Tattered Blinds

Chapter Six

Emma

"What made you think of that anyways?" I asked Alex. 

"Elijah, oh I don't know, I just was thinking about today and that was part of today," Alex smiled a cheesy smile. I couldn't tell if he was telling the truth or lying to me. Whichever it was, I was confused that Alex was even talking about Elijah, he hated him. 

"Oh," I answered shortly. "What time is your practice today?"  

"Three," he replied. 

"That's gonna be hot! It's gonna be like, ninety degrees! Have fun with that," I had sympathy for him, it got ho in Florida, especially around three!

"Yeah, but that's what coach wants, anyways, I have to go, talk to you later Em!" Alex said and he was gone. I raised my eyebrows in confusion. Okay, I though, Alex never left without a hug from me. I decided to let it go, and I went to get out of the tree house. I grabbed my back pack and put it on my back and walked to the front door. I slowly walked to the back porch door to go inside. O hummed an old folk tune as I walked. I opened the door and the cool air conditioning was like heaven. I was almost dying of heat up there in that tree house! It got up to ninety degrees every day here in Florida, so air conditioning was almost a necessity. I felt bad for all the people that had to live by just merely opening a few windows, that would be crazy. 

Last month, during school the principle had to cancel break time outside because it was about 109 degrees, and he though it was way too hot to be in. So all 450 kids in our school were cramped in the gym trying to play a game of volleyball. It was total insanity! Even our PE class got canceled so at least 30 kids would be just running around the school, getting into trouble every period, because our PE's were split up. I didn't know what our principle was thinking, but that lasted until last week, when it started to cool down about five degrees. 

"Hi honey, glad to see you inside and not in that tree house," my mom said when I closed the door. I smiled. 

"Yeah, it is getting really hot out there," I replied and sat down at the table in the dining room that was connected to the kitchen. My mom was in the kitchen doing the dishes, and prepping for dinner. I wouldn't have considered our house huge, but it definitely wasn't small. When you walked into the house through the front door you were directly in the living room, it was pretty big. We had the couch on the left side facing the TV on the right. We had two single chairs on either side of the couch and a coffee table in the middle. We had nice polished, new hard wood floors. We had old, antique bookshelves on both sides of the TV that were stocked with tons of books that I had read about three times each. The living room was connected and open to the kitchen and the dining room, there was no doors you had to go through, it was all just open. I really liked our kitchen, because I got to help design it and it was really retro. Everything was stainless steel and granite. Then the dining room was really quite small, or it was just that our table was really big, either way, we needed a bigger space, but it was still nice, and separating the kitchen and the dining room was an island that I usually ate breakfast at in the mornings before school started. 

"Yeah, I was just watching the weather, it's supposed to be 103 tomorrow, so wear shorts to school so you don't die!" She made herself laugh. I fake smiled and pulled out my homework. 

"What are you working on there honey?" She asked me. 

"Next weeks algebra homework," I replied flipping open my math book to a lesson that we would be learning the next week. 

"Emma," she looked at me and casually stuck her hand on her hip. 

"What?" I blushed. 

"I'm very happy that you are doing good in school and getting your assignments in, but don't you think you are doing a little too much?" She asked me. 

"No," I quickly replied. I liked doing homework, especially math, it was fun. 

"Emma, how about you come help me with dinner?" She asked me. I closed my math book, it had been a little over three months since I had cooked a meal with her, so I really wanted to help her again. 

"Okay!" I smiled and walked around the island. "What are we making?" I asked her. 

"Well, right now we are marinating the chicken so we can cook it later, it is only three, so we are going to let it sit in the barbecue sauce for a few hours, then it wall be really yummy!" She explained. 

"Okay," I smiled and grabbed a bottle of barbeque sauce. I slapped it on the chicken and when we were done we stuck it in the fridge. When we were done I washed my hands, then I went and sat on the couch and propped my feet up on the coffee table. I ran through my head about telling Alex that I liked Elijah, his reaction seemed almost like jealousy, but I knew that Alex couldn't like me, we were only best friends, and that was strictly it.