Emily's POV:
My tired eyes forced themselves open to face yet another day of school. Would I actually go to school though? No, I'd just tell mom I'll be at school and wander around the city, I know it'd be better for me if I didn't fail in all the subjects except for English but it's hard to care. Truth be told the only class I get good grades are in English, depressing I know but I genuinely liked the class.
After a long morning argument with mom I was finally out of my house and walking to an unknown destination, I managed to sneak in my secret laptop in my book bag with me to keep myself busy for the next 7 hours. How'd I manage to get myself a secret laptop? I worked my ass off at a nearby cafe while mom thought I was at school. I quit the job there once I purchased what I needed but I think I should get the job back so I can move out as soon as possible. As I thought of the cafe I now had a place to be at for the next few hours. I walked into the cafe that was not so busy today and sat down at a small decent looking spot by the window.
I took out my laptop and wrote, this is what I liked to do, just sit at a quiet place and write, it's like I was finally given a place where I could just be myself and create a world where I could control the plot, a world with a happy ending instead of the same endless painful cycle my life seemed to be stuck in.
*half an hour later*
"Ma'am you've been here for half an hour if you want to hold your seat you need to order something" someone who worked at the cafe said to me
"Of fuck I forgot, I'll have an iced coffee" I said not sure about how I was going to pay for it
"Coming right up" she said and walked away to get me a coffee, after a few minutes she came toward my table with the item I ordered
"That'll be 4 bucks"
"Give me a minute" I said as I looked in my bag hoping to find spare change, I looked into a small zip of the bag to find a 10 as I handed it to the woman who bought back my change.
I took a sip of my coffee looking away from the screen for a split second, I saw someone walk in, he looked familiar, tall figure, brown hair, blue eyes, holy fuck it's Jake from last night. I wonder why he didn't text me, but then again it's been only 5 hours. He ordered something at the front and looked for a place to sit as I tilted my head back toward my screen. Then he was right in front of me
"Emily?" He asked as I looked back up from my screen
"Hi Jake" I said with a little smile
"Do you mind if I join you for a while?"
"That'd be nice" I said as he sat down on the other side of the table
"Wouldn't you have school right now?" I asked
"A person who ditched school is looking at another person who ditched school"
"How would you know if I didn't have a day off today?" I asked trying to prove him wrong even though he was clearly right
"Do you have a day off?"
"Shut up" I said shutting of my laptop
"Why'd you ditch today?" He asked
"You don't really feel like going to school when all the teachers hate you or if you have 50 missing assignments, in this case both, why are you ditching?"
"Just the one missing assignment" he said as the barista bought him his coffee
"Are you ok from last night?" I asked him, I know we shared a lot for two strangers yesterday so it's the decent thing to do
"A lot better, mom and dad actually both got out of the house, are you doing better?"
"First, do you know where they went? And second if I wasn't doing better I wouldn't be at a cafe at 9AM"
"I never know where either of them are but I know they'll be back in a few days and it's good to know you're doing better"
"Don't you get worried about where they are?"
"I used to at first but now it's just a routine, if they're gone for more than a week I start to worry"
"No one should have to go through that, I'm glad you told me" I said trying to switch the topic, no one wants to spend the morning talking about how their life is a mess
"This is kind of boring lets do something fun" he said
"Ok but where do you think we could go?" I said as I put my laptop in my bag
"The park does still have swings and stuff at the other side of it" he said suggestively
"Let's goo!"
I sat on one of the two swings as I put my book bag on the floor carefully
"I've not been on these in a long time" I said as I let my feet of the ground to feel the air in my hair
"I'm surprised these aren't broken or really rusted" Jake said from the other swing
"Me too, this place closed down like a year ago"
"I wonder why they left the place all open"
"Maybe they REALLY wanted us to meet" I suggested
"Then they did the right thing" he agreed
"They didn't even take the swings or slides and stuff out"
"Like you said maybe they just REALLY wanted us to meet" he chuckled
"Maybe they knew us since we were kids and knew this would happen" I said sarcastically
"That'd be so crazy"
After a while with Jake at the park the inevitable happened, he had to leave. I stayed at the park and sat at the bench as I watched YouTube videos on my laptop. I could go home but what if mom decided to ditch work again, I cannot risk her knowing that I don't go to school most days so I spent the entire day on a park bench till it was finally 3PM which means I could go home and either spend all day in my room if mom was at home or I could be anywhere at home if she wasn't, figures crossed on her not being at home.
I slowly opened the front door and looked if she was there, she wasn't. I went to my room and put my laptop in my cupboard and locked it, if she found out I had a secret laptop I'd be dead. I put my bag away and looked in the kitchen for snacks, of course there weren't any. I looked in any of the drawers cereal is all there is. I took the box of cereal and pored it in a bowl. I looked in the fridge for milk and as I predicted there wasn't any. I walked to the couch with dry cereal and turned on the TV, the woman could afford subscriptions to Netflix, Hulu, Hotstar and HBO but couldn't stock the pantry once a month, I sighed as I put on my comfort show and ate my dry cereal.