Wear - Chapter 2

Wyatt sneaks Emma through the dormitory hallways quietly. It wasn’t too hard to sneak past everyone, as most people were already asleep by now. When they finally arrive, Wyatt points to the bed. The room came with a bunk bed, and the top bunk wasn’t in use. “Do you wanna take the top bunk or-” Wyatt begins to ask. However, Emma just tosses her dress on the ground and lays down on top of it like a sleeping mat. “Wouldn’t a bed be more comfortable?” Wyatt asks.

Emma doesn’t answer his question. Instead, she asks “Why are you helping me anyways?”.

“Because” Wyatt says, “every person in the world goes through some tough times. Why not help someone out who looks like they desperately need help?”.

“Every ‘person’, huh?” Emma asks herself.

“What?” Wyatt asks.

“Don’t worry about it” Emma says. “Thanks”.

Wyatt turns off the lights and asks before he lays down in his bed “Are you sure you want to sleep on the floor?”.

Emma once again doesn’t answer his question. Instead, she stares out of the window while laying on the floor. The moon was visible in the sky, and it was a full moon this night. “Desperately need help, huh?” Emma asks herself quietly. As Emma’s eyes start to close, she begins to remember her family from when she had a home.

About 7 years ago, there lived a laibah family in the middle of the woods, South-West of Terrio. There was a small wooden house that sat there for generations, next to a pond full of crystal clear water. On the top of the pond, lily pads would grow, and all around it, trees would grow bright pink flowers. A mother and her daughter sat next to the pond, right outside of this wooden house. They sat under a clothes line, where wet clothes were hanged to dry. As they sat outside together, the mother was teaching her daughter how to stitch clothing. Her mother also had long white hair, with bright blue eyes. She wore a beautiful dress and a necklace with a circular pendant. The pendant was really small, about the size of the tip of an average index finger, and was supposed to symbolize the circle of life and balance.

“Remember, Emma” the mother spoke, “making clothes is a lot like trying to make friends. If you can’t force it to look how you want, then either appreciate it for what it can do or it just simply won’t work”.

“What does that mean, momma?” Emma asks. At this time, she was only about 12 years old.

“Well, sometimes you make mistakes when you try to make clothes from scratch” Emma’s mom says. “Just like how many people make mistakes in life. Just because someone does something bad, doesn’t mean they are bad. Just like with clothes, just because it may look bad, does not mean it can’t still fit you. However, if it doesn’t fit you, don’t hate it. Give it to someone else and let them appreciate it. Just like people. You can’t be friends with everybody in the world, but just because they can’t be your friend doesn’t mean you have to hate them. It just means their place belongs by someone else’s side”. As she says this, she was cleaning more clothes in the clear pond water.

“You mean, like the humans?” Emma asks.

“Well, yes. That is part of it” Emma’s mom says. “Laibah aren’t an exception though. Humans make mistakes and so do the laibah. I’d like to believe the Great War was just one big mistake”.

“I hate humans though” Emma says, “none of them will be nice to us. They’re always just looking for a fight”.

“No two people are the same, Emma” Emma’s mom says in disappointment. “Some day, you may even find lots of humans who will like you for who you are. Don’t forget that”.

“I won’t forget” Emma says, looking down at her hands.

“Don’t forget” Emma’s mom repeats.

When Emma looks back up at her mom, there was a wall of fire raging towards them at a fast pace. The fire was about to engulf them. “Momma!” Emma shouts.

“Don’t… forget” Emma’s mom says again as the fire rapidly spreads closer.

Suddenly, Emma’s head jumps up from a pillow in Wyatt’s dorm. At first, she was scared, but then realized it was just a dream. Then she was confused, because she didn’t remember bringing a pillow. She looks over at Wyatt’s bed, which was empty and also lacked a pillow. Suddenly, a door opens up from the back of the room. Wyatt comes from the bathroom in the back of the dorm room, fully dressed for class.

“You sounded like you had a bad dream” Wyatt says, still drying his hair with a towel. Emma remained silent, then Wyatt says “I didn’t want to wake you up, since it seemed like a while since you last had any real sleep. It’s almost time for class, but if you want to skip classes today to get more rest, I won’t blame you”.

“Oh… N-no” Emma says, “I’ll get ready and head down to class. You can go on without me”.

“If you say so” Wyatt says. Wyatt gets his shoes on and leaves. Emma stares at him as he leaves, and as soon as the door closes, Emma jumps to her feet. She starts digging around the room, looking for anything that might incriminate Wyatt.

