Emerald Eyes

55 - Future

The next two weeks until Julian's birthday I spent dividing my time between my classes at uni, time with Anna and with Martijn, who was impatiently waiting for me to come "home" to him every couple of days to check on him. I had moved back into the dorm room with Anna, but every now and then I still spent a couple of nights in Martijn's apartment. The night before Julian's birthday was one of them as well. It was a typical Friday night for me. After my classes, I walked the way over to Martijn's house and was once again so grateful that he wasn't living too far away from our campus. When I entered his apartment with the keycard, I called out for him: "Hey honey, I'm here!" Nobody responded, so I took off my shoes, put down my bag and made my way up the stairs towards his studio. I knew he was home, so this was probably where he was hiding. The door was closed, so I knocked and waited for him to call me in. I had learned my lesson during one of the first few months, when I walked in on a recording session he had with another friend. "Come in!", I finally heard his familiar voice say and I entered the room. Martijn was sitting in front of his desk and next to him, Gabe and Louis were chilling on the couch. "Baby...", Martijn said and a big smile started to spread on his face, "It's so good to see you, love." I walked over to him and gave him a tender little kiss. After that, Gabe and Louis got up from the couch to give me a little hug as well. "Hi Line! It's really nice to see you.", Gabe said and Louis added: "Done with uni for today?" I nodded my head and answered: "Yup, finally. I'm currently looking for a professor to mentor me for my thesis, so it's all pretty stressful. I'm happy that it's the weekend now finally!" "Oh, I can imagine!", Gabe answered, "I still remember the time when I was working on my thesis. You're in for quite a lot of work, girl!" Martijn carefully got up from his chair and walked over to me with his crutches. He proudly wrapped his arm around my waist and started to brag about my good grades: "If she keeps up working as hard as she does, she'll be graduating as a straight A student faster than you can say "ANIMA", Gabe." Gabe smiled and wanted to know: "That is really good to hear! Do you have any idea yet what you wanna do after your graduation?" "Not really.", I answered, "But I mean, I'd like to do something a little more practical, I guess. I can't stand all these lectures and books anymore." "Don't worry, baby.", Martijn laughed, "If everything goes wrong, I'll get you an internship with Gabe, but then you'll have to hang out with that guy the whole day." Gabe gave him a playful punch in the side and Martijn hopped to the side: "Hey that is not fair.", he protested, but then grimaced a little from the pain in his ankle. Louis patted him on the back and said: "But hey, anyways brother, maybe we should get going now. I'll see you at Julian's party tomorrow night?" "Absolutely.", Martijn smirked, "Thanks for all the feedback on the new ID." Meanwhile, Gabe turned over to me: "Hey, Line. I know Marty was joking earlier when he was talking about the internship, but just in case that would be something you'd be interested in... Feel free to let me know, okay? I'm sure we'd find some interesting creative position somewhere in the team that you could intern for." "Thank you, Gabe! That means a lot.", I answered, "I will definitely let you know when the time comes." "Absolutely.", he agreed, "See you tomorrow, then!" Martijn then accompanied Gabe and Louis to the door and hugged them good-bye. I followed the guys to downstairs and after they had left, I made Martijn sit down on the living room couch with me. He sat down next to me and gently took my face into his hands: "Hey, baby. I didn't even have the chance to properly say hi to you yet. How are you doing? How was your day at uni?" I let my head rest on his shoulder and said: "It was quite stressful, but alright. I'm happy to be here with you now." Martijn's fingers traced the outlines of my face, all loving and gentle. He then wrapped me into a hug. "Do you even know how proud of you I am, little one?" I didn't answer, instead I cuddled up in his arms a little more. "Hey, look at me.", he said after a little while. I looked up and he said: "I am just so proud seeing you achieve all these goals that you have set for yourself. You're so strong and you're even strong for me too when I need it. I really appreciate that, baby, and I want you to know that, okay?" "Thank you, Martijn.", I answered, "This means the world to me, honestly." Then I added: "So how are you feeling? How's the ankle doing? Is it still hurting as much as last time?" "I'm feeling alright; thank you for asking.", Martijn replied, "It stills hurts a little and I definitely can't stand on it yet. The crutches also get quite exhausting after a while. But Watse has now finally managed to get a physio guy contracted for me, so I'll probably be doing lots of exercises for my foot soon. I really hope that helps me on the way to recovery." I looked him in the eyes and remarked: "You literally can't wait to get back on stage again, can you? Like you've had surgery just a few weeks ago and ever since that day I picked you up from the hospital, all you want to do is get back on stage." "It's what I love to do, baby, it's as easy as that.", Martijn answered with a satisfied smile, before giving me a little kiss on the forehead and then trying to get up from the couch: "There is this new track I have shown to Gabe and Louis earlier. I want to put some more work in it now, would you maybe like to listen to it?", he requested. "Sure thing.", I sighed, having hoped for a fee more minutes of intimacy with him. "Hey what's up?", he asked as he noticed it. "Nothing.", I answered, seeing his eyes glow with joy as he continued speaking about music.