Sketch

48 - Emmy

Dedicated to curiousbookworm for her lovely comments :)

The smell of burnt toast rouses me from a night of disjointed sleep.  I’m alone in a double bed and I rub my eyes to rid them of sleep carefully, blinking slowly at the pink walls.  My nose feels like someone’s clogged it with cotton wool and my head hurts.  The lilac curtains are still drawn but the sun is filtering though the gap where they don’t quite reach the sill.  I sit up, hugging the duvet around myself.  There are textbooks on the floor, open at various stages, and the light on a closed laptop blinks out a steady pattern.

I run a hand over my eyes again just as the bedroom door opens.  My heart pounds with familiarity.  Alex is wearing a timid grin, her naturally red hair piled on top of her head in a messy bun.  She’s dressed in tartan pyjama bottoms and a black tank-top, carrying a tray of what smells like toast.  The un-burnt kind.

Her smile widens when she realises I’m not crying.  “Bought you something to eat,” she says in her chirpy voice.  “Thought you might be hungry.”

I shrug but offer her a half smile, trying not to come across as rude.  There’s a pain in my chest that’s been aching since I slammed the door on Sam, the look of regret and pain and disgust on his face branded against the back of my eyelids. 

“We can share,”  Alex says, pulling me back to reality.  She’s holding out a square of toast, slavered with bright red jam.  It looks appetising and I know I’ll regret it later if I don’t eat it.  I take the toast from her and she sits down on her bed next to me.  “I don’t have any classes today, so I’ll chill here with you, if that’s alright?”

I nod, chewing slowly as I concentrate on keeping my thoughts in the room.   We sit in silence, the sound of her flatmate’s footsteps sounding  from the next room.  I can’t concentrate on anything in particular and I know I’m not being the best company, but Alex understands that.  She knows by my puffy eyes and sniffy nose not to ask questions.

“You can shower when you want,” she says, dragging her crumb covered hands over her trousers.  “I’ll be ten minutes but the bathroom will be free after me.  Annabelle will be off to uni soon.”

The sound of a door closing echoes in my head and I guess that’s Annabelle leaving for the day.  Alex gets up from the bed, grabbing a towel from the back of her desk chair. 

“Shout if you need anything.”

I nod mutely and follow her to the door with my eyes.  When she’s gone I lean down over the side of the bed, hauling up my duffel bag from the floor.  I have no idea what I packed, being in a rush to get away from Sam.  I grimace as I think of him.  I’d felt teary about not waking up in his arms this morning.  I miss him already and the thought of him not missing me makes my throat feel thick and my eyes water.  I swipe at any forming tears with the back of my hand, pulling out underwear from my bag with the other.

I’ve missed Alex so much.  She’s doing the best friend thing by not asking questions, letting me simmer and sniff in peace.  When I’d phoned her last night, my voice shaking with sobs, she’d driven to pick me up straight away.  I’d been hunched in the corner of Kevin’s café when she’d found me.  Ollie’s stalker hadn’t been there, fortunately, saving me from having my picture plastered all over the internet. 

I’d mumbled an explanation to Alex, something about Sam and I having fallen out, but I didn’t tell her the whole story.  I’m not ready to admit the truth to myself, let alone out-loud to my best friend.  That’s how I ended up here, in Alex’s bedroom in her uni flat.  Her parents are pretty loaded and I always used to love visiting her at her old farmhouse with its three cosy reception rooms, huge old-fashioned kitchen and interior designer styled bedroom.  She’s not  show off though.  She’s never shoved her rich background down my throat.  That’s why I hadn’t been surprised to find out that she lives in a rented flat with a single roommate, rather than a uni dorm with five other freshman living off tins of beans and noodles.

