Mistakes We Made (Wattys2016)

Chapter One

Emma's POV

"I still don't understand why you're even going. You couldn't stand the guy." My sixteen year old neighbor, Mary Kate, said from her place at the foot of my bed. I was standing in front of the mirror in my bedroom, smoothing out the black dress I had just slipped on.

"Jace and I were friends once upon a time. Besides, just because he irritated me, doesn't mean he deserved to die." I responded as I tugged the black heels onto my feet. They were a tad bit too tight, but they were the only pair I owned. I only ever wore them for weddings and funerals, unfortunately this occasion was the latter.

"You look so ... dull." She had been trying to convince me to wear a different outfit ever since she had arrived at my house an hour earlier.

"I'm going to a viewing, black is appropriate." I rolled my eyes.

"You can wear some color, it's not like he was your family or anything."

I let out a sigh, "I don't feel very colorful this evening."

"Fine." She gave in. "Should I go ahead and wake the baby up?"

The baby she was referring to was my son, John. He was almost a year and a half old, 17 months to be exact, and he was adorable, but I'm his mother so my opinion was slightly biased. He had soft, blonde curls and green eyes; chubby little cheeks and a big grin, with his tiny baby teeth showing through. To me, he favored his father, but since very few people knew his dad, that comment wasn't made very often.

"Yeah go ahead. Its 3:30, if you don't wake him up now I'll never get him to sleep tonight." I ran my fingers through my curly brown hair, trying to get it to stay in place. The September heat made that nearly impossible. It was so humid in Georgia at that time of the year that my hair always frizzed out making it look like I had a lion's mane on top of my head.

A minute later, MK stepped back inside my room with the very sleepy looking toddler on her hip. His mouth was turned down in a frown, as he rested his head against her shoulder. I smiled at him and held out my arms, "Come give mama a kiss goodbye."

He slowly moved into my arms and rested his head on my shoulder. He did not like for people to wake him up from his naps. If you woke him up before he was ready then he would mope around for a good ten minutes. I kissed the top of his head. I looked at my sister, "Please do not load my son up on sugar this time, MK." I narrowed my eyes at her.

She held up her hands, "He loved the chocolate chip cookies covered in ice cream." She defended.

"He's a baby, of course he did. But I'm serious Mary Kate. Don't give him a lot."

"Yes Mom." She said dryly before changing the subject, "Is Rae going with you?"

I shook my head as I moved some hair out of John's face, "She's having a hard time with it all, she doesn't think that she'll be able to handle seeing him in a casket. Besides, she doesn't want to cause a scene. You know people will talk if she shows up."

Rae was my childhood best friend. She was also Jace McCauley's ex-girlfriend. He had been a year older than Rae, but the same age as me. His reputation in our small rural community was... unsavory, to put it mildly. He was known to be the town's "bad boy" and for that reason our parents had told us to steer clear of him. But when Jace took an interest in Rae that April night nearly four years before, she couldn't resist him. I couldn't blame her for it. Jace had a certain charm, he knew how to draw people in. Whenever he set his sights on a girl, she was a goner, he was practically impossible to resist.

They had been broken up for well over two years, but Rae still loved him and probably always would. I'm pretty sure he loved her too, not that you would have ever known it at times. There were days I wasn't even sure they liked each other. They would fight like cats and dogs and they couldn't agree on anything. If she said the sky was blue, he was going to say it was purple. If she wanted to eat Chinese, then he wanted Mexican. Personally, I think he enjoyed the fights, I think he loved knowing he could get a rise out of her, which ticked Rae off even more. But, no matter how much they argued or how mad they got with one another, they would always work things out. They were crazy about each other, but in the end, I guess it wasn't enough. It takes more than being in love with someone to make a relationship work.