In My Own Little World
Part 5
"Emily? Hel-lo? Emily? You okay?" Cye had been showing Emily his new fish when she'd sort of...drifted off. "Emily? EMILY?!" Cye splashed her with water from the stream. Emily jerked awake from her thoughts. "Yeah?" "You were in the middle of talking about Aquarius when you just...shut off. You ok?" Emily nodded. "I was just thinking." "About what?" "Well...today was a holiday in my world." "Oh? Cool. What holiday?" "It's called Valentine's Day. It supposedly a day where everybody asks out their crushes and gets presents and flowers and candy for their girlfriends and boyfriends." "Supposedly?" "Yeah. Not everybody does." "And you look sad because...? What? Don't TELL me that nobody got you anything!" Emily suddenly shifted her gaze to the water. "Oh look," she said, "Aquarius is trying to pull that dead fish back under the water. How sad..." Cye looked at her expression and then reached outand touched the dead fish. It immediately awoke, and leapt down under the water, where it began to swim merrily with Aquarius. "Are you sure you're ok?" he asked. Emily nodded, and said "I'm going back to Mia's. You coming or staying?" "I'll stay here," said Cye knowingly. He knew that the only person home at Mia's at the moment was Rowen. Kento had gone grocery shopping with Mia andYuli, and Sage and Ryo were meditating, which usually took most of the day.
Emily found Rowen sitting on Mia's porch, as usual, reading a book. He looked up as he heard her approach and jumped off the porch railing. "Hey Em! What's wrong?" he suddenly looked concerned. Emily burst into tears. "Oh Ro--" And suddenly, she was back in her world.
"EMILY!!!!!!" Stupid Cousin stood there laughing at her. "Emily, I came over to help your mom clean your computer hard drive and you were 'gone'. And you KNOW how I feel about you ignoring me. What's wrong?" he teased, suddenly noticing her tears. "Did I interrupt something SPECIAL?" By the time he noticed his mistake (and the actual red glare that had sprung up in her eyes), it was too late. "Hey, Em, I was just kidding, I'm sorry, are you okay?" Emily reached over and punched him right in the eye.
Stupid Cousin began to yell and then cry. He looked at Emily shocked. "Emil--" he began. "I DON'T WANT TO DEAL WITH YOU TODAY!!!!!!" Emily screamed. "JUST STAY THE HELL AWAY FROM ME!!!!! I FINALLY HAD A CHANCE TO FEEL BETTER AND YOU WENT AND RUINED IT SO THAT YOU COULD TEASE ME!!!!!!!!!!!!! JUST GET THE HELL AWAY FROM ME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" With that, she shoved him down and stalked off to her room.
She didn't want to go see Cye, or Kento, or Ryo or Sage or even Rowen. She just wanted to sit and talk to her posters like she had before she'd met the Guys. She wanted to just talk to the pictures, and look at their sympathetic faces and not have to deal with anything or anyone. She hugged her pillow and buried her face in it and began to talk. "Oh Aaron," she sobbed, "I just punched Stupid Cousin and I've..." she began to hiccup "I've been having SUCH a terribl--" HIC! "terrible day and I just want to talk to somebody, somebody like Rowen and Stupid Cousin made me come back just so that he could tease me and I didn't MEAN to punch him, but he was being so mean and I just couldn't stand it and oh I wish Rowen were here and--" "Emily? Don't cry. I'm here."
Emily gasped and looked up. She was standing in Mia's living room. The room was decorated with red hearts and Valentine's Day decorations. The guys stood in a circle around her, and instead of hugging her pillow she was hugging Rowen. "How? When? What happened? How did I get there? And what did you do to the room?" Emily looked confused. "I was in my room talking to my posters and...Oh My God." Emily's face turned beet red. "Um, exactly how much did you hear?" Rowen looked at her face, which was redder that the decorations. "Not much." he lied. "Just something about not meaning to punch somebody and then you said that you wished I was here, and lucky for you," he added with a smile, "I am."
Suddenly realizing that she was still hugging Rowen, Emily let go and looked around once more. "Well, maybe deep down I DID want to talk to you guys and just didn't know it. Anyways, what DID you guys do to this place?! Mia's gonna kill you!!" "We'll live," said Ryo with an edge to his voice, as if he didn't quite believe what he was saying. "Anyway, Mia went to pray over her grandfather's grave, and so we should have enough time to clean up after that party," Kento added. "PARTY?!" exclaimed Emily. "WHAT PARTY?!" "The Valentine's Day Party that we're throwing in honor of you," said Sage with a grin. "Rowen was just hanging the mistletoe when you appeared, and--" "Wait...wait..STOP!" Emily was bent over laughing. "M-mistletoe? That's not for Valentine's Day!" She could barely breathe now, let ALONE talk. "Mistletoe's for Christmas!" "Oops..." Now it was the guys' turn to turn red. "Oh well!" Emily suddenly shouted, throwing her head back and laughing. "What?!" she cried defiantly at the looks the guys were giving her, like she belonged in a white room with padded walls. "What?!" she cried again. "You guys go to all this trouble getting ready and now we're not gonna have a party?"