"EmersonEmersonEmersonEmerson!"

What? What? Was I dying?

Groaning at the sticky blood I could feel dampening my underwear and shorts - and aw, hell, my bedsheets too? - I pushed myself up, rubbing my eyes.

"Lez?" My voice croaked, rough with sleep.

"LOOK." She held something in her hand, waving it before my face, jumping from foot to foot.

I groaned again, longer and creakier. I blinked to get my eyes adjusted to the light, and peered at the phone clutched in Lez's hand.

"Is that my phone?" I asked, still in a state of half-asleep stupor.

"Yes," she said impatiently, shoving the phone into my face. "LOOK."

I took it and looked.

I schooled my features into a poker face, giving nothing of the way my heart was turning somersaults inside my chest away.

"EmersonEmersonEmersonEmersonEmer - "

"What?" My fingers were jittery, tapping against my thigh. I pressed the phone screen against my chest, wanting to hide it from her.

She peered at me, a depth of knowing in her eyes, her stare so intent on me I had to look away uncomfortably. I was being oh-so-obvious, and that was oh-so-frustrating.

"What are you going to say?"

It felt like an occasion for whispering, as if any noise above the level of a barely-there breath would slice whip-sharp through the air, so I whispered back, "I don't know. I don't know I don't know. Help me."

She had to gently prise the phone out of my hands, I was holding on to it so tightly. My mind spinning, all I could think was it was too early for me to be dealing with this, that I'd rather be going back to sleep, ignorant to the message. After all, ignorance is bliss.

"See, Emerson? You didn't screw anything up."

I nodded mutely.

I really had no words. No breath. All robbed from me.

"So?" she demanded.

"So..." I blew out a hard breath.

"Tell him you miss him!"

I fidgeted with my hair as I stare at the phone screen. "Why do you seem more excited about this than I am?" Not that I wasn't, but the excitement had not yet registered in my foggy mind.

"Oh, my God," she moaned, then snatched the phone from me. She spoke as she typed. "'Hey baby. I miss your sexy ass too. Come give me a piece of that.' Winky face. Kissy face. Heart eyes. Ten heart emojis. Eggplant emoji - "

Now that snapped me out of it, and I dove at her, making her fall onto the bed. Yelps arose from us both, I felt my hair being tugged - and whoops, I fell off the bed. But not without dragging her down with me.

"What the hell!" I yelled, both at her and because of my aching butt.

"Relax, I didn't send it - "

"Hello?"

We both froze. I actually felt as if I'd been cryogenically frozen. In fact, at this very moment, I would welcome that. Wake up into a better future. Because right now, upon hearing that voice, I was dying.

"Um... Em?"

My frantic eyes locked on Lez's. "You called him?" I threw at her in a whisper-shout, not sure if my heart was thumping out of fear of excitement or a strange combination of both that threatened to send me jumping out the window.

"I must have butt-dialed him when you attacked me, you stupid."

I suppressed a moan.

"Hel-loooo? Em, are you dead?" Emer's tone was both joking yet concerned.

I pushed Lez off me, then stumbled to my feet, shaking my hair out of my face. I grabbed the phone - clutched it with a death grip - and brought it to my ear. "Hi."

Lez mouthed: That was lame.

I flipped her off.

"Oh, phew, I thought I was going to have to call the cops."

I laughed nervously. "No no, I'm very much alive." Unfortunately.

"Okay, phew. But um... quick question. Were you on drugs when you sent that last text?"

"What last text - " Oh. Oh, shit. It had sent.

I looked at Lez. Looked at her. Looked at her some more. Hoped that the murder I felt could be read in my eyes, and also in the way that I brought my finger across my throat in a swift, slicing motion that was the universal gesture for "I'm going to kill you".

It was his turn to laugh. "Yeah. Just, you know, wondering." Laughed again.

