~ Jess ~
"Jessica Delaney, you better come down here right now and help me set up for tonights meeting!" My mom screams up the stairs. I jump a bit in Darcy's arms. I sigh and push myself up and pause the movie that we were watching. I look at him, as if I'm apologizing and shout back to my mom.
"I'm coming!" We both stand up and jog down the stairs. I walk Darcy out and give him a kiss goodbye. Tonight we have the meeting at my house and I'm stoked. We don't get to see much of each other since I went back to Colonial Academy.
I help my mom throw together some snacks and put them out on the counter. I run upstairs and change out of my sweatpants and sweatshirt and put on a jean skirt and tuck in a white top. Good enough, I think as I look in my mirror. I jog back downstairs with my copy of Before I fall in my hands. I walk into our living room and see Cassidy's car pull in. Cassidy jumps out in nike shorts and an oversized t shirt and converse. She looks sweaty and tired. Hockey, I think to myself. I open up the door for them, and as soon as Cassidy sees me she grabs my arm and drags me up to my room.
"We need to talk about Dylan." She says quickly. "There's something not right about her. I thought I'd like her but I can tell. There is something that just isn't right."
I chew on my lip for a minute, thinking this through. I don't see Dylan much solely based on the fact that I go to Colonial and she's just not really my friend.
"I'll keep an eye on her tonight." I tell Cassidy. Even though, I haven't seen anything, I believe Cassidy. We hear the door open and close, following Mrs. Wong's voice explaining her healthy hummus. We head for the stairs when Cassidy grabs my arm again. I turn my head towards her.
"Watch Emma as well. She's been acting weird." I frown. Emma? Is she sure? I nod my head though and continue down the stairs. I plop in the living room to find the Wongs and the Hawthornes. Emma is the corner of a couch, her hair is messily in a bun, she's wearing no makeup. She's wearing sweatpants, sweatshirt, and slippers. I frown again. She's been pretty superstitious about what she wears since she got back from England. I sit down next to her and she jumps, and her eyes widen.
"It's just me." I say. Her phone buzzes on her knee and her head snaps toward her knee and she flips her phone over quickly before I can see what she got. I look a little closer at her. She looks exhausted. She tugs at her sleeves and curls up a little more. The Jamiesons arrive and so do the Chadwicks.
"So, what do we all think of the book so far?" Mrs. Hawthorne asks. Emma hands shoots up and we all laugh and look at her. She's been doing that since the first meeting. Her hand falls down though, and curls up a little more on the couch, if that's possible. And she puts her head down. That's very weird, usually Emma yells at us for making fun of her and she continues on about the book. But this is different. Cassidy's right, somethings wrong. We continue on the conversation of the book and soon enough the moms are talking about something and we are all crammed in my room.
"Guys, my parents are going out of town this weekend. Big party at my place on Friday!" Becca says excitedly from my bed. Emma, who's been silent for the whole night perks up at this.
"Really?" Emma says. "Cool!" Her phone buzzes again and her face goes red.
"You okay, Em?" Her eyes scan over all of us, she's not sure what to say, I can tell.
"Yea." She whispers. I look over at Cassidy. She nods her head. Something's wrong. And we need to figure out what.
On Wednesday I invite Megan, Becca, and Cassidy over. I don't tell them what it's about because they already know.
"Emma." We all say at once, when we are all in my room.
"We need to know what on her phone is scaring her so much." Cassidy says with determination in her eyes. I nod.
"How could we get her phone away from her, just so we could check the messages?" Megan asks
"We could ask Stewart for help. Stewart has noticed too. He said they talked about it and she wouldn't tell him" Becca explains. I nod my head slowly. If Emma isn't talking to Stewart about it either, then something is really going on.
"Call him." Cassidy says. Becca pulls out her phone and types out a number and puts it on speaker phone.
"Hey" Stewart answers.
"We need to talk to you about Emma" Megan says
We can hear Stewart sigh. "I know, something's wrong." He says after a minute.
"I say we wait for her to put her phone down and see if we can look at it and see what's going on." Stewart is quiet for a while.
"That's probably all we can do, but we need to talk to Darcy about it too. He needs to know." Stewart answers. I nod my head.
"I'll talk to him before your party on Friday and get him in on the loop, I'll see if he knows anything." I say.
"Okay, lets hope this works. Bye guys." Stewart says with worry filling his voice.
Friday comes quickly, and soon enough Darcy is at my house sitting on my bed while I get ready for the Chadwicks party.
"Which one?" I ask him while holding up two dresses, both casual but nice.
"That one." He says pointing to my left hand.
"I need to talk to you about Emma." I say.
"I know, she's not been herself these past couple of weeks. She hasn't eaten with us for like a whole week at dinner." Darcy says. "Mom thinks that it's stress but I don't know, she's been dressing differently too." He finishes. I digest the information. This is bad. Really bad.
"We talked to Stewart yesterday, on the phone and he's gonna help us figure it out. Can you help?" He nods back steadily. He looks worried. I realize I probably look just as worried. I still look like this when Darcy and I show up at the Chadwicks. There's a good amount of people at the party and I spot Emma almost right away. Her hair again is in a messy bun. She's wearing jeans a t shirt and converse. Her outfit looks a little better, but her face says it all, she looks so sad. I smile and wave at her. She's attached to Stewart, who has his arm around her waist. Her phone is tucked in her jean pocket. I nudge Darcy and we start moving towards them.
"Hey guys, I'm so glad you could make it." Stewart says. Emma forces a smile in Darcy's direction but doesn't even try with me. She takes a sip of her drink, which I'm pretty sure is beer. I breath a deep breath. This is gonna be really hard. But I remind myself that the night is still young and the book club, plus Darcy, Zach, Ethan, and Third are staying after everyone else leaves. Which gives us opportunity. I look around to find Cassidy but can't find her. Darcy and I spend most of the night making small talk with everyone, neither of us drink but everyone else does and it's hilarious to see Kevin Mullins drunk. Soon enough it's about 1am and we are all sitting in the Chadwicks living room.
Emma sits next to me, her phone slips out of her hands, I almost fall out of my chair to get it for her. It buzzes and I see quickly what's on the screen. In that moment, I wanted to be sick and cry and scream all at the same time. The reason Emma hasn't been Emma. The reason she's sad.
I swallow the lump in my throat as I come to realization.
Emma's being bullied.
Author's Note: Hi! Oh my lord, I am so sorry for not posting sooner. This chapter and the one is to come deals with some serious stuff. Who do you guys think is bullying Emma? And what is the bully saying? Let me know! I'll update soon! xoxoxo