I wake up that Monday wishing that fall break was longer. I'm tired, for one thing, I stayed up too late last night, for another, I'm nervous to go back to school, for whatever reason. I get up and get dressed, then brush my teeth and head downstairs.
"Good morning, Emma." My mom says.
"Morning."
"Are you feeling alright?"
"Yeah, I'm just tired, that's all. Fall break was too short."
"It was two weeks." I smile.
"I know." She comes over and hugs me.
"Emma, your dad and I are so proud of you, this can't be easy for you, but you're doing so well."
"Thank you, mom. I love you guys."
"We love you too." I grab an orange from the bowl on the table and head out to the car before she can see that I'm crying.
*******
"Fall break was a blast." Sarah says when we sit down in first period.
"Yeah, it was."
"Now Christmas break needs to get here." Kayla says. We all laugh.
"Yeah, really." Sarah adds. "I'm just ready to go to the ski lodge."
"Okay class, quiet down please. I hope everyone had a nice Fall break, we won't be doing much today, just taking notes, so please get out paper and pencil, or pen." With as much as I didn't want to go to school this morning, it's nice to have a routine again, it gives me less time to overthink things. When the bell rings, I'm the first out of the classroom. Kayla catches up to me at my locker.
"Emma? Are you ok? You ran out of there pretty fast."
"Yeah, I just didn't wanna anyone to stop me and ask how I'm doing. It's nice that they care but it's starting to get suffocating."
"Well, Emma, can you blame them? I mean Eli just died like...."
"Stop, please, I'm trying to not think about that right now, I just want things to go back to normal and if everyone keeps bringing it up, nothing will ever be normal again."
"I'm sorry, I shouldn't have said anything." I swallow a few times to get my voice steady.
"No, I'm sorry, I shouldn't have been so... harsh, it's just, Everyone acts like I'm gonna fall to pieces at any second. That's another reason I left the classroom so quickly. I didn't want the teacher stopping me for any reason." By now, I'm close to crying, and Kayla knows it.
"I think you should go home and get some rest, Em, you look really tired."
"They won't let me go home. I'm not sick."
"Yes they will, come on." She takes my hand and we go to the nurses office.
***********************************
It's been a while, but I'm back. The plan is to update on the weekends because I'm usually too busy during the week to update. I hope you guys enjoy this and I'm sorry for being gone for so long!
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Open This When...
RomanceEmma's boyfriend is dead, but his memory is not. She still has his jacket, his football Jersey, the necklace he gave her, and a huge stack of "Open This When" letters he had written for her. As she reads them, she realizes that he loved her more tha...