“I’m sure he’s just like the other humans!” Emma says to herself. “There’s got to be something around here that proves he hates laibah. I just know it”. Emma searched and searched, but even she didn’t know exactly what she was looking for. After a couple minutes of looking, she sighs and says to herself “What are you doing, Emma? There’s no need to go looking for trouble. I know having a place to stay seems too good to be true, but as long as you don’t ruin it, you’ll have a place to sleep”. Emma goes into the bathroom and takes a shower. When she finally gets out, she comes to a sudden realization. How was she going to get to class so easily? This is the boys dorm and if anybody saw her around, they’d think of all the wrong reasons why she’d be here. She’d never get away with just walking down the hallways. Emma looks over at the window and opens it. When she sticks her head out of the window and looks down, she realizes they’re on the second floor. She thinks for a minute, then decides to try to exit through the hallways after all. When she opens the front door of the dorm, it was quiet. Didn’t seem like anyone was around. So she began to sneak through. She made it close to the exit of the dormitories, but suddenly a group of boys walk in through the door. They were walking into the dorms and talking. Once Emma had seen them coming, she opened the nearest window and jumped out of it. She lands in a patch of grass outside of the window, between two bushes.

“The hell was that?” One of the boys asks. When they look out of the window, they don’t see Emma. They close the window and continue walking and talking.

Emma crawls out from under the bushes and stands up. “Phew” she says to herself, “so I have my escape route down”. Emma dusts herself off and begins to walk to class. As she enters the door, Refus was there trying to teach his class. Or rather, trying to get the students to allow him to teach them.

“Emma Frey” Refus says, “you’re late. Any explanation as to why that is?”.

“Yeah” Emma thinks to herself, “it was totally because I was sneaking through the boys dorms and trying not to get caught… of course I can’t tell you why that is”. Instead, what Emma said was “No, sir” as her head hung low.

“Please” Refus says, “just call me Mr. Maloney. Go ahead and take your seat”.

As Emma walks towards the back, Wyatt was waving and smiling in a sort of amused kind of sense. Emma squints her eyes at Wyatt as if to say “What are you laughing about, you dolt?”.

Jackson notices this exchange and giggles quietly. When Emma sits down, Jackson whispers to Wyatt “Man, you must’ve really pissed her off somehow”.

“But I didn’t” Wyatt begins to explain.

“Wyatt!” Refus calls from the front of the class. “I may wear glasses, but my hearing is still good enough. Do you have something you would want to share with the class?”.

“Ah… n-no” Wyatt says, “Sorry Mr. Maloney”.

As Refus begins to turn back around to write something on the whiteboard, some of the female students in the front of the class begin to say “See? I told you he hates humans! First Emma, then Wyatt!”.

“Quiet down” Refus says, “this isn’t a recess”.

“You just hate people!” that girl says.

“First off!” Wyatt calls out from the back of the class, “I don’t think Mr. Maloney hates everybody. Secondly, he hasn’t shown any evidence of actually hating me, so I don’t see why there’s a problem”.

Refus smiles and says “I never said I hated humans. If you don’t like my class, you don’t have to show up”.

Emma and Jackson both look at Wyatt, surprised that he defended their teacher. Then the rest of the class looked at Wyatt too. There was a mixture of surprise and distaste towards Wyatt now. However, at this point, Wyatt had already given up on having a bunch of friends. He didn’t want friends that spent their whole time being that rude. After a while, the bell rings and it was time for Refus to leave his class in the hands of the next teacher. While waiting for the next teacher, some of the students around Emma turned around in their seats to look at her.

“Are those the same clothes from yesterday!?” They scoffed. “Did you even wash them? Why don’t you get more clothes and stop being so dirty!? You look like you finally washed your hair for the first time in ages, but somehow forgot to clean your own laundry!”. They continued to talk down to Emma, and Emma tried her best to ignore them. Emma grew more and more agitated by their comments, and as she opened her mouth… “Excuse me!” Wyatt calls out to the students bullying Emma, rather than Emma having to explain herself to the other students. “Do you have enough money to buy more clothes whenever you want?” Wyatt asks.

“Uh, yeah” one of them says, “duh”.

“Then I suppose you’re interested in maybe buying some for people who don’t have it as easy as you?” Wyatt asks.

“Hell no” they respond.

“Oh?” Wyatt asks, “then maybe you’ll clean her clothes for her? Lend her some money? Maybe even just give her recommendations for where to get clothes?”.

“Uhh” they say.

“No?” Wyatt asks. There was a pause, as they refused to answer. “Then get off of her back! Geez, you people are like vultures, feeding off of other people’s misery! It’s an absolute mystery to me on how you ever got a single friend. Who wants to be friends with someone with such a shit attitude!?”.

The other students were silent, Emma was impressed and feeling more hopeful of being friends with Wyatt, and Jackson was simply blinking in surprise. The next class passed, as the students around Wyatt began avoiding Wyatt. Eventually, lunch period came. Wyatt went to eat on the rooftop again, and Jackson was already eating there.

