Against All Discouragement That Could Be

Chapter Two

Emma woke from a noise downstairs. Slowly, she got out of bed so as not to wake Kate. She crept downstairs and smelt an aroma of toast and tea in the air. As she walked into the kitchen Sarah turned her head and said, “Oh darling did I wake you? Sorry, don’t mind me I’m just taking this up to bed before I nod off. Have whatever you want from the cupboards.” She gave Emma a smile before wandering upstairs. She was still in her nurse uniform from working all night. Emma headed for the cupboards and pulled out a teabag and a mug. The sound of the kettle boiling brought her back to the events last night. Did it really happen? Or was it just some really weird dream? The look on Kate’s face as she walked into the kitchen told her that it did really happen, and it definitely was not a dream.

It was Kate who broke the awkward silence first. “Hi.” Emma smiled and said a quiet hello back. “Do you want a tea?” she asked. Kate nodded, and then walked towards Emma. She ran her fingers along the counter as she slowly walked over until their fingers touched. It was like a spark of electricity when their skin met, and Kate leaned in to give Emma a kiss. She accepted it, then darted out the way and said, “Wait.” In response to Kate’s confused look, she continued, “I haven’t brushed my teeth yet.” With that she ran upstairs and into the bathroom. Kate smiled at how cute her friend was. What would she even call her now? Her girlfriend? Because last night was definitely not friend behaviour. A couple of minutes later Emma returned with a smile on her face and clean teeth. She gave Kate a kiss which brought smiles to both their faces. “Mmm… minty,” Kate joked. Just as she was about to pour water into Emma’s cup, she stopped her and said, “Don’t worry about my tea; I hate how everything tastes after you brush your teeth.”

“Okay,” Kate replied, “Go in the living room then and stick the telly on.” She did, and ended up putting on Friends. In the middle of her laughter Kate came in, set her tea down and sat on the sofa. In view of everything that had happened to them it had been a long weekend, so their last day before going back to school was planned to be complete relaxation. One hour and two episodes of Friends later, Emma had her legs outstretched on Kate’s and they were still on opposite sides of the sofa. The ending credits came up, and Kate grabbed her legs and pulled Emma closer to her. They held each other’s gaze for a few seconds, and then their lips met. With their arms around each other, everything just felt right, when all of a sudden Emma’s phone started to ring. Reluctantly they pulled apart and Emma picked up her phone from the coffee table. “Hello?” It was one of her other best friends, Megan.

Megan and Victoria were Emma’s two best friends other than Kate, but they didn’t spend time with Kate. They didn’t have any classes with her, even Emma only had one. “Babe what’s up?” Meg asked. “I just rang your house and the second I asked for you your mum hang up on me?” Emma sighed then explained briefly everything that had happened. Well not everything. “Oh okay. Well if you’re up for it, do you and Kate wanna come out tonight? I was thinking we could just go for a meal to celebrate our last night of freedom before having to endure school.” Emma checked with Kate if she was up for it, and then replied, “Yeah sounds good. Pick us up at 8?” As they finalised details, Kate teasingly kissed Emma’s neck. When she hung up, she said, “She could have heard you!”

“Yeah, but you didn’t stop me,” Kate replied with a smirk. Emma kissed her back, and their tongues grazed against each other. She ran her fingers down Kate’s spine, causing her to squirm. “You okay?” she asked. Kate laughed, then said, “I’m fine, it tickles that’s all.” They resumed kissing, and as Kate lightly pulled on Emma’s short hair, they heard footsteps on the stairs. Light would not have challenged the speed at which they flew apart from each other, and casually began watching the telly again. “Hi girls,” Sarah said as she appeared in the living room, now awake and dressed in home clothes. “Hi,” Emma and Kate chorused back. Kate stood up and said to her mum, “Muuuum, could I have some money to go out for a meal tonight with Emma and a couple of other girls?” Sarah nodded and reached for her purse.

