Wear - Chapter 4

Over a year ago, Emma was finishing her last week of high school. She came home from school one day, left her backpack at home in the forest and left.

“Mom!” Emma calls out to her mother before she leaves her home, “I’m going out to hang out with my friends. With the end of school just around the corner, we decided we’d take some time to talk to each other about what to do when we graduate!”.

Emma’s mother, Jasmine Frey turns around with a proud smile on her face. “Alright” She says, “just don’t stay out too late. Dinner will be ready by 9 O’clock”.

“Gotcha!” Emma says as she runs to the door, “see ya then, mom!”. Emma runs out of the forest and heads north, running down the sidewalk. After a while of running, then walking to catch her breath, and running again, Emma meets up with her high school friends. She had five friends, all of them human. Their names were Micheal, Jess, Veronica, Jimmy and Jade.

“Emma!” Jade cheers as she waves at Emma.

“Sorry I’m late” Emma says.

“Don’t worry about it” Micheal says, “we weren’t talking about too much. Just what college we were gonna go to when we graduate”.

As the six of them start walking down the road together, Jess says “I don’t know about you guys, but I’ve already gotten accepted into Glide University!”.

“Whoa!” Veronica says, “isn’t that college like… SUPER expensive!?”.

“Oh yeah” Jess says, “but nothing our family can’t handle. Dad says if I get a job while I’m in college, then he’ll help pay for the courses”.

“You’re lucky!” Jimmy says. “I wish I could go somewhere like that”.

Emma giggles and says “If you kept up with your grades, you’d have better luck”.

“Yeah, easy for you to say” Jimmy says, “Ms. Student of the Year”.

“It’s not a real award” Emma says, “the school just uses that as motivation for the students to compete”.

“What about you, Emma?” Micheal asks. Suddenly, the group stops walking. They’ve arrived next to the fence of what looked like a dump site, where they dispose of all of the city’s trash.

Emma starts thinking to herself and says “I don’t know yet…”.

“Not like there’s a whole lot for a laibah to do anyways” Micheal says, “since no one likes them”.

Emma flinches when they say laibah. “W-Why are you bringing up laibah?” She asks.

“We already know” Jess says, “and our parents know too. Someone said they saw you running into the forest one day after school. When someone went to check the forest, they found a house… a laibah house”.

“I-I-I don’t know what you’re talking about!” Emma starts panicking.

“Cut the act!” Veronica says, sounding disgusted, “there’s no place for a laibah, like you. No one needs you around”. Suddenly, Veronica pushes her down against the gate of the dump site. Before Emma has the time to get up, the rest of them pick Emma up and throw her over the gate into the dump site.

“Stay with the trash where you belong!” Jade says.

Emma tried getting up, but she keeps tripping over bags of trash, getting covered in gross and slimey material from the trash. “Wait!” She yells, but the others were already walking away.

Before they left, Emma heard one of them saying “My parents said they were going to take their friends and have a ‘little talk’ with her parents out in the forest!”.

Emma tried climbing back over the fence, but she kept slipping. Eventually, a man who worked at the dump caught sight of Emma. He shone his flashlight at her and asked “What’s going on!?”. Emma tried explaining, but she was crying too hard. The man took her inside the building, into a small office, and waited for her to explain.

While Emma was gone, an angry crowd of humans surrounded her home in the forest, holding torches and glass bottles. Emma’s mom and dad were outside and scared. “What’s wrong?” Emma’s father, Anthony Frey asked. “Our daughter didn’t do anything wrong did she!?”.

“You came to the wrong city!” A man in the crowd cheers. “That’s what you did wrong!”.

“Go somewhere else!” A woman yells. Suddenly, someone throws a bottle at the two of them, and it shatters next to their feet. Emma’s parents run inside to avoid further conflict. They hide inside for a couple minutes in fear, but soon after, they could smell something unpleasant. The smell of burning wood. When they look out of the nearest window of the house, they could see flames engulfing the house. They ran to the front door, but it was on fire as well. They ran to the back door, but it had also caught on fire. Every side of the house seemed to have caught fire quickly. The humans must’ve used bottles of high alcohol rated liquor to spread the flames. After a while, the cheering and yelling of the mob outside could no longer be heard.

“What are we going to do, Anthony!?” Emma’s mother asks behind the tears in her eyes.

