Start Again // [SQUEL TO THE POPULAR KIDS]

Chapter 2

Emma's Pov

I wait outside of the school for Vik. I ditched the stupid clothes that I was wearing and put on my regular jeans and a hoodie-dark colors of course. And I also told The Primary Sluts I wasn't interested in being their friend, I could've been nicer about it but what's the point? I'm not interested in ever being their friend so I don't exactly need them to think highly of me. They seemed pretty pissed about it because it seemed to them like I got the sidemen back when that's nowhere close to what happened. I actually got informed that I basically put JJ through hell and now I'm feeling shittier than ever. I actually considered calling my mom to pick me up from school early because the everything Vik told me made me feel pretty nauseous and since I took the bus this morning and couldn't just drive home but I decided that I couldn't just run from my problems. And if I did go home, then I would just lay in bed and think about what Vik said.
I see the sidemen and their friends go by, Harry looks at me and smiles. I give him a small half smile-a fake one of course. I couldn't possibly smile right now.
"Emma?" Vik says, walking up to me.
"Hey Vik." I respond.
"You still wanna talk?" He asks.
"Yeah. Let's go." I say quickly. He just shrugs and leads me to his car.
"You know we all miss you, right?" Vik says after we'd been driving in silence for a few minutes.
"You know I miss you all, right?" I respond. It's weird. I've never really had friends or anything so I've never had anyone to talk to about my emotions, not like I really had any intense issues that caused me to experience emotions, but now all of the sudden I had 10 new friends and they all vanished in a second. I felt so many emotions for the first time the day JJ left me, its kinda mind boggling.
"You shouldn't have left. I understand that JJ was stupid and left you for Seana, but the rest of us liked having you around too." He tells me.
"You know it really sounds like you're lecturing me, and anyways, I couldn't come back. That wouldn't be fair to JJ and Seana" I state.
"I'm not trying to lecture you, I'm Sorry" He replies, "and I know, I just wish we hadn't lost you."
"It's okay." I say, trying to hide the fact that my voice is shaking and that tears are welling up in my eyes.
"Tell me, what happened to you after the, incident." Vik says.
"Well, even though I hadn't known you guys for long, it seemed like something in me was missing. I don't make friends easily so I guess when I found you guys-especially JJ- I got sort of attached. I got really fucking sad. I didn't want to go out. I basically locked myself in my room. My grades went down for awhile, but I decided I couldn't let this lower my grades or my happiness, I mean, I never cared about anyone other than my family before, what made you guys so different?" I say. I realize I'm crying, "So I worked my ass off, brought my grades back up, went back to dressing like I usually did, not in sweatpants, I stopped going on YouTube, I went back to being the old me, well just on the outside, on the inside I was still baffled about why I felt the way I did. The 'old' me was stone cold, the me while I was with you guys was like a little girl getting the pony she wanted for Christmas, and the girl I was after you was some stranger that I had to get to know and, I, uh, I've decided I don't like her very much."
"Oh. Well we all want you to come back. We miss you like crazy and the house has been pretty quiet since you left. You said about you feeling like you were missing something without us, but I think we're missing something without you too, if that makes sense." Vik tells me. I just nod. We're sitting in the parking lot of the coffee shop where Vik told me about Seana and Gudjon back in October. It's pouring rain outside so the sound of heavy droplets hitting the roof and windshield fill the silence.
"I miss him." I state.
"He misses you." Vik replies. We sit in silence for a little while longer before Vik speaks again, "He regrets it more than I've ever seen him regret anything. I mean he seems so lost without you. This is what he was like when Seana left him too, but then you can along and fixed it. We thought at least when he left you for Seana he would still be happy because he had Seana back but he wasn't. He was grouchy and always in a bad mood and he never wanted to talk to his friends of family. He didn't want to see anybody-not even Seana, so they broke up."
"Oh," I reapond, not really knowing what to say, "I could get one of my friends to tell you about how horrible I've been without JJ but I don't really have any friends. Molly and I don't really talk, Mike has tried to be friends with me and I tried too but he ended up saying it was too hard to be friends with me."
"Being friends with someone shouldn't be hard. And I can tell you none of us found it hard to be friends with you, especially JJ," Vik states, "If you want to I'll tell him to come here, then I'll leave so you two can be alone." He offers.
"Okay." I say. Vik picks up his phone and scrolls through his contacts until he finds JJ's. I hear the phone ring twice before he picks up.
"Hello?" I hear JJ say, his voice muffled.
"Hi can you meet me at that coffee shop that I like? We need to talk." Vik tells him.
"Okay, sure, I'll be there in 10-15 minutes" JJ says, sounding weary, "See you soon."