Page 37 of Write Me For You
“I’m stealing your girlfriend for a couple of hours. I’m sick of you monopolizing her,” she said. “It’s my turn with her now. Best friend privileges.”
“You get BFF hour every night,” Jesse argued.
Emma flapped her hand in dismissal. “And I thought I’d get more than an hour! But you came along and swept her off herfeet.” Emma gestured with her head to Chris. “Meanwhile, I get this one to entertain me when you sequester June.”
“Hey!” Chris said, in complaint.
Jesse playfully gestured to his body. He wore his usual T-shirt and jeans. “Junebug can’t help it, Em. She can never resist me when I look this good.” Jesse was messing around, but his words had never been truer. I fell for him harder and harder every day.
Emma pretended to gag, and Jesse winked at me as we left the education room.
As promised, classes had started, but they were flexible. We couldn’t exactly write papers when we could barely move off our beds. But just like Chemo Club, our foursome had decided to do it together and that had helped us immensely.
“Should we just go to your room? It’s closer,” Emma said, heading down the hallway, linking her arm in mine. We mostly hung out in Emma’s room, as it was closer to the kitchen and the rec room.
“Sure,” I said. As we walked, I replayed what she had said about not spending as much time with her as she wanted. It made me feel guilty. I adored Emma and loved spending time with her. But she wasn’t wrong; I did spend a crazy amount of time with Jesse. Especially of late. But now, it was my plan to make even more time for her.
As we entered my room, she stopped dead as she saw the picture Jesse had drawn of me and Ginger on my wall. My mama had bought me a rustic wooden frame to protect it, and it hung opposite my bed, so I saw it every time I laid down.
“Erm…who drew this?” she asked. In the beginning, I’d kept Jesse’s drawings to myself. But the more he drew, the more I believed they needed to be seen.
“Jesse,” I replied, and Emma’s mouth dropped open in shock.
“Well…damn. Guess he’s not just football brawn and terrible jokes.”
I laughed and waved her over to my bed. I switched on the TV, ready to continue the series we’d been streaming.
Emma made herself comfortable beside me, but her eyes kept drifting back to the pictures. “How are they so lifelike?” she asked, and I paused the episode that had just started playing. “It’s so detailed, it could be a photograph.” Emma’s eyes narrowed. “Are we sure it’s not photoshopped?”
“Emma!” I said, tapping her hand in admonishment.
“What?” she said, playfully pushing me away. “It’s just we’ve been here awhile now, see each other every day, and I’ve never seen him draw.”
I shrugged. “He does it in private. He sketches most nights while I write.” Only a silence met me. When I looked up at Emma, her eyebrows were raised.
“Oh, we’re talking more aboutthis,” she said. “At night? Atnight?When at night?” Heat rushed to my face as I realized what I’d said. “Oh, no,” Emma said. “Don’t go all bashful on me now, princess, not when you’re running around in the midnight hours with your beau.” Emma batted her eyes, teasing.
I hadn’t meant to say it, and I didn’t keep secrets from Emma. But…I didn’t know. I supposed my and Jesse’s time outside, when the world was asleep, seemed like our personal slice of time, when it was just him and I and the art that made our hearts sing.
“My beau?” I cackled at that.
“I’m waiting,” Emma said when I didn’t answer her actual question.
The truth was, I found myself now wanting to share this with Emma. If I was honest about why, it would be because sometimes, I couldn’t believe that it was true. Why was Jesse so drawn to me? I felt like he could have any girl he wanted. And asmuch as I tried to understand that it was me he was falling for, there was a barrier of insecurity that still made me doubt why.
“We sit outside every night,” I said, feeling Emma’s impatience. “The few times we haven’t is when one of us has been hit badly by the treatment.” I flicked my eyes to hers. “And even then, we sneak into the other’s room, so we can be there for the other.”
“June Mary Scott, I didn’t think you had it in you.”
I stilled and met Emma’s blue eyes. “My middle name isn’t Mary.”
Emma flapped a hand in front of her face. “That’s of no consequence. I’m only interested in you and Jesse.” Her head tilted to the side as she regarded me. “Anyone can see how close you are. So do you see it lasting beyond Harmony?” she asked.
“Yes,” I said. I knew it was true for both Jesse and me. It was pathetic how gone for that boy I was. “I can’t explain it,” I confessed to Emma. “I don’t know if it’s because of the position we’re all in being here, being terminal, but everything is amplified.”
“I get what you mean,” Emma said. “Like everything just feelsmore. The sun seems brighter now. The heat more intense. Your favorite smells are sweeter.”
“Yes,” I said. I stared at the sketch on my wall, the one of my face. Jesseactuallysaw me like that. When I looked in the mirror, that wasn’t the girl in the reflection. Jesse’s picture made me look…beautiful. I could barely believe that was how I looked to him:beautiful. I had never thought of myself that way, but his sketches showed memethrough his eyes, and it was beautiful.