“We’re going to do whatever we can” Emma’s father says. The flames were spreading quickly, and fire was inside the house. The home was filling with smoke and it was hard to see or keep your eyes open without them burning. Emma’s father grabs onto Emma’s mother, pulling her through the house. They arrive at the front door when Anthony stops pulling Jasmine. Anthony takes a few steps back, and then runs into the door as hard as he can. The door breaks open, and they had an escape route. However, they had to hurry, because soon the porch would be covered in fire. When Anthony turns around, Jasmine had collapsed on the ground from a lack of oxygen. Anthony runs back to pick her up, but when they get to the door, the building began to collapse on top of them. Anthony uses the last of his strength to throw Jasmine out of the door, and over the fire on the porch. Jasmine landed on the grass, but the house collapsed on top of Anthony.

Emma had explained what happened between her and her classmates, leaving out the part about being laibah. The man at the dump site had walked Emma towards the gates of the fence, unlocked it for her and let her out. Emma walked away, tears still strolling down her face. However, when she got close to the forest, she could see a bright glowing light from inside the forest. Emma begins to run as fast as she can. When she gets to the house, she could see the house collapsed and her mother on the ground, coughing and finding extreme difficulty breathing.

“Mom!” Emma cries as she rushes to her side. “What happened!?”.

“I’m sorry” Emma’s mother, Jasmine says. “We tried to be peaceful… don’t let them… turn you violent”.

“Let who!?” Emma asks. “Who did this? Was it the humans!?”.

“Emma, listen to me” her mother says, with a weak voice. “Remember… no two people… are the same. Don’t blame humanity… for the actions… of just a few”. Jasmine’s head falls to the ground, and she stops breathing. Too much ash and ember filled her lungs, and she could no longer breath.

“Mom?..” Emma asks, more tears rolling down her cheeks. “Mom!? MOM!?”. Emma looses balances, her anger and sadness making her lose control of her body. She falls to the ground and screams “NOOOOOO!!!” as she lays on the grass next to her mother. She eventually cried herself to sleep, and the fire died before long. The wetness of the grass, moss and trees kept the fire from spreading, so the rest of the forest remained untouched. Emma spent the next year alone, practicing her stitching like she used to do with her mom. She refused to enroll in a college for the entire year, as she spent that time grieving.

She eventually met a woman in a clothes store, where Emma began selling her clothes for money, in order to eat. When Emma first entered the store, she was mostly quiet. Emma ignored the usual store greeting, and simply walked up to the counter and held up a dress she made. “How much can I get for this?” Emma asks.

“I’m sorry dear?” The old woman at the counter asks. “Are you a clothier? Oh, but you’re so young. That’s such a talent for someone of your age!”.

Emma remained quiet. “Are you by chance a laibah?”. Emma flinched when she said laibah, and got ready to run away. “Oh, I’m sorry if I scared you with a question” she says, “don’t worry about me, dear. My name is Matilda, and I help run this store. I was only asking because we could hire someone with your talents”.

Emma looks up, with a shred of hope in her eyes. “Unfortunately, we’re not allowed to hire laibah though” Matilda says. Emma looks back down, that shred of hope fading away.

Matilda felt bad, because she knew that based on Emma’s reaction to those words, that it was obvious she was a laibah. Matilda thinks for a moment and says “I’ll tell you what. I’m sure a dress this nice will sell in just a couple of days. In fact, I’m willing to bet on it”. Matilda then takes out her own wallet and hands Emma some money.

“Whenever you want to come by and sell another dress, you can come right on down. Unfortunately, I can only give so much because I’m buying the dress with my own money, and not the store’s money. But I’ll make sure someone buys your clothes, and I’ll make sure people enjoy it”. Emma looks down at the money in her hand and smiles a little. “Come back sometime, dear” Matilda says. Emma looks up and nods her head, then runs out of the store to go buy some food. As Emma walks away from the store, her mother’s words ring through her head “No two people are the same”. Emma continues walking, but with tears in her eyes.

Wyatt wakes Emma up, asking “Are you okay?” over and over.

Emma eventually wakes up, and looks at Wyatt. Her eyes were blurry, so she wiped her arm over her eyes and tears began to cover her wrist. “You were crying in your sleep, are you alright?” Wyatt asks quietly.

Emma looks up and says “Y-Yeah… I’m good… just a bad dream”.

“It’s almost time to leave for class” Wyatt says, gently, “do you want to take the first shower this morning? I think you might need it more than me”.

Emma nods her head and says “Yeah… thanks”. When Emma gets out of the bathroom, she was wearing her new school uniform. She looked like a regular girl now, but in Wyatt’s eyes, she only looked more beautiful than before. “How do I look?” Emma asks.

