Emily and Samuel ✔️

THREE

I chime in with a haven't you people ever heard of closing the god damn door?

My ringtone blared through the room while I was drying my hair with a towel, ignoring the caller I continued singing along with Brendon Urie.

No, it's much better to face these kinds of things with a sense of poise and rationality

Before I could continue the song, the call ended. Scowling at my phone for being such a tease I walked over and roughly picked up my phone to see a missed call from my mother. Shit. I took a deep breath trying to keep my voice steady and slide her name on my lock screen to call her back, maybe I could come up with a reason to –

"Emily Lee, you better have a good reason to back you up on why you couldn't pick up the phone when I called a minute ago," her voice was low but vehement and just like any other time when she uses her angry mum voice, it sent shivers down my spine.

Trying to come up with a good enough reason I didn't even realise I zoned out until I heard mum sigh loudly over the phone causing warning bells to start ringing almost immediately in my head. Mother have always been the level-headed one at home so for something to earn a long, deep audible exhalation expressing sadness, relief, tiredness or similar from her must mean something bad has happened. Something regarding dad probably, something that happened in the company while he was checking the accounts? Like a bandit that hurt Dad who found out somebody was embezzling money from the company? Or maybe she's sighing because she's given up on me and is ditching me here in Australia so she can adopt another Asian kid who will pick up her phone calls on the first try –

"Emily Lee Hui Qing! Did you even catch what I just said?" She yelled exasperatedly breaking me out of my thoughts.

"Is dad ok? Or is this about adopting another kid?" I waited nervously, toying with the hem of my towel that I've hanged up.

"What are you talking about? Emily I'm trying to tell you that we can't make it this week, Helen is hospitalised for food poisoning so no one is looking after the florist. Your aunt is in Malaysia now and she'll be back next week so your father and I can only fly there next week." Mother owns the florist and it's one of the busiest time now since they're busy getting everything ready for Valentine's Day and with no one at the store helping her I can understand why she sounded so tired and cranky.

I made my way to the bathroom and placed my phone on the sink with the speaker mode switched on, picking up my eyebrow pencil I asked: "Will you make it for the meteor shower?"

"We'll try but no promises ok? I got to go now, love you Em," she hung up before I could answer. Knowing she had no choice, I retracted the pencil and started drawing my eyebrows before I head out to explore the town.

👩🏻

Originally, the idea of a town deep inside the woods have made me assumed that the town could only have the few basic stores around enough for it to get through but the town has more than exceeded my expectations for it.

The town has a bookstore, hair salon, retail stores, a bar, a gym and so much more. What stood out the most to me was the multi-sport game court behind the gym, specifically the floorball game going on at the last court. I didn't even realise I was walking towards the court until my knees hit the floorball barrier that prevents the ball from going out of the court. Just as I was about to turn around and leave one of the players walked up to me, he had jet-black hair tied into a bun on the top of his head and bright blue eyes.

"Hey, you must be new here since I've never seen you before." He stated, wielding his floorball stick in the air like a nunchaku.

"Yeah I'm visiting my grandmother's friend with her and could you put it down? It's pretty dangerous and the rules states that the stick must not be lifted higher than your knees." I chastised gently, not wanting to agitate him in case he happens to be one of those hot-tempered players.