes.
- Please don't tell me you need to go to work! You guys JUST returned from your show in Seattle AND you returned two weeks later because of the airport strike there! Didn't they let you have at least one day-off?
    Emily stopped for a moment, turned at him and smiled at his confused face. She then continued getting dressed, explaining:
- Of course we all have a day off! I just forgot to give you something I made while I was stuck in Seattle! I have it in my suitcase, which is back at my house! Just wait, I'll be back in five minutes!
    She wore her shoes and ran away from herboyfriend's bedroom, going to her house with excitement. John, feeling evenmore confused, got up and started getting dressed as well, planning on how tospend that day with Emily at its best. She had a day off, Michael was busyagain preparing his marriage with Evelyn and they had prepared enough videosfor at least two weeks. They had actually recorded during the first week Emilywas stuck in Seattle for the Stand-Up Comedian Show Special Seattleperformance, and since John didn't have anything else to do, he edited themajority of the videos during the second week, while Michael was helping Evelynat the marriage details. Therefore, John could easily take a day off and spend itwith his girlfriend. And forget for at least one day that their relationshipbond was slowly getting weaker and weaker...