Prentissmylove

What happened yesterday did not happen because of the mall. You cannot blame adrenaline, fear, or the strange circumstances that brought you together. Your last few encounters had always been shaped by the aftermath and reactions of what happened at the mall. Last night, on the other hand, was simple. Emily was there because she wanted to be. You were the reason, and the thought alone makes your body go into overdrive.

Reluctantly, you get out of your warm, comfortable bed and look for something to wear for the day. Your cheek is still tingling, and you catch yourself running your fingers over the spot Emily kissed again and again. Lost in your thoughts, you bite down on your lower lip, tugging lightly at it before letting out a quiet sigh. You try not to think about when you will see Emily again and what that next time will look like. It is difficult to tell where this relationship between you is going, especially when the two of you live such completely different lives. Emily will not always be able to make time for you, her job demands so much from her, just as the university demands so much from you. Two different lives…

By the time you walk back into your room after getting ready, Claire is finally awake. She is sitting cross-legged on her bed, her laptop open in front of her and a cup of coffee balanced dangerously close to her notes. You immediately reach for it.

“Careful,” you warn her. “You are about to destroy half your work.”

Claire looks up before following your gaze toward the cup. “You are exaggerating. I had everything under control.”

“You still put it there,” you point out. “You spent days working on that essay. Professor Millic has high standards. You do not want to hand in something half-finished, do you?”

“Y/N,” she breathes, looking at you with amusement. “Please relax. Everything is fine. Nothing happened.”

You stare at her, completely unconvinced. You helped her with the essay. In a way, it feels like your work too. “Easy for you to say. If all of that got ruined…”

She only shrugs. “I like living dangerously.”

A smile pulls at your lips, and apparently, that is all it takes for your best friend to notice. Claire narrows her eyes, a pleased grin on her face. “There it is again.”

“What do you mean?” you ask, frowning in confusion as your eyes wander around the room until they land on your bag, resting against the side of your bed. A glance at the clock tells you that you do not have much time left before your next lecture.

“That.” She points at you and cocks her head to the side. “That smile.”

You roll your eyes, reaching for your bag, ready to let the topic drop. Your best friend is so damn nosy and observant. So you do your best and smooth your voice before answering: “I smile all the time. I have no idea what you mean.”

“Not like that,” your best friend replies, taking another sip of her coffee. “That smile is definitely different from your usual one. I swear, it’s more honest, warmer…”

You try to ignore the warmth creeping into your cheeks. You hate how well your best friend knows you, and even more that it seems to be written all over your face that you saw Emily yesterday. “Claire,” you mumble warningly, “Drop it. That’s my daily smile, okay?”

“No, I am serious.” She leans forward a little bit, studying you with genuine concern. “You have been different since yesterday. You are in a better mood, smiling like an idiot… and so on.”

Your fingers pause around the strap of your bag, your mind getting caught on the word different. Because unfortunately, she is exactly right. Still, you try to avoid the conversation. “I’m just having a good day, am I not allowed to be in a good mood? It happens, you know?”

Claire looks at you for a moment and stays quiet. That is one of the things you appreciate most about her. She knows when to push and when to let things be. She can be impossible, dramatic, and way too curious for her own good, but when it matters, Claire knows the difference between something you are not ready to talk about and something you are hiding because you are afraid.

“You and a good mood?” she teases you and sighs. “You know you can tell me if something is going on, right?” The softness in her voice makes it harder to lie to her.

You know she means it. She would listen and she would not judge you for your little crush. She would probably be excited, ask far too many questions, and somehow make the whole thing a bigger deal than it needs to be, but she would be happy for you. You know that this is exactly why you cannot say anything and that the person making you smile like this is her godmother. Saying it all out loud would make it real. And you really cannot tell her who the reason behind your smile is. Would she ever look at you the same way again if you told her that her godmother is the person making your heart beat faster?

“That’s mean, I can have a good mood too,” you defend yourself, and when she gives you another thoughtful look, you let out a deep breath. “I swear, it’s nothing,” you promise quietly, hoping it is enough for the moment. You know she deserves the truth, but you are not ready to give it yet.

Claire watches you for a moment before nodding. “Okay.”

The trust in that answer settles somewhere deep inside you, and you press your lips together, hiding your disappointment in yourself. “Thank you.”

She smiles slightly, but you can see behind her mask. She knows something is going on but decides to let it drop. Just for your sake. “Don’t make it weird.”

You laugh in relief, but the uneasy feeling inside you remains. You are lying to your best friend, but right now you don’t know how else to handle it. “There is the Claire I know. I thought I had lost you for a moment.”

“I was being emotionally mature for a second. It was exhausting.”

The tension disappears, and everything feels normal again. At least on the surface. That is a typical trait of Claire. She can pull you out of your own head without even realizing she is doing it.

“We should go. We do not want to be late, do we?” Claire changes the subject, stuffing her laptop into her backpack. The empty coffee cup lands in the trash, your door closes behind you with a loud bang, and eventually, your paths separate on campus.

By noon, you and Claire are sitting outside with coffee, enjoying one of those rare quiet moments between classes. She tells you about Josh’s latest attempt at choosing a movie, and you laugh when she dramatically explains why his taste should be considered a personal attack.

“You do realize you could simply stop watching movies with him, right?”

“That is not the point.” She deadpans, placing her notebook down.

“Then what is the point?” you ask, mirroring her movement.

“The point is that I should not have to suffer alone.” She shrugs. “I like watching movies, but he simply never likes the ones I choose.”

