Was I The Only One?

‘Just Dance’ played loudly through the speakers of the bowling alley, the smell of fast food lingering in the air making my mouth water. It didn’t escape my notice that Emma was waiting at the bar with her back to us and that Nick was sat on his cell phone; not an unusual sight. I smirked holding back a joke about Emma’s alcohol intake, she wasn’t here laugh at me or scowl.

Nick stood up when he saw us, a great big smile on his face showing his crooked teeth. “Hey!”

I grinned back and wrapped my arms around him in a friendly hug. “I haven’t seen you in forever.”

“I know.” He agreed giving me a tight squeeze. “Thanks for coming. I know she really appreciates it.”

I pressed my lips together and stepped to the side to put on my bowling shoes. I untied my laces and pulled off my shoes, letting the cool air hit my feet. I looked at Joe expectedly, smiling caringly at him as he sat down next to me and removed his sneakers and socks. He handed me his socks with a sad face. I giggled and took his face in my hand and pressed a thank you kiss to his plump lips, he returned the kiss with some pressure and even smiled against my lips. I pulled on his warm socks, thanking God that my boyfriend was hygienic, and then put on the bowling shoes that Big Rob had gotten for me.

I looked up to the TV that held the empty score board, seeing that I would be going second after Nick. Of course he would be going first and be going for gold. As he always said to me; ‘you get nothing for second place.’

I stared at my sock clad legs. There was no way to make it look good, so I decided if I was going to look like a loser I may as well do it to the best of my ability. I pulled Joe’s socks up so that they were half way up my legs and giggled at myself because I obviously am the funniest person in the world.

I stood up and put my weight on each foot, rolling around on my feet to get used to the feel of the stiff bowling shoes. I was glad they were stiff; they were less worn in meaning that less people had had their stinky feet in them.

Seeing Emma walking towards us with Nick at her side, each of them carrying two drinks, made a sad smile come to my face. I had missed her, I’d missed her a lot.

As I looked over her outfit, a simple floral dress, I noticed something... she was wearing black socks identical to mine, one’s that Nick had previously been wearing, that had been pulled up her legs just like mine with a pair of rental bowling shoes on her feet. I stared at her feet, scared at how alike we both were. It was merely coincidence but it was a freaky coincidence to have happened, but it was something that the two of us were likely to do.

“Snap.” I blurted out, pointing to her legs.

She looked down at her socks then over to mine and burst out into her usual high pitched and contagious laughter. “Only us two.”

“I know, right?” I chuckled along with her, unconsciously pushing all that had happened to the back of my mind.

“Twitpic?” She suggested, tilting her head holding her blackberry out in her hand.

“Twitpic.” I agreed with a nod.

“Joe, you sit beside Julia. Nick beside me. Lift you pants up.” Emma chuckled as we sat down next to each other.

She snapped a picture of our feet, I smiled as if she were taking it of our faces and even when I realised my smile I didn’t stop smiling. “One of us all?” I proposed.

Everyone leaned in, pressing our cheeks together we all grinned widely at the camera. “3, 2, 1.” Just as Emma went to press the take button, Joe turned his head and pressed his lips to my cheek just as the flash went off.

Once Emma had lowered the camera I turned to look at him, shaking my head at his cheeky looking face. His eyes were shining as he looked at me. Sometimes I was scared that he didn’t fully understand my feelings towards him, I could see him glow when he looked at me and it was something that I hoped never faded away. But I didn’t know if I glowed when I looked at him. I felt like I was, my heart raced at an unruly speed and I felt myself relax around him. He made me feel at ease and I felt the love circulating my body, my thoughts clouded with all but him.

“Hey.” His voice snapped me from my thoughts. “You okay?” He asked me, his voice filled with concern for me. He didn’t need to be concerned.

I nodded, biting my lip. “Yeah... just... thinking.”

I froze, my adrenaline pumping as his fingers tucked some of my hair behind my ear. “About...” he trailed.

“You.” I blushed.

He smiled at me softly making my stomach twist and jump. “I like hearing that...” he paused, then continued realising I was waiting for him to continue. “I think about you a lot.”

“You’re so cheesy.” I chuckled, making humour out of the conversation in order to avoid replying to him.

“You’re so... milky?” He shook his head, realising that what he had just said was a massive failure. I laughed loudly and boisterously at him, he silenced me with a kiss. “Let the bowling do the talking.”

The bowling did do the talking. Emma won, Nick came second, then Joe and then me. So of course Nick was in the worse mood in the world. He has on the seat adding up the scores just to check, then running over what he did wrong. Just to ease his mind, he put it down to luck. We all joked about it, but didn’t take it too far because we were all very well aware of Nick’s delicate pride and to come second in bowling wasn’t ideal for him. I wasn’t too concerned about coming last, everyone knew that bowling was not my strong point and they wouldn’t put the barriers up for me.

