Jar of Hearts

♡ 3 ♡

Emily takes a moment to form proper, English words, and finally manages to reply with, "Hey."

The boy opposite her chuckles at her nervousness. "Mrs. Park told me to get notes from you to catch up." Luke casually runs a hand through his dark hair, making it messier, and in turn, even sexier.

Emily averts her eyes away from his really, really nice-looking hair and tries to focus on how she's supposed to reply. "Uh, yeah, okay. I'll make copies and get them to you on Monday."

Luke nods. "Sounds good." He walks away without a second thought, leaving Emily with rapid heart palpitations.

Emily watches him as he walks away. She definitely got a few good looks at his ass, that's for sure. And damn, did it look good.

Look. Appreciate. Move on. That was her and Rory's motto.

You look at the tush. You appreciate its value. And then, you move on. You see, the whole purpose of their motto is so that they appreciate what God gave them to look at. However, you don't make it weird. You look long enough to appreciate and then move on.

Keyword = move on. Sometimes Rory has a tough time with that one. But that's a story for another day.

While walking to her car, Emily's phone buzzes in her back pocket. She pulls it out to see a text from Rory at the top of her notifications. Speak of the devil.

Rory: There's a game tonight, and we r going btw. I'll pick u up at 7:30. Look cute ;)

Emily knits her eyebrows and texts back: What game?

Rory immediately responds: Soccer.

A groan escapes Emily's lips and she shoves her phone back into her pocket. She knows exactly what Rory is up to, and exactly who's on the team. Jack Tatum.

When Emily gets home her mother is in the kitchen making dinner.

"Hey, Emmy. How was school?" A petite woman calls over her shoulder at the sound of the door closing. Her brown hair streaked with a sparse sprinkling of silver is pulled up into a tight bun and she wears a lilac-colored apron around her thin waist.

Emily tosses her backpack onto the ground in front of the stairs and walks into the kitchen. "Weird." Her face crunches up.

A laugh escapes her mom's lips and she turns to face her daughter. She quirks an eyebrow. Her ocean-blue eyes meet Emily's identical ones. However, half a second later a frown sets on her lips. "Not a bad weird, right?"

"No! Absolutely not!" Emily quickly assures her, causing her mother to visibly relax. "Just, Rory and I..." She stops herself.

She promised herself that she would open up more to her mom after what happened almost two years ago now. But sometimes opening up to her feels odd. Talking about boys with her mom isn't something usually does.

However, when Emily meets her mother's eyes, any doubt washes away. She remembers the long nights she had with her a couple of months ago. Emily learned so much about her mom. Her mom was there for her after her dad left them for good. Now, their relationship was starting to plateau again. No talks about Dad. No talks about their thoughts and feelings. Emily misses that side of her relationship with her mom.

They're all each other has and their relationship is more important than any teenage drama. If anything is going to improve, Emily has to take the next step.

"We're sort of trying to get me a boyfriend?" She says.

Her mother lets out a loud laugh and for the next hour, they cook and Emily tells her all about her and Rory's scheming.

♡♡♡

Four hours later Emily sits in front of her closet, tired of school, life, and now having to pick out a cute outfit.

Sucker by the Jonas Brothers blares out of the Google Home on her desk. The upbeat song motivates the brunette to finally get up from the ground and venture into her closet. She spins around and looks at every item intently before picking out a few items.

Arms full, Emily walks out of her closet and dumps the clothes onto her pastel blue duvet-covered bed.

Five minutes later she stands in front of a full-length mirror. She wears black high-waisted cargo jogger pants, black Converse, a black and white Adidas cropped halter top, and an oversized vintage red and black flannel that she stole from her father many years ago. Her style was a little different than most girls, at her school at least (those girls swore by the southern bell look), but she's okay with that. She isn't into the whole conformity thing anyhow.

The door to Emily's bedroom suddenly opens and Rory's blonde head appears around the side. "Hey!" She bounds over to her best friend and examines her outfit. Her honey-brown eyes narrow on every item. Her nose scrunches up as she thinks intently.

"So? What do you think?" Emily spreads out her arms and opens her hands.

Rory nods thoughtfully. "It's classic you. We definitely want a guy to like you because you're true to yourself..." She nods again and grins. Her eyes finally meet Emily's striking blue ones. "You look hot!"

Rory skips over to Emily and hugs her quickly before beginning to walk out of her room. "Let's go. We don't want to be late!" She squeals.

Emily grabs the rest of her stuff before following her best friend. "Bye Mom. I'll text you when I'm on my way home!" She shouts before closing the front door behind them.

Rory squeals one more time causing her to get the "look" from Emily.

"If this ends up with me embarrassed again, I'm done. I don't think I can take anymore, not after what happened with Parker," Emily tells Rory as they get into her car.

The blonde sighs and fixes her hair which is now in a ponytail. "That's fair, but..." She turns to look Emily in the eye. "Just try, okay? And don't worry about Parker. You know if he does anything like that again, Carlos will do... something." She grins and shrugs.

Emily laughs at the last comment. "Yeah, yeah. Whatever."

Rory pulls out of the Thompson's driveway and begins to drive in the direction of Lincoln High School for the second time that day.

A/N

QOTD: What are the mottos that you use in everyday life? (it doesn't have to be about someone's butt lmao)

AOTD: Well, clearly, it's Look. Appreciate. Move On. (or not).