Emma walked the school halls in a daze, the students around her migrating towards the exit in a haze as she carelessly trudged along, lost in thought.
So, this is it. Emma sulked to herself. My time in school is over, my time at home is over.
Stepping out into the bright rays of the mid-afternoon sun, Emma quickly pulled the hood of her sweater up over her mop of short curls; shielding herself from the blinding light reflecting off of the pavement as well as the watchful eyes of the remaining students on the school grounds.
"Hey, Emma!" One of the guys from the group several feet away called out, waving for her to come over.
Normally she'd eagerly go over to join them, but that too had changed. Unlike them, she had some serious problems to contemplate and they wouldn't know how to help her. She didn't want them to worry, it was best for them if she started the detachment process now. It would hurt less this way if she started to ignore them instead of just up and disappearing from their lives. She knew all too well what that felt like and would never make another feel that same pain, no matter how much it hurt her.
Waving him off and signaling with her hands that she had somewhere to be, she quickly turned on her heel and walked off. Not noticing the several looks of concern and attempts to regain her attention by other students at her departure.
Alone once more, Emma forced herself to swallow down the ball of anxiety forming in the pit of her stomach and focus.
What am I supposed to do now? What is there to look forward to? She was going to lose the entire life she had built for the past year here, again. Sure, her friends would wish her farewell—promising to keep in touch online—but their lives would go on and the contact would become less and less over time. It always did. Her future looked bleak and lonely if she didn't come up with a new game plan for how to deal with these upcoming changes.
The once leisurely stroll to her friend Pete's house for the weekly Robotics Club meeting went by in a blur, and before she knew it she was standing in front of his garage door.
Remembering what countless therapists had taught her to calm her anxiety and relax, Emma took a few shaky breaths in through her nose and out her mouth, and quickly knocked three times on the garage door.
As the door slowly creaked open, Emma felt something heavy bump into her leg. It was a robot, her robot, and it was giving off smoke.
"WOO HOO! Hey Emma! Look! I got Sputnik to work!" called a boisterous voice from inside the garage.
"Pete," Emma drawled, "you started the sumo up for the first time without me? And you named her Sputnik?! I thought we agreed on Supakura."
Sure enough, upon closer inspection, Emma caught the generic robot name "Sputnik" painted in bold, black letters over the fighter bot's red paint. Rolling her eyes, Emma began to push the fifty-pound robot back into the garage.
"Pete, you can't just take a robot of this size on a test run by yourself. What if it malfunctioned while you were alone and it blew up or something?" Peering into the darkness of the garage Emma allowed her eyes a moment to adjust before they came to rest on Pete.
Peeking at her from his hiding place was the form of the short boy. Red, shaggy hair and bright green eyes standing out in the darkness.
"Pete... come on turn on a light will ya? I need to put Su-pa-ku-ra back on her platform so we can get back to work" Emma made sure to emphasize each syllable of sumo's real name as she heaved to push the robot.
"Alright, alright." Pete sighed, "Here let me get the light and help you before you trip on something and hurt yourself." He went quickly to get the light.
Once the robot was back on the workbench Emma turned to her companion with her arms crossed, disapproval settling on her features.
"Emma come on, I needed to test the code I finished programming today and Spu-"
Emma raised an eyebrow.
"Supakura," Pete corrected with a nervous smile, emphasizing the splash of freckles across his nose and cheeks, "was calling to me! We were going to take her out today anyway, and I thought it would be cool to have her greet you at the door. Wasn't that awesome?" Pete's eyes looked like they had stars forming in them—if that was possible—from excitement.
Emma let out a sigh at his enthusiasm. It was hard to stay mad at him when he was so excited. "Still Pete, you could have really hurt yourself or done some serious damage to the bot. We haven't tested the remote controller enough to know if it's safe to take her out of the garage yet. Not to mention when you sent her outside to me she started to give off smoke."
"Oh.. what do you think caused that?" Disappointment filling his voice.
"I'm not sure, I'll have to open her up and check the wire connections to make sure they are sending your programmed signals correctly and not overheating." Tapping her chin Emma began to gather the necessary tools as she thought out loud.
"Could it be the motor? No, no I soldered that myself..."
A few minutes of tinkering passed until Pete cleared his throat to gain her attention.
"Hey, Emma..?"
"Yes, Pete?" A bit of irritation creeping into her voice at the interruption.
"How did your meeting go with the guidance counselor today?"
Emma ignored him as she asked a question of her own.
"Why aren't the others here? I thought they all wanted to be present for the first official test drive."
"Yeah, about that," Pete began to twine his fingers together as he laughed nervously.
Half turning to peer at him through her peripheral, Emma's gaze bore into him, "What did you do, Pete?"
"Well... I sort of... maybe... canceled the meeting for today?" he squeaked the last part as she stared at him furiously. "WHY would you do THAT?"
If looks could kill.
With an audible gulp, Pete pressed on. "Well... I wanted to have you see it first. And I wanted to talk to you. I have a surprise for you! Wait right there."
