The Contract

Chapter 18

I scramble up the ladder that reaches my bedroom window as quietly as possible. Once I reach the top, I open the window and enter my room, almost out of breath. Emily lifts her head up from my bed with a jolt. She looks surprised, but soon let's out a sigh of relief once she sees that it's just me.

"Thank god, you're here" She sits upright. I can tell that she's been awake ever since I left. I didn't say anything back to her. Instead, I plop myself down the bed right beside her with a huge smile on my face. Emily notices and furrows her eyebrows at me.

"What happened? Why are you smiling? I expected you to come back here sad or something." She bombards me with more questions. But I was still left from the hype from the current events. I just felt so happy right now that I couldn't think straight. Memories of what happened awhile ago kept replaying in my head, that I wish I could save it and put it on a DVD so I can watch it all the time and never forget about it.

"What happened?" Emily asks more desperately this time. I look at her, a smile still on my face. I sit upright too so that Emily and I were sitting across each other.

"Emily, you were right all along" I tell her. I started to feel butterflies in my stomach as I remember the previous events all over again.

"What do you mean?"

I bite my lip, a habit I find myself doing frequently now whenever I get nervous or excited. "Cole and I are together now" Emily's eyes go wide and her jaw drops. I knew I would get this type of reaction from her.

"Are you serious?" I nod in response. "So, that means he actually likes you too? As in he confessed to you and all that" I nod again.

Emily let's out a squeal and pulls me into a hug "Oh Jean, I knew this was bound to happen, I knew it"

"I honestly wasn't expecting him to like me that way, at all." My head was still high up in the clouds.

"Tell me everything"

So I told her everything, leaving not even a single detail out. I've told Emily a million stories ever since we became best friends. But I never expected to tell her one about how a guy, whom I really liked, confess to me about his feelings. It all just felt so surreal, as if I were in a movie or a romantic novel. Who would have thought that the school's delinquent, "the bad boy" as they say, would walk into the Krusty Diner one day and ask someone to be his pretend girlfriend which potentially lead and bloomed into something more. That type of thing never usually happens to someone like me.

"Does he know about your sickness?" Emily asks after I finished telling her the whole story. I look at her sheepishly "please tell me you told him you're sick"

I let out a sigh "No, I didn't"

"Jean" Emily shook her head with disappointment "Why didn't you?"

"Cole doesn't need to know about that. Especially now that he and I are... you know"

"But you're still going to tell him, right? You can't keep this a secret forever." I think about Emily's question. Cole is bound to know someday, but right now is not the time. I'm scared that if I tell him I'm sick he'd dump me and think of me as a lab rat who's dying and throw me out the trash and pick a much healthier rat.

"Yeah, of course I'll tell him" But not anytime soon, that's for sure.

"So what are you going to do now that you can't go to school yet? He's going to wonder where you are"