You shake your head, smiling. “You are unbelievable.”

“You say that like you do not know me.” She grins at you.

Unfortunately, she is right. Your friendship with Claire has always been easy. Comfortable. She knows almost every version of you, including the ones you are not particularly proud of. She knows when you are overwhelmed before you even admit it yourself. She knows when you are pretending to be okay.

Which is why keeping something from her feels so strange. It is not like you. It has never been like this between the two of you. You have never really kept secrets from each other.

Your phone buzzes on the table, and your eyes drift toward the sound. A habit you have developed without realizing it. Something that makes your stomach tighten for the smallest fraction of a second before you remind yourself that you are being ridiculous. Not every message is from Emily. So why do you expect it every single time? You glance at your phone, but there is no message waiting for you.

Instead, Claire’s phone vibrates again. She reaches for it casually, still talking about Josh and his questionable movie choices, until her expression changes the moment she reads the name on the screen.

A smile spreads across her face, and deep down, you already know who it is. “Oh my god.”

You look up despite yourself. “What?”

Claire glances at her phone again, almost as if she wants to make sure she read the message correctly. “It’s Emily.” A grin spreads across her face. “I haven’t heard from her in ages!”

Something about the excitement in her voice makes you smile, of course she is happy. Emily is not just anyone to Claire. She has been part of her life for years. Someone who has shown up when it mattered, protected her, and became family along the way. She is her godmother after all.

“What did she say?” you ask, unable to hide your curiosity.

A part of you wants to know how Emily reaches out to Claire after seeing you last night. Whether she sounds just as calm, just as casual. As if nothing happened between the two of you. But you know Emily. She would never let anything show, never give anyone the chance to see how much something actually affects her. Especially not through a text message.

Claire’s smile only grows as she looks at the message again. “She’s nearby and asked if I want to grab coffee.”

The words should not affect you the way they do. It is a perfectly normal message, a polite question, a reunion that is long overdue. Emily is in town and wants to see her goddaughter. So why does something tighten uncomfortably in your chest?

You lower your gaze, tracing the rim of your coffee cup with your thumb while Claire starts typing her reply.

“I swear, she always does this,” Claire says, biting on her pen. “She disappears into a case, barely answers messages for days, and then suddenly shows up like nothing ever happened.”

You laugh quietly because it is true. By now, you know that this is simply who Emily is. Long before you ever met her, Claire had already told you stories about Emily disappearing for days, only to reappear as though no time had passed at all. “That sounds like Emily.”

“It does, doesn’t it?” Claire shakes her head, though there is nothing annoyed about it. If anything, she sounds fond. “She could disappear for six months, come back out of nowhere, and somehow expect everyone to pick up the conversation exactly where it ended.”

Your thoughts drift back to last night. To the way Emily had done exactly that. She had stood in front of you as if the weeks since the mall had never really created any distance between the two of you. As if showing up had been the most natural thing in the world.

Claire glances up from her phone, absentmindedly twirling a strand of hair around her finger. “I told her we’re free today.”

Your heart stumbles and you hope Claire does not notice. “Both of us?”

She looks at you as though the question itself is ridiculous. “Obviously both of us.”

You nod slowly because it is the only reasonable reaction. It should not feel strange. It should feel completely normal to join them and yet, it does.

Last night had felt different. For a few hours, Emily had simply been Emily. Not Claire’s godmother, not the profiler everyone admired, not the woman who seemed to belong to a world you were only beginning to understand. Just the person beside you, laughing and sharing stories with you, making the impossible distance between your lives feel a little smaller. Choosing to spend those few precious hours with you after a day that had already taken everything out of her.

Claire glances at her phone again, the smile still lingering on her face. The movement pulls you out of your own thoughts.

“She never tells me how long she’s staying,” she sighs, shaking her head with quiet amusement.

There is no real frustration in her voice. Only that familiar kind of fond exasperation you have heard countless times whenever she talks about Emily.

You watch her for a moment. The way Claire lights up the moment Emily reaches out catches your attention. There is a warmth there, a genuine happiness that has nothing to do with admiration or the fact that Emily is a profiler. It is simply the happiness of hearing from someone who has been part of your life for so long that their name alone feels familiar.

“So… she didn’t tell you how long she’s staying?” you ask before you can stop yourself.

Claire looks up from her phone and shrugs. “No. I guess it depends on the case.”

Right. Of course. You should have known. Emily’s life has never really followed normal schedules. There are always cases, things that need to be handled, always something waiting for her somewhere else. You had seen enough of her to know that she does not make promises she cannot keep.

And yet, a small part of you had hoped for an easier answer. A few days or a week. Something that would make the unfamiliar feeling in your chest easier to understand. If you are honest, last night felt like it belonged only to the two of you. For a few hours, there had been no case. No expectations. No reason for Emily to be there other than the simple fact that she wanted to spend time with you.

You lower your gaze to your coffee again, your thumb tracing the edge of the paper cup. Today you will see Emily again. This time not beneath the quiet darkness of campus, where every word somehow felt like it belonged only to the two of you. You will sit with her across a café table, with Claire sitting between you. In the middle of an afternoon where nothing is supposed to be different. Where you will have to pretend that everything between you is still exactly as it was. Pretend you do not know how warm her embrace feels. How gentle the kiss on your cheek was. How easily she made your heartbeat lose all sense of rhythm.

And you are not sure whether that will make things easier or much harder.