A Selfie to Die For

12) The bad beginning

Chapter song: "Face Down" by the Red Jumpsuit Apparatus
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Emily realized she disliked life without Jake the first thirty minutes their friendship broke up. There was a nagging ache in the pit of her stomach that felt as though it could pull her apart from the inside. She was sad, and she was angry. Emily hadn't actually meant to say the cruel words that left her mouth. Even still, meaning them or not, Jake didn't try talking to her the rest of the day.
He didn't even text her in Calculus class to casually say he felt the new guy Mr. Turner was secretly a vampire due to his talking slowly and pale complexion.
Jake had sent a text stating some sort of sarcastic commentary against sparkly vampires for the last week, and Emily was sad to see no such text came today. It was her fault, and she needed to apologize.




After all, he was right. Declan was possessive and overall extremely needy. He's made one too many comments that were rather odd, and Emily was an idiot if she kept going on dates with the guy. Breaking up would mean she didn't have a date to prom, unfortunately.
Emily suddenly felt stupid thinking of how much trouble she went through in the effort just to secure a silly date to prom.
She signed up for an online dating website! How desperate could she get?





Emily realized after school she was going to find Jake and make things right. She was feeling guilty enough that she'd even explain she put up with Declan's slight strangeness for so long solely because she really, really wanted to go to prom.
After all,  it was a stupid fight they had. They'd known each other for years - they even once lasted a two-week long summer vacation of being trapped at Emily's grandparents house! If two eleven year old kids could make it through two full weeks of watching solely MacGyver reruns and playing scrabble, they could survive anything in life.

Emily was however in for a very rude awakening upon entering the reporting club after school. For the first time ever in the history of Jake and a club or sport he loved, he was a no-show.
Every last person returned to the club even after the ugly meeting earlier in the day, and yet their fearless leader was nowhere to be found.
Emily had to think of her feet of what to do. She couldn't call or text Jake - she was not only feeling tremendously awkward, she didn't know if he'd even talk to her.



Tragedy struck when Lauren announced that  Jake called her to say he went home sick. It caused Emily to deflate with sadness knowing this was an absolute lie. He just didn't want to see her.




The problem with Jake bailing on the club was that he gave no indication of what topic he wanted on the paper. Emily had to improvise of what cover story to feature on not only the school newspaper but also the school website. It was solely up to her - no one was capable of coming up with their own idea without massive direction. Emily had immediately decided how she was going to attack South Dallas high for posting an article about opposing swim captains being in a gay relationship - she was going to have John Addams compose an article stating the bravery of both boys for having the courage to come out.
It was probably something that was incredibly overdone as far as media coverage over gay teenagers, but Emily needed something snappy and sappy to fire back at South Dallas. Considering they had only posted the cover story of the shocker of them dating, they neglected to use the gay-pride thing to make sure to hit the political correctness of the post. More than likely, this article as cheesy as it was would land John Addams back on top of Highly-highs rankings.





Emily was actually a talented boss as the hour and a half passed. She managed to wrangle everyone into line by getting them to print the copies as well as come up with a few short articles. She came up with a couple random stories to update on the school website as well. When it was finally time to wrap things up for the day, everyone in the club was significantly in better spirits than they were earlier in the morning. By the time everyone grabbed their bags to leave, it was evident to everyone they found the perfect cover story to win back the coveted seeding of number one ranking.




Emily was making her way out of the club after bidding a couple people goodbye to come across coach Cartwright on the other side of the hallway talking to someone. It was a teenage girl by the looks of it,  but Emily couldn't make out who the student was. She took a few slow steps to approach, not enjoying the sight of the much older coach gently brushing his hand up and down the girl's forearm. Even though there was nothing malicious about the touch, it still seemed wrong. Grown men shouldn't be touching teenage girls like that.




Emily didn't get far before an arm wrapping around her shoulders frightened her. She jumped only to find Declan was the one to surprise her. "Have you forgotten that I'm your ride home?" He asked teasingly, turning her around to head towards the door.
She had forgotten. It slipped her mind that not only was he her ride home, but he was also on the boys varsity soccer team now. That meant he stayed after school almost every night of the week for practice and conditioning drills.