Unexpected

Chapter 2

We walk out the school gates and towards the main street. I glace at my phone and see that its 9:30, by now the teachers will have noticed that I'm not in class and very shortly they will probably ring my parents asking where I am. I'm sure my phone will then be bombarded with texts about how much of a disappointment I am, so I press the power button, turning it off for now so that I can pretend it is just a normal day.

We make it into town quickly and as we walk past the ice cream parlor Zoe and I look at each other before nodding our heads and in unison saying "Lets get ice cream".  We both then also say "Jinx" at the same time which makes us both burst into fits of laughter.

We walk inside and look into the cabinet filled with various different ice cream flavors, pretending to decide which one we want even though every time we come here the flavor we get never changes. 

"What can I get you there girls?" The employee says looking at us dubiously. I realize then that we are both in school uniform and he's probably wondering why we are here and not at school. 

"I'll have caramel swirl."

"And I'll have triple chocolate please." Zoe requested after me.

We both giggle a little and the employee starts to scoop the ice cream into cones as I pay for them. 

He hands us the cones that we ask for and Zoe and I switch warranting a confused look from the employee before he shakes his head and walks away muttering something about 'teenagers being weird'. Zoe and I always order the ice cream that the other person gets, its something of a tradition for us. We have been friends since pre-school and because of this we know each other well. We know what the other likes and dislikes, their quirks and bad habits. We always kick butt on those how well do you know each other quizzes that are made for couples.

We walk out of the store eating our ice creams and sit down on a bench, watching everyone go about their business. We each finish our ice creams by biting off the bottom of the cone and sucking the remaining ice cream through, then eating the cone. 

"OMG, we should go shopping! Surely maxing out your credit card is a good way to annoy your parents, plus you'll need a new wardrobe for while your in Eastwood." Zoe says looking at me excitedly. I groan but let her drag me along to the closest shop. As you may be able to tell, Zoe is slightly obsessed with shopping and I am the complete opposite. I appreciate style and I like the look nice, but I dont like to spend hours wandering around stores and trying on a bajillion different clothing items. I'm more of a get in, get what I need and leave kinda girl.

As I see how happy Zoe looks grabbing as many items as she can off the shelves, I decide that I will indulge her for today and try on whatever she gives me. Its possibly our last day together for a while and she just looks so excited, and that is how I like to see my best friend, not almost crying like she was this morning. Plus, why not spend some of my parents money?

I walk into the changing room with my arms full of the clothes Zoe just shoved into my face when she ran out of room in her own arms. I swear shes giving me one of everything she finds in this store, she even gave me scarfs. How she is still finding more baffles me. First I grab some jeans and a top putting them on and matching them with one of the scarfs before walking out and acting like I am on the cat walk for her. She nods her head approvingly, "You are definitely buying that whole outfit, it looks stunning." It continues on like this with most of the things I try going into the buy pile and only a few going back onto the rack. Eventually she runs out of clothes to give me and I go to the counter to pay for everything. The smile on her face was definitely worth the hours of being in the store, plus I admit, I did get quite a few nice things to wear.

"Now shoes!" Zoe squeals as we walk out the door. Shoes are my weakness when it comes to shopping and I believe that shoes can make or break every outfit. This time I happily follow Zoe. The bell on the door dings as we walk in.

"Ahhh, Emily, nice to see you!" Bella, the manager of the store says as she walks over to me. I come here a lot but the real reason Bella knows me is because she is friends with my parents. She gives me a quick hug and informs me that there are lots of new shoes in that she thinks I will love. I end up finding around five pairs of shoes that I like and as I pay for them I glance at the clock on the wall to find that its 4 o'clock already.

"Come on Zoe, we should probably be getting home." She just nods at me and I think I see the glassy eyes returning. When we reach the door I turn back and wave at Bella. 

"Bye Emily, good luck." Clearly she has talked to my parents and knows what is going on. How weird that they told their friends before even telling me.

When we get to Zoe's house I give her a hug and when I pull away I see that she has tears falling down her face.

"Don't cry! We will see each other again soon!" I exclaim as I pull her back into the hug.

"It won't be the same though." She sobs, "promise me that you'll text every day."

"I promise! Of course I will, I'm not just going to abandon you Zoe" I think she thought this was going to be the end of our friendship, but she was so wrong. Zoe will always be my best friend and no one can replace her no matter how hard they try.

This seems to assure her as when I pull back from the hug again she isn't crying anymore.

"Talk soon" She says as she waves and walks inside her house. I guess now it's time for me to go home and face the wrath of my parents then.

I walk as slowly as I can back to my house, I know my parents are going to be mad, and they probably don't even know how much of their money I spent today yet. When I reached the door I try to open it as quietly as I can but it doesn't matter, my parents are waiting, and as soon as my foot lands inside the door they start yelling at me.

It continues along the lines of "How could you interrupt us at work like that" and "I was distracted the whole day wondering where you were" for a little while. They don't even let me into the house for them to yell at me, I'm left standing in the doorway until they decide it's enough. The worst thing is that it's not even about me, it's not that schools important or anything like that, they somehow make me ditching all about them.

Soon they give up and I trudge up to my room, dropping my shopping bags and flopping down onto my bed. At least in their anger of me ditching school they didn't notice the many bags I carried in.

"You okay?" My sister Samantha asks quietly from my door. I sigh and sit up looking at her.

"Yeah, I'm used to it now." I reply.

"Sorry" she says frowning. "Ohh, you went shopping?" Her eyes light up and she comes in, successfully changing the subject. Not that I mind, I don't enjoy being reminded that they don't yell at her because they think she's perfect. She starts searching through my bags and picks out a yellow blouse holding it up so she can see it properly.

"Can I please have this? It's so cute!" She says almost squealing.

"Sure, I only got it because Zoe liked it, it doesn't look that good on me." This time she does squeal and hugs me before running to her room, presumably to try it on.

I settle into my bed and grab a book of my nightstand, I'm almost at the end so it's just starting to get really good. I read until my parents call us down for dinner.

The dinner table is awkward, we sit in silence the whole time.

"You can do the dishes Emily" my Mum says one we are all finished. I nod and take the plates into the kitchen. I always have to do the dishes, they would never ask Samantha to do them. There seems to be more dishes than usual tonight and I wonder to myself if my mum did it on purpose to punish me.

Once I finish washing and drying them I go back to my room. I finish the book, which had a really disappointing ending, and decide I might as well go to sleep, who knows what tomorrow will bring.