Sweetness (Bold As Love 1)

We passed by the evil Claire and her friends. I didn’t even look back. I couldn’t. Instead, I slipped off my shoes and made my way into the playhouse.

I chased Drake in and out of the crooks and crannies, tickling him when I caught him. After about thirty minutes, I heard Jake’s voice booming up one of the slides. “Alright you two, let’s go.” Drake was satisfied with his playing time and slid down the red slide. Tired, I followed right behind him.

Careful to avoid looking at any part of Jake, I slipped on my shoes and we left. The ride home was to the sound of only the radio. Jake liked to listen to rock and other popular songs in different genres. Forty-five long minutes later, I was home.

It wasn’t but about 4 o’clock and Drake wanted to show my dad the car. I didn’t mind, but I was tired from all the conversations from today. Regardless, I told them to stay awhile. I planned to be quiet.

Jake stopped me just inches from my front door. “Emily, can I talk to you for a second?”

I turned around and leaned against the brick of the house. Crossing my arms, I suddenly found my shoes interesting. “I feel like I’ve talked all day long. I’m tired of talking.”

“I just wanted to say that I was sorry about earlier, with Claire. She didn’t know what she was talking about. She was mainly just jealous.”

That caught my attention. I was confused. “Jealous? Of what?”

Jake’s sneakers came into my line of vision. He curled his fingers around my chin and lifted. Why must he keep doing that? I glared straight into his pretty green eyes. “Not ‘of what’. Of whom. She is jealous of you Emily.”

What? That didn’t make any sense and I told Jake so.

He smiled a crooked grin that made my insides melt and said, “It makes perfect sense. She is jealous that I would rather spend time with you than her. She called this morning, before I called you, and wanted me to go with her to the movies. I didn’t want to and Drake was upset that I said he couldn’t come here. Therefore, I called you. A solution that made everyone happy…well, besides Claire.”

I tried to back further into the wall, but it was no use. My confident voice from earlier was gone and, with it, any desire that I had had to be around Jake. “So you were hanging out with me so you didn’t have to hang around Claire.” There. I said it. I thought I would feel better about it. Finally getting the truth about Jake and his presence out should have made me feel better, but it didn’t.

For some wild reason that I could not even begin to understand, I had been hoping that finally someone besides a seven year old would want to be around me. I wanted that someone to be Jake, but clearly I was mistaken. Stepping to the side and out of Jake’s grip, I went inside without giving him the chance to say anything.

Drake and my dad were in the living room playing with Drake’s car. They were very oblivious to me, so I went straight to my room and shut the door. I heard greetings exchanged between Jake and my dad. I didn’t listen long. Instead, I got my

iPod from my bag and crawled into bed. I listened to “Monster”, thinking that that song seemed to describe me.

8

Jake

Damn it! How in the hell did she manage to get a very different message than what I had been trying to say? First, I was pissed at Claire and at how she behaved around Emily. Now, Emily thought I was just using her to stay away from Claire. I had to fix this.

Leaving the distracted Drake and Mike, I walked down the hallway, ignoring the pictures this time, and straight to the doorway into which I had seen Emily disappear. I knocked three times. No answer. I was going to talk to her whether she liked it or not. Probably a ‘not’. I knocked three more times with the same result.

I cracked open the door and called her name. She didn’t answer, but I saw her lying on her back, staring at the ceiling. Her room didn’t look anything like mine. Where mine was full of electronics and had clothes everywhere, Emily’s room had a bed, a nightstand, and a dresser. My walls had a few posters and pictures of my mom; hers had nothing but white paint.

The size of her room didn’t help at all with how empty it looked. I closed the door behind me, but Emily still didn’t acknowledge me. Walking closer, I could hear the familiar sounds of the song she was playing in class the day I first talked to her.

Finally, I came into Emily’s line of vision when I stood beside the bed. She glanced at me and then went back to staring at the ceiling. Good to know which she preferred. She was lying in the middle of the bed, leaving plenty of room on each side.

I took a seat, leaning my back against the headboard, and reached down slowly to pull out one of her earphones. I didn’t know what happened to her, but I knew I needed to proceed with caution. The music became clear, but I didn’t recognize the song because the lyrics weren‘t clear enough for me to hear. Emily didn’t even take her eyes off the ceiling for a second. “What song is that?”

Without hesitation, her quiet voice spoke. “Monster.”

All of my anger washed away with that one word. This time, my voice was soft. “You don’t really think that you are a monster, do you?”

She flicked her eyes over at me. Her eyes instantly watered and a tear escaped.

“Aw, Sweetness, come here,” I whispered as I pulled her up to hold her. Her tears flowed easily, quickly soaking part of my shirt. “I don’t know what happened to you, but you are a good person, Emily. You have a huge heart and you are caring, thoughtful, hardworking, and loving. Drake thinks you are so fun. Do you want to talk about what happened to you?” I glided my hand up and down her back to soothe her. She shook her head. “Okay, that’s fine.”

After about thirty minutes, Emily had quit crying. She was clutching to me for dear life. “I don’t know if I can do it,” she whispered into my chest.

“Do what?”

“Trust. Believe. Let go.”