“Here,” she said, “Take some extra and you can take Emma to that new café for lunch.” Kate gave her mum a gracious kiss on the cheek then turned to Emma and said, “C’mon, let’s go upstairs and get ready.” They reached her bedroom when a thought occurred to Emma.

“I don’t think I’ll be able to come tonight actually. I don’t have any money.” Kate smiled at her and said, “Don’t worry; my mum gave me more than enough for the both of us. Besides, if you ever need money we will always happily give you some. Like my mum said, treat here like it’s your own home.”

“If I did that then I wouldn’t expect any money!” Both girls were aware of Emma’s previous family situation. To make a long story short, they had practically no money. The next half hour was spent trying on countless amounts of clothes until they finally decided on a white dress for Kate, and a blue one for Emma with a black cardigan. “Are you sure you want to wear that cardigan? It may be October but it’s boiling outside.” Emma nodded, then grabbed her phone and said, “Let’s go already, or it will be dinner time before we even have lunch!”

“Two skinny caramel frappucinos no cream please,” Kate ordered the drinks before sitting down at a table in the corner of the café. The waiter brought them over promptly and gave Emma a wink which set the girls into fits of laughter. After they ordered a chicken salsa wrap and cheese and ham panini Emma picked up her napkin and began fanning herself with it. “Emma, take your cardigan off if you’re that hot,” Kate said. Emma ignored her and kept fanning herself. “Emma! You’re sweating!”

“I’m fine,” Emma smiled at her, but it was so obvious that she was far from fine. Nevertheless, the girls carried on with lunch and spent so long chatting in the café that they only got home with a couple of hours to get ready for the meal.

The four girls all greeted each other with a hug and went into the restaurant. They exhausted every single topic except school, which no one wanted to bring up. It was the end of October half term, and it was their first year of sixth form. Megan was the only one old enough to drive, something which she frequently felt the need to remind the girls. The night flew by because they were all having such a good time. By the time they got home it was almost midnight, and Emma and Kate went straight to bed. Sarah had already left for work, so all the lights were off in the house. As they got under the duvet, the soft mattress welcomed them as did the feather pillows. This time when they fell asleep, it was Emma who put her hand on Kate’s hip as they lay cocooned round each other.

The morning came too quickly, and the bleary eyed girls walked into school wearing their blazer, blouse, knee high socks, and skirt. PE was first lesson, the only game that they had together. The sun was still as hot as the previous day, if not hotter. As they got changed into their shorts and sports shirt, Kate noticed Emma pulling a tracksuit top over the top of her clothes. “Okay do you have a death wish or something?!” Kate stared at her expecting an answer. Emma simply replied, “Apparently the more layers you wear, the harder a workout it so you burn more calories.” Kate left it but was still concerned as to why on earth she insisted on burning calories. They were both two of the skinniest girls in school.

It was only during the cross country laps the real trouble started. Emma was slightly ahead of Kate, and when they were running through the forest area there was a straight clearing where Kate expected to at least see Emma running somewhere in the distance. Halfway down the straight path and still she couldn’t see her. Then she heard retching just ahead. She caught up with where the sound was to see if whoever the person may be was okay, and was shocked to see Emma. She was pale white and sweating like crazy and retching. When she saw Kate, she managed to say, “I’m so hot.”

“Take your jumper off then!!” Kate said, and tugged at the tracksuit top. Emma slapped her away, but as she did so she lost he balanced and ended up grabbing onto Kate’s arm again. She fell to the ground, and Kate realised that these symptoms were like heatstroke. Ignoring Emma’s swinging arms hitting her face and scratching her, Kate harshly pulled the tracksuit over her head. “Ow...” She said as Emma hit her harshly in the eye, trying to force her to back off. “Stop it! You’re sick, you’re boiling up.” She heard some more of her classmates running in the distance so cried out, “Help!” As she placed the thick top to the side, she realised why Emma was so defiant against taking it off in the first place. Emma went limp and stopped fighting back, because it was worthless. Kate had seen the red ladder of cuts going up both her forearms, old and new ones.