Emilia opened her eyes. She blinked slowly and tucked the silky-blanket under her chin. She closed her eyes and listened to her father moving around in the kitchen. The stove beeped and she heard the whirling of the fan.

He dad was humming. He only hummed when he wasn't sad. She smiled into her blankets at his voice. It had been so long. He had gotten so sad when she had been at her other school, when she had lived with her mom, when everything had happened. No. When she had told someone what happened. That is when he got sad.

She wasn't going to make him sad again.

She was going to tough it out, just like her mom had told her.

Soon her dad would come in and help her pick out her outfit; soon she would put on a smile for him. But for right now she could curl up in her blankets and feel sad.


The bus ride to school was the worst.

Katie from down the road got a ride into school. So Emilia had to sit all alone. She looked down at the worn gray empty seat next to her. She wished she was in that car with Katie. She would give anything not to be here.

She didn't like the girls in the front comparing their Hello Kitty bags that their mom's had gotten them. The bags were ugly anyway.

She didn't like that Jason sat behind her and pulled at her hair, even when she told him she didn't like it.

"Jason, stop it."

"No! Who did you hair you dad?"

"Yes. And I don't like you pulling on it."

"Why aren't your mom and dad married?

"They don't want to be." Emilia leaned forward, head against the back of the cool seat in front of her. She hoped that the distance would give her some reprieve.

Oh, how wrong she was. Jason never stopped. He kept at it the whole bus ride.

At least when she got to school Mr. Anderson was there. He looked down at her with his warm smile and the brown eyes that were filled with laughs.

"How is your knee doing, Emilia?" He bent down so he could talk to her face to face.

She lifted her leg and showed him the band-aid. It was an Aladdin one. Her favorite.

"All better!" She told him.

"Then why is there still a band-aid there?"

"I just like it. It's pretty."

"Of course." He straightened. "It goes with your hat."

Emilia just smiled and nodded, because she already knew that. He dad had helped her pick it out that morning.

In class he sang things because they had been good all day. He even played the theme to the Simpsons on the piano for them at the end of the day since they had been extra good. Emilia sat there and hummed along kicking her feet, chin planted firmly in her hands.

Mr. Anderson could do anything. He even would act out scenes of things he read to them, and once he climbed up on a chair. Emilia giggled as she remembered. You weren't allowed to do that.


Emilia got off the bus at the end of the day and smiled. Home. She always felt much better once she had gotten away from the kids on the bus.

She ran all the way to her dad, who had already made her fruit salad. She ate it, not because she liked fruit salad, but because he had cut up the apples in different animal shaped just for her.

"We are having a class party!" She told her dad. "No healthy food allowed, Mr Anderson said so." She grinned mischievously. He dad loved healthy food.

Her dad's eyes wrinkled at the corners and his mouth scrunched. Emilia took a bite out of her apple. This was going to be fun.


A/n: honestly. i had kind of given up on writing. Then yesterday I got a while bunch of messages for people I love tell me who much they like it, and one asked me to write another chapter of this. So here it is.

Thank you all for your support and lovely messages, especially the ones who went out of their way to find me on tumblr. You guys rock.

And thank you as always to Jen (pineapple92) for her never ending work in correcting all I write, in a fic or just in general life. Love you.