CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
𐙚⊹₊⋆☆
Juraj and Emília were sitting on opposite sides of the couch. A text chimed on her phone, alerting the boy, "Who is it?"
"Classmate."
halley benton
hey
it's halley benton from psych
i don't even remember why or how i have your number but i do
we have an essay due in a month and the prof told me to tell you just in case
hi halley
thanks for telling
mind telling me what's it supposed to be about?
yeah
it's about why or why not mental health is as important as physical health
five thousand words
due april 30th
thanks for telling me halley
maybe we can meet sometime and discuss it?
asking for a friend
sure thing
just text me when you have time
of course
nice talking to you halley
bye
"What the fuck," Emília whined after she sent the message.
"What's wrong?" Juraj peeked up from his phone. He noticed the girl's annoyed expression.
"We have to do an essay on... why mental health is as important as physical health."
"That's not a bad topic. You have experience with it, no?" He asked.
"Well, yeah, but I fucking hate essays with an assigned topic. Gives me basically no room for creativity. And it's five thousand words!" She threw her head back on the couch.
"I'll help you if you want." He proposed.
"What will you do? You can barely speak English, no offense."
"None taken, but I am currently an athlete. I can give you my opinion?" He gave another suggestion.
"Yeah, that would be nice."
"What the hell." Juraj mumbled to himself while rummaging through Emília's backpack. She asked him to bring her laptop, which was supposed to be in her backpack. However, she didn't specify which backpack.
One held all of her school stuff, books, pens, notebooks, and her laptop. The other had loose scraps of paper with song lyrics and chords written along with them. Unfortunately, Juraj had found the wrong one.
"Did you find it?" She yelled from the living room where she was watching TV.
"Uh, no?" This answer made her perplexed enough to stand up and see what he was talking about. She walked into the room. There were papers sprawled out on the floor.
"Oh! Yeah, that's not it." She compiled the papers and quickly threw them back in the bag where they were before.
"What is it?"
"Nothing."
"Come on. Tell me." He whined.
"They're songs." She simply said, not wanting to go further, but the boy kept pushing.
"Songs?" He repeated after her.
"Yep, they're songs I wrote. Happy?"
"Not until you sing me one," He smirked, knowing she wouldn't be able to say no to him, "Any one you want."
She took the papers out of the bag once again, looking over the name of each one. She ended up picking Long Sleeves, the title track, "Are you sure you want me to sing? I might scare you away."
"Nuh uh. You're stuck with me. Now sing." She grabbed the guitar that was stashed in the corner of the room. It had too many good memories attached to it to just throw away.
"Packing while you're asleep, you were the catalyst," He watched her, mesmerized by the girl. He didn't understand why she hid this talent from him. She was really good.
During the song, a few tears slipped out, remembering her time with the boy she was singing about, "That was amazing. You're such a good singer." He wiped the tears on her cheeks away.
"Thanks. That... that means a lot to me." She smiled at the boy, lifting the guitar of her lap and storing it into the case she brought it out of.
"What's it about?"
"It's about a boy, my boyfriend, when I was like sixteen," She began, "He was really nice in the beginning, but then he kinda started forgetting about me and putting me to the side, and I basically just said screw you, and left his apartment one day, and blocked him and everything. I haven't seen him since."
He just nodded in agreement, a glint of worry in his eyes, "You won't leave me, right?"
She instantly moved into his lap, cradling his jaw, "I'd never leave you. You're my everything, my sweet boy."
"I'm hungry," Juraj suddenly said. The statement and the timing made Emília laugh, "Why are you laughing?" He asked with puppy eyes and a pouty bottom lip.
"It-It's just, we were having such a-a moment, and you're just like 'I'm hungry.'" She imitated his deeper voice.
An offended expression appeared on his pouty face, "I do not sound like that." He argued, crossing his arms in front of his chest.
"You so do," She laughed, lightly tapping the tip of his nose with her index finger, "So, what would you like to eat?"
"How about... we cook something? Together?" He asked, looking in her eyes. I never noticed until today how bright blue they were. I mean, I knew they were blue, but not this blue. With the sun hitting them at the perfect angle, she looked... gorgeous. Angelic.
"Yeah, that sounds great." She got shy when he stared at her, putting her hand in front of her face, trying to hide the blush on it.
"Don't be shy. You're just so... gorgeous."
Somehow, her face got even more red, "Stop," She whined, covering her face with her hand, "You're so sweet."
"Oh! Let's make something sweet. Like... pancakes?" Inspiration struck the boy, making his dark brown eyes light up.
Emília got up and walked to the kitchen. She took our all of the ingredients, slowly realizing that Juraj didn't have almost anything, "Juraj? You don't have like anything." She pointed to the singular bag of milk in the kitchen.
"Oh," He simply said, "I guess we'll have to just order some. It's such a shame," The irony in his voice was evident. The unamused look on the girl's face showed him that maybe she really wanted to cook something, "Look. It's probably for the best. We'd burn down the kitchen." He grabbed her hands, a smile forming on her face.
"But you promise we'll cook something sometime?"
"Promise, love."
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CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE