A little fun I did with my own writing. Read ahead to know lol.
Emily's POV:
"Ugh, this is too damn hard! I can't do it anymore!" I sighed loudly, letting the laces of the red dress I was wearing fall down to my sides.
Closing my eyes in frustration, I looked at the phone screen to see Mia muffling her laughter with her palm. We had been on a video call for an hour. She was teaching me how to wear this new dress my mom had made it necessary to gift to me as the part of my effort in changing myself all over to an elegant lady which she had always wanted me to.
Which I might add, would be the absolute brutal unnecessary death of my tomboyish-ness someday.
"What?" I asked her, somewhat irritated by her laughter.
"Nothing, " She answered me. "It's just seeing you trying to put on a dress reminded me of my own self."
I stared at her, in confusion.
"You know, when I tried to walk outside my apartment, wearing over-alls. Without makeup. Taking short walk around the neighbourhood, my hands into my pockets, whistling to some song related to women empowerment. My feet dipped in some bland looking shoes, my hairs folded and curled into a disaster. People were staring at me. I felt self-conscious. It was so sudden I was damn sure I had been..." She avoided my eyes. "looking exactly like you."
I glared at her. "How's that supposed to teach me how to tie these ketchup coloured laces?"
"But I didn't go back to my apartment that day, " She looked at me, smiling softly at me. "I didn't run away from people's stares, I didn't let their judging stares get into me."
"Why?" I asked, feeling pleased. "Don't you hate it when they just stare at you for nothing? When they talk behind your back like they have known you forever? When everything you do, every effort you put into being you, being yourself, looks just like a bloody mistake to them? When they don't know what you've been through but only know to vent out their frustration on you for no reason?"
Mia smiled and rolled her eyes, probably at those hypocrite people who leave no rocks unturned to make our lives trash. "I've stopped caring, Emily. You start ignoring them too. Besides, I wasn't ashamed of you, or being you that day, the reason I didn't care what everyone thought of me. I just felt like wearing what I wanted, I didn't want to drown myself on makeup, I didn't want to torture my poor hairs by slapping them off with burning sheets to style them or curl. Just a loose bun that day ended up giving me relief from my painful migraine. Then, I didn't care if I looked like you or me. I was at peace. That's what it all mattered."
"But still, those half-burned peanuts lining the street must've passed on some filthy remarks-"
"They did. But as I said and believe, I don't care. I don't need to. As a matter of fact, why do I?"
"But what they speak of me matters a lot to me. I don't know why it always gets at me. Or through me." I whispered, looking down, suddenly feeling under-confident. I twirled the red un-done lace in my fingers, feeling tiny fibres rub against the tip of my thumb.
"Emily, " Mia called my name and I looked up at her. "Sometimes, what a woman needs is not some dashing swoon-worthy man's presence in her life." She looked at me, scrutinizing me. "It's her self-confidence, self-respect and self-comfort what matters the most. What makes her love herself, above everyone else, every guy in her life. It's like, if you'll not love yourself first, who will want to love you? Have you ever asked this question to yourself?"
I nodded. "I don't know. I tried to love myself. I really tried a lot. I just..." I stopped, feeling my eyes moisten as my mind mercilessly recalled every heartbreak my poor heart went through, every word I want to say to mollify my bruised soul, every syllable I want to utter to confess my feelings to the one person who'll probably not reject me the same day I'll confess to him.
I was afraid he'd keep trudging me along with him, giving me false hope, giving me mixed signals while he would keep smiling at me, talking of his life and future with me, whispering sweet-nothings in my ear of how I meant the whole world to him, of how he didn't want me to leave him, ever, of how he didn't want me to see with any man other than him.
Of how he was always in pain because of me. Or how he was always jealous of his own cousin, just because he thinks I'm in love with him. I still remember the day he told his heart was in pain because I chose Eric over him.
And while he does all that, brutally crushing my hopes everyday, his heart would always go to his first love, Lara Williams, because that's where it all started from. That's when everything started to go wrong. For me. Because that's when I fell deeper in love with him while he was already dating the woman he chose.
Sometimes, I wonder what's in her that I don't have? That I couldn't possibly give him? Is she too beautiful that I couldn't even imagine to be like her? Or does Edward simply hate the idea of being with me? Did he find it too gross to even consider it in the first place? [ Author - Arghh, *facepalming whole day* ]
Or he also thinks I'm a man, just like most people around me think? Or maybe, it's his some secret oath that he'd never fall in love with a friend, let alone date her? Or marry her, with the worst selfish reasons ever?
Or am I too precious for him to actually confess to me and destroy our twenty years of friendship for his feelings which he couldn't let it go, no matter how much he tries to?
[ Readers - *whispers to themselves* umm bi...bin...bingo, right author? ]
I shook my head at my own stupidity. I won't be optimistic anymore. I've had enough shares of rejection for my age already. I'd promised myself to move on. Get over him, completely.
[ Readers - *blinks with black circles under eyes* Please, author, let it be the truth this time. No eating up her own words this time Emily please.]
If I continued being like this, chances are, I might need to take a second birth to forget all about him.
[ Readers - Book - II is the real top-quality birth we all need.]
"You're still thinking about him, aren't you?"
I broke from my reverie to stare at Mia styling her hairs, curling them with machine. "You're also going somewhere?"
