~ knee socks - arctic monkeys ~
3:47pm
hey i'm here
emily jumped from her bed when she read the text. he was here. three weeks of not seeing each other - emily had missed jacob so much. he had suggested helping emily pack for england and the girl gladly said yes. she was going away the day after tomorrow, so in two days. and she wasn't a least bit excited.
the girl's ponytail swayed to the rhythm of her feet when she carried herself down the stairs of her house. she opened the main door and saw, of course, jacob portman standing in all his glory. he was smiling softly, but his body gave off a kind of sad vibe.
"hey." jacob said, taking emily in for a hug. she wrapped her small arms around him and rested her head in the crook of jacob's neck. jacob felt a hurting feeling radiating off emily. "hey, w-what's wrong?"
his words made emily hold him closer and almost tears pour. jacob knew what was wrong, but it felt like there was something else bothering emily, besides the main thing. the boy pulled away and looked at emily's face, which was turned away from him.
"let's go inside." emily said. jacob nodded and they went into her house, jacob closed the door after getting his shoes off. "sorry i'm so quiet and i seem like a mess." she said. "do you want anything to eat or to drink?"
"no, i'm okay." jacob said. "and i, uh.... i understand. you have the right to be."
"jacob, no." emily stopped once they had reached her room door. "i don't want you to be the strong one. just because you're the boy doesn't mean you always have to be strong one. i don't want your pity right now. i just need you to be here." emily sighed.
"emily..." it was jacob's turn to sigh. "i'm not... i'm not a professional at telling differences between feelings, but i just..." he whined. "i don't know, sorry if i have pitied you, but i definitely didn't plan on it. i just want to... you know, make you feel better."
the girl sighed. "alright." she said. "can you just help me pack now?" she asked and jacob nodded with a smile of relief. then emily opened the door of her room, revealing a huge mess of books and pants and paper sheets.
jacob let out a breathy chuckle. "oh man, this is some mess." he stated.
"oh, yeah." emily smiled a little. "at least it's not all made of clothes."
"oh, i feel so relieved." jacob said, putting his hand over where his heart should be in a dramatic sense. emily looked at him with raised eyebrows and a very slight smile. jacob waited for her to laugh or at least chuckle, but she did no such thing. "w-where's your smile?" he asked.
"huh?" emily asked in confusion.
"why won't you smile?" jacob said.
"i don't-i don't know... i don't think there's anything to smile about now." emily said. her friend felt his heart falling down to his heels. he should try and lighten the whole situation.
"emily, don't tell me i have to tickle you to make you feel better." jacob smirked a little.
"jacob, no, you don't." the girl said. but to no avail - jacob was already walking towards her and soon tickling her sides. he looked at emily's face to see a reaction. her lips opened wide in a smile and giggles started pouring out of them. that's a state the boy wanted to see his friend always in.
jacob's fingers danced along her sides faster to make her laugh even more and she did. "i-i can't... breathe, jacob..." she said between giggles and small pants. jacob backed away a little with a satisfied smile on his features. "happy now?" emily asked.
"i hope you are." jacob responded. the blue haired girl chuckled.
"so, i already packed most of my clothes and girly things," emily started to say, taking a piece of paper from her desk, "and all we need to do is gather the things on the floor and some other stuff."
"okay." jacob nodded. "what's on that paper?"
"uh, it's... school things." emily answered. but it wasn't school things, it was the list of things to pack, but it had jacob's name all over it. jacob couldn't find out about that, so emily just didn't tell what it actually was. "nothing important." she scrunched it up in a ball and put it back on her desk. emily turned back to jacob. "let's do this." she said, rolling up her sleeves. jacob nodded and took off his sweater, leaving him in only jeans and a shirt.
they got emily's things packed in about an hour and a half. clothes, shoes, notebooks, underwear, makeup and books were stocked in a huge black suitcase and a pastel blue backpack. it was emily's favourite colour. it reminded her of water waves that you can see in the south lands or islands. she, her parents and her brother went to hawaii when emily was six or seven years old, it was her second favourite place in the world. until she met jacob. now her favourite place was wherever he was.
emily was folding things and walking across the room in a fast pace, the movements looking kind of ragged. jacob saw it as nervous movements. he, on the other hand, was doing everything slowly and carefully. could emily be stressed about this so much that it reflected in her "everyday" actions?
jacob walked over to emily's opened and full suitcase and saw how different were the clothes he packed and the ones emily packed. he sighed. "emily." he said, making his friend immediately turn her attention to him.
"huh?" she asked.
"come here." jacob said to her. emily hurriedly walked over to the boy and looked where he was looking - down at the suitcase. "we have to repack your clothes and things." he stated.
"why?" emily furrowed her eyebrows. "i don't see a problem anywhere."
"look how neatly folded and packed are the things i packed." he said. emily did and nodded. "and now look at yours." she turned her eyes to the side of clothes packed by her. "they're not neat."
"yes, but why would i care? i'm going to use them, no matter how nicely folded they are or not."
jacob sighed. "let's just unfold and fold them together. it'll help you calm down." he said and started taking out the messy clothes.