I hear the shower turn on and glance around the room to distract myself as my mind tries to bring up Sam again.  There’s a desk piled high with textbooks and folders.  A pencil pot is crammed with stationary on a bookshelf that’s filled with well-thumbed classics and brand new resource books, most of them titles about maths and science, Alex’s specialist subjects.  Her room looks so studious, the only posters on the pale pink walls being uni leaflets depicting jolly looking students outside huge bricked buildings and on lush green lawns.  Alex’s appearance is nowhere near as nerdy looking as her room.  Her naturally bright red hair is always piled high on her head or in a ponytail, and her pale face is full of freckles.  She’s slim and tall, with an unhealthy obsession for the colour pink, even though she’s no way a high maintenance girly girl.

She’s the ying to my yang, as Dad used to say, and it’s fair to say that I’ve missed her being around.  We’ve never been the type of best friends who need to see each other every day, but we have the type of friendship that allows us to go weeks without seeing each other with there being no awkwardness when we meet back up.

I hold my chin in my hands, my sore eyes travelling the room again slowly as I try to keep Sam from my mind.  When Alex appears fresh from her shower, I grab the towel she’s offering me with a meek smile and head to the bathroom.  It’s when the hot water’s running over my skin that all of the barriers I’ve built up surrounding the memories of Sam comes crashing down.  My tears mix with the water as I hurriedly wash my hair with shampoo that smells citrusy, just like Sam.

It’s the fact that it’s over before it’s even started that’s got me in a state.  When I finally get the one thing that girls everywhere have had over me until now, an amazing boyfriend, Sam goes and tells me that it was a mistake.  I’ve never felt so hurt in my life.  Even when I found out that the people at school were laughing at me, instead of with me, I didn’t feel this heartbroken.  I feel numb but completely buzzing with emotions at the same time.

Alex’s blue-green eyes are still as warm as I remember as I troll back to her room, my hair dripping water onto the carpet.  I’ve pulled on the underwear I found in my bag as well as a pair of jeans and the same jumper as yesterday.  It smells of Sam and even though it shouldn’t be comforting, it is.

I watch Alex study up until we have a late lunch around two.  She tries to get me excited about eating her homemade tuna pasta bake and even though it tastes as heavenly as I remember, I still can’t manage the whole bowl full.

“Emmy.”

I look up from my nails.  It’s twenty minutes after we’d finished eating and we’re sat in front of the TV, Alex watching some American soap opera and me staring into space as I think about Sam.

“You can talk to me if you want to.”

I nod, feeling a little embarrassed that she’s realised something big is up.  As if my breakdown on the phone last night hadn’t been enough of a clue, the fact that I can’t seem to concentrate on anything is betraying the smile that I keep trying to make appear.  “I know,” I reply solemnly.

She nods.  “We both know how annoying I was when I broke up with Jason.”

I instantly think back to last year, holding her in her room as she cried into my shoulder.  She’d told me everything, even though she knows the unspoken rule of not asking questions is in place for times like that.  Guilt overrides the sadness then, making my chest ache for a different reason.

Alex seems to sense it.  “You don’t have to say anything.  I won’t hate you.”

“Living with three guys you don’t know is hard,” I blurt, making Alex’s eyebrows raise.  I move my gaze to stare at the carpet, focusing on not letting anymore tears out.  “Especially when one ignores you to the point where you think he hates you, and then two weeks later you find out he’d been pretending to hate you to try to make you leave, only now you’re pretty sure you love him.  You think he loves you too, but then he declares it all a mistake and you feel like a total girl for crying over him.”

Alex leans over to take my hand. “Oh, Emmy.  That sounds awful.”

“Not as awful as I feel,” I confess.  “I just feel helpless, like I couldn’t do anything to stop it happening.  I knew a guy as hot and amazing as Sam was too good for me.”

“No-one is too good for you,” Alex says sternly.  “He’s stupid for calling you a mistake and when he realises what he’s done I hope he hates himself.”

Even though I nod at her words and encouraging smile I don’t want Sam to hate himself.  It’s Michelle who deserves the hate.  She really has no idea how much she messed him up and now I’m messed up too.