"Also?" She blinked. And then she clapped her hands in excitement. "I knew it! I knew you're also going somewhere right?"
I ignored her usual hyper-self and tightened one lace in my finger. Curling it around the sleeves of my dress, I slipped it inside the hoop and knotted it like a ribbon. "Is this how you do it?"
Taking one more lace in my hand, I turned towards the mirror to see where that one went. After a minute of unwavering torture, I looked at Mia, my eyes pleading for silent help.
"Come on, Emily! It isn't that tough, you know! You just have to pull your dress up a little, " I lifted the fabric, my long legs coming into view "Like this?" I asked.
Mia nodded. "Now the lighter one goes around your waist, " I pushed it in the way she wanted me to, "No! Don't slip it in that harder. You're gonna crease the fabric, you idiot, "
After cursing her silently, I succedded in tying some four laces around my poor body. I was just wishing myself best in case I needed to go to washroom and one of these snake-ly poisonous laces won't come out. In usual scenario, I would have aborted the mission a long time ago. But since I wasn't usual anymore, I decided to go with it.
"You still didn't tell me where're you going?" Mia asked, applying lip gloss on her lips.
After pondering over her question for a minute, I decided to spare her some curiousity in her critical stage of pregnancy. Mia was now three months pregnant due to her accidental casual unprotected intercourse with Jake. She was pretty healthy and was coping up fine with sudden foetus roaming around her belly, of course, excluding some major mood-swings, minor cursing battles, heavy emotional drama, unnecessary blaming on anyone, unexpected parabolic ejections of digested food and vegetables.
And untimely urge to devour just anythying and everything around her. Sometimes, even I'm scared to be in front of her. Who knows when she might end up spraying ketchup on my butt and whooping a whole ass-cake out of my pretty bottom.
But since she's still in New Jersey, living with Jake for a month now, I didn't have to worry about coming in front of her. She had decided to live there for few months more and would land on California only when her tentative delievery was three months due.
"I'm going to meet my senio-" I started but Mia beat me to it.
"Oh God! How did I forget such an important event?" I looked at her in understanding, knowing very well what she was thinking. I shook my head in refusal before she could utter a single word about it.
"Why? You're not going?" She asked me, her brows knitted together in confusion.
After braiding my hairs side-wise, I took some bobby-pins and slipped them underneath to support the weight of my curls. "What's the point of me going there anyway? I've embarassed myself enough already. Going there now will only make both of us hurt more-"
[ Author - *cries* Just go already, don't make me write the second book. Please. ]
"But it's his birthday, Emily! He has been celebrating it together with you for twenty years now. It should not matter what happened between both of you. It's an old event which you two always shared as best friends, "
"I'm afraid we aren't friends anymore-"
[ Author - *with swollen red eyes* Don't do that to me. Please be together. Okay I'll stop now lol, this is a serious topic. But you guys can continue these reactions in the comment section with me lol. 'Cause where there is a drama, there are endless reactions too. Anyways, go on with the reading.]
"Emily, " She pleaded with me. "Don't be like this. I agree he's the biggest asshole out there, he shouldn't have used you like this, he should've treated you better from the start, he should've understood you and your feelings like you did, with his. He shouldn't have made a total fool out of you by dragging you in that fake marriage for his girlfriend, "
Hearing the truth from her mouth loudly made my heart ache so much, I had realised for the umpteenth time that day how much I actually miss Edward. How much he still means a lot to me, how many times I failed in getting over him these past three months.
How much of an idiot I was for still loving someone who kept me hanging in between his fake-wife and best friend, by barely an inch of my dignity. Most of all, he must think of me as a complete fool now, his puppet who doesn't have a heart, who doesn't feel anything.
But despite everything happened between us, I still want to be with him. Call me a fool, call me a love-sick bitch, I prefer to be none but his. A lone tear trickled down my cheek, without my consent. Quickly I wiped it with the back of my hand and applied foundation over it. But it didn't go unnoticed by Mia who regarded my state with sympathy.
"I know what he did to me, Mia. You don't have to list it in some orderly fashion because that's the least I expect of you, " Dusting the imaginary dust off my dress, I looked at my phone screen. "Besides, it's not like it's all his fault. Most of it is mine. I agreed to this facade in the first place. He didn't make me do anything I didn't want to. I did everything because I wanted to do it for him. For our friendship."
"But you also can't deny you'll always hold the first place in his life, no matter what woman he falls in love with. You're his priority, you'll always be the first person he'll come to, for anything or everything going on in his life.He must be regretting everything he's made you go through. I'm sure he's missinng you as hell now. He needs you there with him-"
"He doesn't need me anymore, Mia. Actually, he shouldn't need me, to be more precise. We both are grown ups now, we can take care of our own selves. We shouldn't always need to be the other's babysitter. We have succeeded enough in our lives, I'm in the process of being reinstated in the State Hospital too. And he, no doubt, has definitely made it big and dreamy in his life. Also, to be honest, " I looked at the mirror, brushing one lone curl behind my ear and said, "We should've stopped being in each other's lives a long time ago."
So guys, how was the Part One of Epilogue?
Did you like it? Even a bit? Was it---
Are you satisfied even a little with this update?
That part to make fun of my own characters was so not on my plan lol. Didn't know where it came from. *covers her face with embarrassment.*