Before Emma could respond, Pete bolted out of the garage and into his house.
Slowly closing her eyes, Emma let out a frustrated noise in the back of her throat and went back to her work.
She knew Pete had a crush on her. He made it obvious with stunts like this where he took any opportunity he could get to be alone with her; always trying to impress her or give her some small trinket as a gift. There was even that one time at their first Robotics Competition that he attempted to ask her out on a date, but stuttered and cut off all of his sentences mid-thought so much the competition had started and the conversation was cut short.
Face softening at the memory, Emma knew she cared about him too, but that she had to be firm with him and tell him no. She would be leaving soon, and like with her friends she had to allow the detachment process to begin. She would miss Pete terribly, but this was the way things had to be. She had no choice.
"Here it is!" Pete announced with triumph.
"You brought me...?" Emma held the last letter of her question as Pete unveiled her laptop, "my laptop," she finished flatly.
"But wait! There's more" he wiggled his eyebrows as he opened it and two slips of paper fell out into her hand. Two tickets to the end of the school year dance.
"Pete..."
"WAIT! There's even more!" He sang over her impending rejection they both knew was coming.
"I tinkered with your computer a bit." Her narrowing eyes had him immediately hold up his hands in pleading defense, "I know I should have asked you first, but listen. I installed all of the latest software on the market: a new graphics card, more RAM, upgraded the hardware space, you name it, this baby has it! You can connect to any Wi-Fi no matter how weak the signal and most important, with the new cmd window I installed, you can hack into any system in the galaxy!"
At her perplexed look, he continued in a more calm tone, "You've mentioned wanting to learn the coding side of Robotics, and I want to learn the physical building side. So, I was thinking maybe this coming break we could spend some time together teaching one another. But, in order for that to happen, you'd need to have a computer that can handle the kind of work required for this stuff."
Scooting a workbench stool closer to where she had been sitting, he placed the laptop in front of her and booted it up.
"Pete, about the tickets..."
Making sure to look at the booting computer screen and not at her, he hunched his shoulders as he cut her off, "Just hang onto them and think about it ok?"
Emma felt the ball of anxiety from before unfurling in the pit of her stomach as pangs of guilt coursed through her. She kept her concerns to herself as the computer finished booting and Pete walked her through the new upgrades.
"The last but certainly not least—in fact, it's the most important upgrade—is the cmd window." He instructed with vivid hand motions.
"Now, if you put this command in here... Ah ha! There it goes." At the push of a button, hundreds of lines of code started racing down the screen at unreadable speeds, giving Emma the beginnings of a headache.
"Pete.. can we go through this more later? I'm starting to not feel well and it's getting late. Mr. Elms will want me home for dinner soon."
"Oh really? But it's so early still," he murmured in defeat.
"It's 5 o'clock, Pete. I have to help him make sure Mrs. Elms eats and do my homework still." Emma said in annoyed exasperation as she began to pack up her things in her bag. Sometimes Pete's enthusiasm made him pushy, which—even though she loved that about him—it made him grate her nerves after awhile.
"Emma wait, before you go." She froze as she felt him grip her arm and hold her in place, he knew she hated being touched unexpectedly. "Tell me what happened at the meeting today, is everything ok with you?"
Doing everything in her power to not rip her arm out of his grasp, she gently pried his fingers off of her arm as she steeled herself to talk about the dreadful meeting from earlier.
She filled him in on her graduating, which he was shocked and then ecstatic to hear, but then his face fell as she continued. "I'm moving Pete, I'm being placed in a new foster home in three weeks." She stated matter-of-factually.
"Three weeks!" He shrieked. "What do you mean three weeks!? What about graduation? What about the club? What about the dance..." She could see tears begin to form in his eyes as he brokenly mentioned the dance.
"I'm sorry Pete. If it was up to me I would stay. But it never is up to me, it never matters what I want or what I build for myself in a home." Wiping her eyes with her sweater sleeve, she hoped Pete couldn't see the unwelcome tears welling up. "Other people decide when that life for me ends and there is nothing I can do about that. Not for the next two years."
She quickly shoved the tickets into his chest as she grabbed her things and briskly walked towards the door.
"Give those to someone who will actually be able to be there for you Pete." Turning to him fully as the sunset behind her in the open doorway cast her in shadow. "I'm sorry I couldn't be what you wanted me to be, if my life were up to me I would have said yes to those tickets..." Seeing him awkwardly holding the tickets to his chest from how she shoved them to him, frozen in hurt and shock, she knew she couldn't leave him with that. He deserved better from her. "and if it were up to me, I would say I love you too. I'm sorry. I'll see you later, goodbye."
Unintentionally slamming the door as she ran down the street to her house, she had this horrible feeling telling her that was the last time she'd ever see Pete again.
Note: For anyone wondering, Supakura is Japanese for "Sparkler".
If you're reading this, thank you Brendan! Getting to talk with you about Robotics taught me a lot and made a big part of this story possible.