I groaned, flopping down onto my bed and burying my face in my pillow. Until I realized I was lying on my period blood, at which point I flew back to my feet. "Yeahhh," I dragged the word out, "sorry about that. "It was, um, a joke." Now I didn't need to look at Lez, because I was thinking the same thing she was mouthing/shouting at me: lame.

Could my brain not vomit out something intelligent to say?

"Oh." He fell silent for a while, a very short while in which I scarcely dared to draw breath. "Well, I'll have you know, my ass is sexy. Very sexy. Just like the rest of me."

I couldn't see him then, but I imagined him winking on the other end of the phone line, and I couldn't help dissolving into raucous laughter that after a while made me breathless. "Oh, wow. Okay." I was grinning like a fool, not bothering to hide it even when Lez threw a pillow at my head, mouthing what? what? what? "That's very good information to know. Extremely important, too."

"You mean, you didn't already know that?" He affected a tone of mock affront.

I smacked my forehead with my palm. "Oh, darn! I forgot."

I can practically feel his teasing grin. "Who says 'oh, darn' in this day and age?"

"I do, doofus."

"Who says 'doofus'?"

"I do, dumbass."

"Much better. You know, forget it, I'm no longer Emer. You may address me as shifu."

"Okay, shifu dumbass."

Why had I even been so apprehensive about this? I'd been overthinking things, overcomplicating them. But in truth, Emer and I... we got along great, didn't we? There was hardly any awkwardness. And why should there be, after all we'd shared? I'd been to the boy's home - if you could really call that a home, anyway. I'd been with him in sickness and in health, for better or worse, through -

No, wait, stop it. We weren't getting married.

"Anyway..." He hesitated, which gave me time to shoot a wild look at Lez, who merely shrugged, oh-so-helpfully. "I know I saw you yesterday, and maybe it's really sappy, but I really do miss you already."

Now I really didn't know how to reply. This wasn't a text. This was actual, in-real-life, face-to-face (or, you know what I mean) conversation. And my mind drew a blank about what to say.

"Em?" He sounded so unsure of himself that I gnawed on my lip, feeling so bad.

I said, in a whoosh of breath, "Imissyoutoo." And then I cringed. Big-time. Lez's eyes widened so much I feared they may bulge out.

That helpful git gave me the double thumb's up and nodded like a damn bobblehead. I very much wanted to smack that head.

Emer laughed softly, a little wobbly. Was he as nervous as I was? This was all new territory to me.

"That's good to know, that I'm not the - " I heard a ringing. "Oh, I have an incoming call. Sorry, do you mind if I call you back later?'

"Sure, have fun." He apologized again, and I assured him again that it was fine, then he hung up and I was left standing there with my phone against my ear and trepidation in my gut. Because it was something in his voice that didn't sound entirely at ease, and an irrational fear in my head claiming that he was... Well, I didn't know what exactly I thought ( or didn't want to admit it). But it was certainly nothing good.

"How'd it go?" Lez broke into my thoughts. I dropped my hand and let a smile break free. There was nothing to worry about. Nothing at all.

"It was all good. I want to kill you, but at the same time, thank you."

She dipped her hand in a flourishing movement, and bent her knees in a half-hearted curtsy. "Cupid here, at your service."

I rolled my eyes, then grabbed the pillow she'd thrown at me which lay on the floor to smack her head with. She glared at me. "You dare smite me?"

"Oh, I dare. Anyway, you owe me ice cream."

"What? Since when?"

"Since you sent him a message with an eggplant emoji."

She held her hands up, conceding defeat. "All right, you got me there. I want some ice cream too, now that you mention it. And, oh, before we leave, you might want to clean up your little mess over there."

My gaze traced the line of her finger to the red stain on my bed. I let out a long, long groan. How pesky and inconvenient.

"Get on with it, woman."

"I'll throw my bloody underwear at you."

"I'd like to see you try."

I stuck my tongue out at her and went to strip my bed.

[p.s. goodnight!]