Surprisingly, the incident didn’t cross my mind all night. It just felt like a long overdue get together with her, as if she’d been on vacation and we were hanging out. Being around her was just normal to me and I had missed it. Seeing her and Nick together made me realise there was no way she was going to give him up again so I wasn’t worried that anything was going to happen between her and Joe. Though, that’s what I thought before they went off and had a two person party in the Bahamas. I decided that life’s too short to hold grudges with the ones you love, I could die tomorrow and regret never making things right with her again. She’d been with me through quite a lot. She was a big part of my life and I wanted her to continue to be.

I arranged for her to help me start to pack up my stuff and pack my things for New York the next day, so we would have some time together; just the two of us.

I was dragging cardboard boxes up to my bedroom when the doorbell rang the next day, I flicked on my docking station and ran down the stairs. I skidded across the wood flooring in my knee high socks and then swung the door open to reveal Emma stood with two Jamba juices in her hand.

She thrust one towards me. “Hey gay face, ready to start packing up your crap?”

“It’s not crap!” I defended, following her up the stairs.

“One woman’s gold is another woman’s crap... I just made that up.” She giggled, quite proud of herself.

“Yeah, you’re quite the Ghandi.” I mumbled, receiving a slap around the head from her.

“You’re just jealous.” She teased, turning into my bedroom. “OH MY GOD!” She shouted, her eyes wide at the sight of my bedroom.

The room was littered with empty boxes of different shapes and sizes, drawers were opened and some clothes lay with their hangers on the floor of my walk in. It looks like a bomb had hit and it had begun to rain cardboard boxes.

I patted her shoulder, “Let’s get started.”

“We should record us packing and do a time lapse of it for a YouTube video!” Emma proclaimed. She pushed through the boxes with her legs and grabbed my tri-pod and flip cam then began to set it up on one of my drawers in the corner so that it viewed the whole bedroom. I took a sip of my fruit drink and walked through the path she had created. “3... 2... 1... go.”

“Hey guys, so, I’m finally moving out of my mom’s house and Emma and I are packing all of my stuff into boxes. Enjoy.”

We then separated, she began to pack up my bedroom while I set up another camera in my walk-in and began to take all my clothes and put them into the specially designed boxes which had hangers in so I wouldn’t have to fold everything.

Together we sang loudly to the random tunes that came on through my iPod, Emma would skip the songs she didn’t want to listen to and I would just get on with the job at hand. But, being Emma she felt the need to stop every second and examine what she was putting into the box so by the time I had packed away four boxes, she was just closing on.

“Emma! I don’t have a lifetime to do this! I’m going to New York tomorrow!” I shouted at her through the door. She dropped my chap stick that she was smothering over her lips into the box by her feet.

“Sorry.” A cheeky smile appeared on her face. “Where’s the chap stick?” She began to imitate the girl from YouTube, making beat boxing noises.

I laughed loudly at her then went back to packing away my clothes. “You’re mad.” I told her.

“So, do you have any off time in New York? By the way, I’m insanely jealous of you.” She questioned in a loud voice. To make life easier she turned down the music.

“I have three shoots booked. Vogue, BCBG and a cover shoot for Seventeen and endless bookings.” I said robotically, so used to telling people my schedule. “The shoots are on different days and the amount of bookings I have to go to are ridiculous. So no to answer your question, I’m working constantly.”

“Well, that’s not fun.”

I shrugged, “My work is fun. I mean, I’m lucky to even be getting these clients. I love my job.”

“I know you do.” She affirmed, smiling at me.

I pushed the filled boxes into the corner of the room to clear some space for more boxes to get to my other closet which houses all my jeans and t-shirts. I’d packed away my dresses, shoes and coats already. So I was half way through my closet, Emma was slowly getting through everything in my bedroom, all in all we were actually making progress.

Mid-way through my box of jeans my blackberry rang loudly from the pocket of my hoodie. I pulled it out and smiled as the picture of Joe that he had taken of himself appeared on my screen.



I quickly answered when I realised I’d spend 5 seconds showing the camera the picture of Joe on my phone instead of picking up the phone to him.

“Hey.” I answered, moving a box with the front of my legs.

“What are you grunting for?” He chuckled down the phone.

“I’m packing away my closet, Emma’s doing my bedroom.” I told him, “What’s up?”

“Nothing, just wanted to see how your day was going.”

My stomach did a little dance and a small smile tugged at my mouth, “My day is going well, thank you for asking. How’s work?”

“It’s going good too, it’s really fun. I miss you though.” His tender words brought a pinkish blush to my cheeks.

I bit my lip trying to contain my small girlish squeal that wanted to erupt. “I miss you too. Emma and I could take a break and drop by the set if you want us too?”

“Yes!” Joe sharply answered, “Yes, yes, yes, yes---”

“Stop!” I shouted, laughter spoiling the stern tone I was trying to put across. “Okay, we’ll take a break. But we do need some food, so make sure there’s some candy and stuff.”

“Candy for dinner?” He cringed.

I rolled my eyes, “We aren’t all Mr. Health you know?”

Joe just laughed and let out a small sigh, “I’ll see you soon. I love you.”

“I love you too.” I cut the call and dropped my phone back into the pocket of my hoodie. “Emma! Drop the pillow, we’re off to see our sex on legs!”