Wyatt wrestled between thoughts in his head. He wanted to say “You’re the most beautiful girl I’ve ever met” but he couldn’t say that. He only knew her for less than a week. He also wanted to say “You look beautiful, but you also look beautiful all of time” he then he thought “I can’t say that either! Besides, the school uniform is meant for the school’s approval, not mine”. So instead, what Wyatt said was “Y-yeah!”.

“Yeah?” Emma asks, slightly confused. “I look… yeah?”.

“Ah, um…” Wyatt says as he begins to panic, thinking of the right thing to say, “I-I mean, you look beautiful! A-ah! I mean… ah ha ha ha” Wyatt begins to get nervous. Emma begins to laugh, and doesn’t notice that her face was turning red.

“A-Anyways” Wyatt says, “I need to take a… Uh… a shower too… so I’ll just go… do that” as he stumbles around the room. Emma continues to giggle to herself until Wyatt enters the bathroom and closes the door.

As Wyatt showers, Emma puts on her shoes and thinks to herself. “No two people are the same, huh?” She asks herself. “I guess mom was right, no one is as silly and cute as that”. Then, Emma’s face grows even more red before she realizes it. “Wait, what am I thinking!?” She thinks to herself. “Keep it together, Emma!”.

Wyatt and Emma go to class, both of them at least a little embarrassed of what happened earlier this morning. Neither of them talked about it during their walk to class, as if they were trying to avoid more awkwardness. The usual classes went by their usual way, but before lunch period, Aeris asked the other girl who sat in the back row if she would like to join them on the roof for lunch. This girl, Jessica Allen, doesn’t give an answer as they begin to leave class. However, after all of them, Wyatt, Emma, Jackson and Aeris sit down on the roof to eat, Jessica opens up the door to the roof with a tray of food from the cafeteria.

“Isn’t the roof usually off limits at schools?” Jessica asks.

“Is that complaining I hear?” Jackson asks.

“It should be fine” Aeris says, “no one has bothered to stop us yet”.

Jessica sighs as she sits down with them. “I don’t think that constitutes as not breaking the rules” she says, “but oh well. I’ve been needing to find somewhere else to eat anyways. Too many people in the cafeteria, and the school yard is always full during lunch too”.

“Welcome to the club” Jackson says without enthusiasm, “this is Aeris, this is Emma” Jackson then points at Wyatt and says “this is Dingus” then Jackson points to himself and says “and I don’t like talking. That should take care of initiation”.

“The least you could do is tell them my actual name, Jackson” Wyatt complains. “I’m Wyatt, by the way”.

“Jessica” Jessica replies. “Some club you got here”.

“We’re not a real club” Emma says.

“I can figure that much” Jessica says, “it was just sarcasm. I didn’t know you guys all hung out together outside of class”.

“We don’t” Jackson says promptly.

Aeris shrugs her shoulders and Wyatt says “Well, a few of us hang out, outside of class. Don’t worry about Jackson, he’ll warm up to you eventually”.

“Yeah” Jackson says, once again without enthusiasm, “maybe then you could have a nickname of your own. How about Wingus? Then you could be Wingus and Dingus!”. As Jackson says this, he points at both Jessica and Wyatt.

“Yeah” Wyatt says, “he’s suuuuper friendly”. Emma giggles and Jackson rolls his eyes.

“Cool” Jessica says, “now I have lunch and a show”.

After school ends, Wyatt goes to work like usual. Emma continues working on her clothes until he comes back. When he does come back, he sits on his bed and takes a sigh of relief. “Finally, a weekend” he says.

“You sure seem excited about the weekend” Emma says, “do you have plans or something?”.

“Not really” Wyatt says, scratching the back of his neck. “I don’t have work during the weekends though. Can you think of something we could do over the weekend?”.

Emma nearly drops what she was doing in surprise. “You mean… like together?” She asks.

“I-I mean” Wyatt begins to explain, “maybe it doesn’t have to be together, but… is there anything you wanted to do?”.

Emma thinks to herself and says “So far, the only thing I have planned is to go down to that clothes store and sell this dress I’m working on. I’m trying to finish it tonight so I can sell it tomorrow. If you want to do something after that… then I’m…. open to whatever”.

Wyatt laughs nervously to himself and says “I’ll see if there’s anything we can do to like… maybe celebrate getting past the first week of college”.

Emma giggles and says “Is that something people usually celebrate?”.

“Not… usually” Wyatt says, “but this past week has been pretty eventful. I just thought that maybe we could do something to enjoy the moment… n-not like a date or anything… just something… fun, y’know?”.

Emma nods her head, her face growing slightly red. “Yeah!” She says.