After Wyatt sat down to eat, Jackson asks “So what’s your real reason for defending Mr. Maloney?”.

“Why are we bringing this up?” Wyatt asks.

“Just… curious” Jackson says.

“What, are we playing 20 Questions or something?” Wyatt asks.

“Yeah, ha ha… very funny” Jackson says.

Just then, Emma walks out onto the rooftop as well. She sits down close to the door and starts eating silently.

“Oh shoot!” Wyatt says, “I forgot to bring you some food. Where’d you get the food from today, Emma?”.

Emma reaches into her pocket and pulls out a few coins, then jingles them in her hand. The three of them eat, none of them really talking. It was as if Emma’s silent demeanor was contagious. Eventually, all of them finish their food and begin to leave at the same time. Jackson taps Emma on the shoulder as the begin to leave. Wyatt leaves before Emma and Jackson do. When the door closes behind Wyatt, Jackson asks “You’re a laibah, aren’t you?”. Emma jumps, and almost starts shaking. “Don’t worry” Jackson says, “your secret is safe with me. I’m also laibah”.

“How did you… know?” Emma asks.

“Most people don’t know it” Jackson says, “but purple eye color is a color that’s unique to laibah. Most people overlook it because they see ‘humans’ with purple eyes. Truth is, those humans are either actually laibah, or are wearing contact lenses to change their eye color”.

“W-why do you want to know?” Emma asks. “Why does it matter if I’m a laibah?”.

“It doesn’t” Jackson says, “but at the same time it does matter a lot. It shouldn’t be any of my business, but be careful who you stick close to around here. Like that Wyatt, I know he defended Mr. Maloney, which we all know is laibah. But I don’t buy into his facade of being a good person. I’m sure he doesn’t care about laibah at all”.

“And if you’re wrong?” Emma asks.

“I’d doubt I am” Jackson says. “I used to have a friend just like him in high school. The moment he found out I was a laibah, he left me behind to protect his own personal image for his other friends… his human friends”.

“No two people are the same” Emma says.

“Yeah, people say that” Jackson says, “but humans are all always the same in the end. Just be careful”. Jackson then walks away.

Emma walks to class as well, thinking and worrying to herself about what Jackson said. Eventually, she tells herself “Stop worrying so much, no two people are the same. Maybe he’s different”. When Emma arrives in class, those classmates that were bullying her earlier were in their seats already. In order to avoid sitting next to them, Emma sits next to Wyatt. Jackson looks over at Emma and shakes his head in disapproval.

After school ends, Wyatt begins to go to work. Emma had already disappeared, so Wyatt just left his school stuff in his room and left for work. Wyatt works late into the night, and comes back home tired. When he gets back, he doesn’t see Emma there. He heads back out to look around for her. He searched around town for nearly an hour, but found Emma waiting at the gates of the college. She wasn’t there before, and this time she was holding what looked like clumps of cloth that seemed as if they were taken from off the street or from trash cans and then promptly cleaned a little. Some of the cloth were still a little wet.

“Where have you been?” Wyatt asks, “I was getting worried”.

Emma tilts her head to the side a little and asks “Worried? About me?”.

“Yes!” Wyatt exclaims, “I was worried about you!”.

Emma giggles a little and says “Sorry, I was just… grabbing some stuff from around town like cloth scraps and some stuff from the forest”.

“You know the way to the dorms on your own, right?” Wyatt asks. Emma nods her head and Wyatt says “Alright, if you leave the dorms again without me, I just want to make sure you’ll be able to get back if I’m not around. I can leave the door unlocked for you”.

When they get back inside Wyatt’s dorm room, Wyatt asks “So why do you have all of that cloth anyways?”.

“Making more clothes” Emma says. “Like another uniform”.

“Are you going to keep working to sell your dresses?” Wyatt asks. Emma nods again. “Why not… stop doing that?” He asks. “You don’t have to do that anymore, you know”.

“… I refuse” Emma says.

“I don’t mean stop making clothes entirely” Wyatt says, “make more clothes for yourself if you want, but you don’t have to sell it anymore. I can buy food for you, you know?”.

“I refuse” Emma says again.

“Why?” Wyatt asks.

“I just… want to keep making and selling clothing” Emma says. “All there is to it”.

“Okay, sorry I told you to stop” Wyatt says calmly, “I don’t want it to sound like I don’t want you doing it. I just want you to know I’m here to help if you need it. That’s what friends are for, right?”.

Emma thinks to herself “Friends…” and then nods her head and says “Yeah”. The two of them start going to sleep. Emma once again sleeps on the floor. As she lays there, she reaches through the collar of her shirt and pulls out a necklace she retrieved from the forest. It had a circular pendant, symbolizing the circle of life and balance, and had old burn marks on it. Emma clenches the necklace in her hands tightly as she goes to sleep.