The Love of My Life

Two

    I gulp as I stare at this huge home just as I always do. Emma Swan lives an extravagant life that I would never understand nor want. Little does the world know that she's not allowed out until she's done her lessons and homework but by then it's too late for her to hang out. But! It's summer! And it's the fourth of July. I remember Emma telling me she wanted to see fireworks and explained it like is was a dream of hers. Her green eyes lit up just like Rapunzel when she gazed at the lanterns on her birthday. I want to see that face on Emma because seeing fireworks for the first time since she was 6 would make her day. I know it will.

      So, I take in a deep breath of the warm air the summer evening brings and sneak across the yard and to the back of her house. There's a thin layer of gravel surrounding the mansion. Her room is on the second floor but it's so high up when I look from directly under it. I take aim and toss the rock at her window. Then I reach for another just in case but most times I don't have to. She lifts her window and pokes her head out with that gorgeous smile on her face.

         "You could've called," she repeats for the millionth time.

"I wanted to be romantic."

     She giggles before disappearing back in her room. That's my cue to take the walk back to the front of her house and wait by the main gate. Time passes by achingly slow leaving me to think. I always think.

     Like right now, I'm thinking about homecoming our sophomore year. The year I met her and the year she became my friend. Zelena was right then: magic does happen at dances. I got to watch Emma cheerlead and take photos with a few fans and then when the time came for the dance she never once left my side. She even encouraged me to dance, which I did. It was completely embarrassing. But that wasn't the best part; the best part was when she kissed me on the ride to my house in her limo. Her lips are so soft and she tastes so sweet and I swear my heart exploded. My dull feelings inside sprung to life and I realized that this is what it feels like to love and not feel lonely. It feels great.

   "I'm ready!" She cheers, startling me back to reality. I hold my chest for dear life, trying desperately to breathe my anxiety away. "Sorry my love."

       "Why do you always do that? And what took you so long?" I whine through the stress. Emma starts walking as she explains so I follow behind towards my car. It's a black benz my grandparents gave me for my 16th birthday. Man has time flew! Now Emma and I are going into our senior year.

"I had to do my make up."

    I squint to assess her face better. If she thought she could hide that bruise from me, she doesn't know me too well. When I frown and cup her cheek gently, her eyes softly closes and she's succumbing into a deep trance.

      "What happened?"

"Nothing serious. My piano teacher is in cahoots with my mom. So he told her it seems like I don't care and I haven't been practicing because I'm not progressing so my mom got frustrated and smacked me. She says I'm wasting all of her hard earned money...."

      "Em," I sigh with sorrow as I mindlessly unlock the car with a click of the button. She shrugs away the topic and quickly slips in.

    I wonder what lie she told her mom today. She doesn't exactly want to come out to the world especially her mother which is fine by me. My mom knows and so does all of my siblings. They keep our secret. Her siblings know too. She has two sisters and one brother. All of them has some sort of talent. The eldest, August, is also an actor, then she's the second child, her sister Elsa who is a freshman and is a very popular pop icon, and then the youngest Hope is a dancer. Growing up they had this show called Keeping Up with the Swans but their mother ended it for some unknown reason.