"i'm calm." emily responded. jacob was quiet for a few seconds, as he was finishing to take the clothes out. then he turned to emily again.
"you're not." he replied. emily raised an eyebrow in disbelief. "o-okay, maybe you look like you are or-or you want to tell yourself you are, but you're not." jacob explained. "you're doing everything in nervous and fast actions. you immediately give off the vibe that you're stressed or nervous."
emily sighed. maybe she just needed to sit down for a little. and fold clothes in normal speed, not in the one that seems to be driven by a crazed and stressed person. "okay."
she took half of the clothes jacob took out of her suitcase and brought them over to her bed. jacob did the same before they sat down next to each other on the soft mattress of emily's bed. they spent a few seconds in peaceful silence and were just neatly folding emily's clothes and putting them in small piles, each consisted of four clothing articles. then emily sighed, making the comfortable silence disappear.
"what am i even doing?" she spoke. "i can't go." her eyebrows furrowed. "not if i leave you here. alone."
"i won't be alone, em." jacob replied hesitantly. "i-i'm friends with ricky."
"a friend i'm not really sure exists because i've never met him." emily mumbled under her breath.
"emily, i heard that." jacob said. "and ricky is quite real. why would i tell you about an unreal person?"
"i don't know, i just..." emily sighed again and then groaned. "ugh! i hate this so much!" she exclaimed. "i hate leaving you behind, i feel horrible for that. yes, i've said this before but i still hate it. what are you gonna do without me here, huh? i can only imagine how you will feel. because i will feel the exact same way, only with guilt added."
"guilt? guilt?! " jacob repeated. "emily, you can't feel guilt! you're not the one to blame here! and whatever with what i will feel! i-i can take it." he reasoned. "much more important here is how you'll feel. you will be all alone in england with your parents working all the time - if they will - and you will have no way to spend time with a friend - me.
"could you please just not worry? about anything? i will be fine here. at least enjoy the contrast weather and a trip to somewhere else. ignore the part where you'll be alone and without me. imagine all the things you could do there. maybe even meet new people, new friends."
emily shook her head violently as jacob spoke. "no, i won't. i can't leave you here." she said with tears threatening to spill. "i'm taking you wi-"
her words were stopped when jacob put his hands on emily's shoulders and turned her body towards him. "emily!" he shook her softly. "please, don't bring this worry all on your shoulders. i hate to see you like this. please, stop it." jacob said. "there is absolutely nothing we can do about you going away. we need to go with it. you go to england, i stay here. and we both live on with our lives. you return and we meet again." he smiled sadly. "cheers." jacob's voice broke.
emily chuckled, but eventually it turned into crying. jacob watched as tears poured down her face, but then pulled her into his chest. she cried and cried, wetting jacob's shirt and saddening his heart. his favourite girl in the whole world was broken, trying to find comfort in him. her soul and her body and her heart all were crying.
the two teens were sitting next to each other, minutes later, with emily's head resting on jacob's shoulder. emily sighed and wiped her tears. "i think they're punishing me." she said and then cleared her throat.
after registering emily's words, jacob furrowed his eyebrows. "w-what do you mean?"
"my parents." she said. "i feel like they're punishing me for not being as good as him."
"who?"
"luke."
"who's luke?"
"m-my brother. he was my brother."
jacob sighed quietly. this will turn out sad, i can just bet. "emily..."
"no, i needed to tell you a long time ago, but i couldn't." emily said. "so i'm telling you now."
"only if it helps you in any way, okay." jacob said.
"oh well." emily looked down at her thighs and then back at the wall in front of her. "so, i had a brother named luke. he was three years older than me. he would turn twenty this year, but he won't.
"when i was ten years old, luke got new friends at school. they weren't the friendly crowd that would have the perfect behaviour at school, no, they were the opposite. he didn't tell our parents about them but they had questions since his grades started dropping.
"one night - a summer saturday - luke told our parents he was going over to a friend's house. which he did. they would have like a birthday party or something. but it was no regular party. somehow, being thirteen years old, they got alcohol and drugs in the house and of course, tried it all. i think they got it from someone's older brother or something.
"they were having fun and all, high on drugs and drunk off their asses." emily rolled her eyes. "but my brother's stressed, weak physically and weak on the immune system body could not take the alcohol and the drugs." emily drew in a sharp breath.
"his cause of death was overdose. that's all they said to us." she said with a huge sigh. "he had even better grades than i ever did and i think that's why my parents expect of more than i can do. every time they yell at me for 'bad' grades, they make me think of luke.
"because of luke, i have sworn off alcohol and drugs. i will never do those things, no matter what." emily finished.
her eyes were dry and her face emotionless. she didn't feel anything about her brother's accident anymore, there was simply too much to feel. so her body decided to not feel anything at all.
jacob put his arm around emily's shoulders and rested his head on hers. "i don't want to say anything." he said, as if to answer emily's mental quetion about him being silent. "i just want to be here for you."
emily sighed. "i will miss you so much, stranger."
"i will miss you, too, stranger."
they sure would.