The next morning as they got ready for church, Emma felt Mary Ellen's absence sorely. The loud, tomboyish presence just wasn't there. Emma pulled on her dress and started to brush her hair. She had let her dark locks grow out to just underneath her shoulders. She glanced over at Erin, who was blending rouge in on her face. "Mama won't be happy."
"I'm old enough. I'm nearly sixteen!" Erin rolled her eyes.
"Or mabye you just want to impress a certain G. W?" Emma fluttered her eyelashes. "Hmm?"
"I really like G. W. We're going on a date later on." Erin blushed, colour on her cheeks.
Ben peeked his head in. "Erin, you look like a clown."
Erin scowled and hit Ben on the shoulder with her handbag. "You are so annoying!"
"Yeah Ben!" Emma picked up her purse and playfully hit his other shoulder.
Ben staggered, before contagiously laughing and dashing into his room. Erin rolled her eyes. "Brothers."
In the back of the truck, Jason peered over Emma's shoulder as she wrote in a little notebook. "What are you writing about, Emma?"
"Oh, nothin' really. Just doodling." Emma showed her older brother her childish doodles.
"They're nice." The twenty year old smiled before sitting back and playing around on his harmonica. Emma always found it easy to talk to her sensitive, gentle older brother, as it was guaranteed that he would listen to her no matter what. The family pulled up at church, and piled out. Emma looked around hopefully for Mary Ellen, but there was no sign of her. She probably was sleeping in.
Elizabeth took her hand. "When do you think Mary Ellen and Curt are gonna have a baby?" She asked a they walked to the door.
"That's their business, Elizabeth." Emma scolded gently, leading the ten year old inside.
The months passed quickly, and Emma could hardly believe it was only two weeks until graduation. She would miss school, sure, but she was excited to get a job. Ben and Nancy were the only other two people in her grade, so they had to stay after school most days to practice their graduation walk. After leaving the school one afternoon, Ben and Emma took the long road home. After that one kiss, nothing had really been done about their relationship except the occasional causal flirting. Of course both of them knew that they liked each other, they were just too shy to say it.
Ben turned to Emma. "So, I think we should talk."
"About what?" Emma shrugged, meeting his eyes.
"You know what. We've been avoiding talking about it." Ben chuckled. "We're going to graduate soon, and we aren't going to be kids anymore. But, what I wanted to talk to ya about was..
did the kiss mean anythin' to you?"
Emma's words caught in her throat. She stuttered and spluttered for a moment before answering surely, "It meant a lot to me."
Ben let a wide smile break over his face. "I'm glad. Because it meant a lot to me, too." He grabbed her hand and the two young people started to run like they were kids again.