Chapter 9

"You wouldn't want me to leave work and come all the way from Australia to Washington DC just to see you ..." Ryan was saying over a video call with Emma, "just to see me?" Emma asked disgusted, "babe, I'm really hooked up with a lot of stuff, dad's really counting on me....." he was saying, Emma starred at him disbelievingly, and looking away from the ongoing video call, she sighed, "but the good thing is that as soon as I'm done with some things here in Australia, I'll fly down to Washington DC, okay baby?" Ryan said, one thing was certain Emma read no seriousness from his voice, just the usual air of pride he always had. He called on to her, Emma shut the laptop and pushed it away. She felt irritated, how can your six years old relationship with a guy you claimed to love say that kind of stuff, "....just to see me" she said aloud irritated. What was it that actually made her and Ryan to have still remained in this relationship till now?, It was more like a public show, everyone had always said that Emma was Ryan's and that Ryan was Emma's, no one really knew it wasn't as they thought. They too had flowed together all these while on the basis of what people had always been saying. They had literally been living up to people's expectations, they had lost the life in their relationship four years ago, when Emma had left Ryan's school, due to her depression issues, Ryan had come to join her two years later but by then she had gotten so used to her new school mates and had made new friends that she just merely took him to be her official boyfriend who she needed to be loyal to. But then Ryan graduated from high school before her and had gone off to college in New York, and Emma had gone to Las Vegas where her own college was. Ryan also was done with college earlier than Emma , felt settled with the thought of having a rich beautiful girlfriend, he didn't care much about Emma just as Emma didn't care about him either. They were just in this relationship mostly because of their parents business similarities. They were in a dreamy relationship Emma thought and sighed, truly all her friends saw her to be happy and luckily in a relationship with wealthy Ryan but they hadn't had a glimpse of what her relationship really looked like she thought.

She stood up to get the dishes done trying to distract herself when she had a notification bell ring on her phone, a message popped on her screen, Grace wanted her to come over for a party in her house, certainly not in the mood for that, she threw the phone on her bed and made way to the kitchen to clean up the dishes as she tried to clear her mind.'must one have a boyfriend' she thought. The noise from a housefly in the kitchen struggling from the web of a spider caught her attention, the housefly tried all it could to get free from the spider's web but the more it tried, the more entangled it became with the spider's web. Maybe life was like the picture in front of her now, she thought, the more one tried not to follow the common things people did, by trying not to place happiness on the amount of wealth one possessed, the more such wealth became more endearing to the person. Her parents were just like the picture in front of her, dad would always say that you shouldn't marry someone for his wealth but now his words are definitely standing against him as he is trying by all means to get her married to this boy, whose father was his business affiliate.

"Roseline.." Emma whispered as she looked through the window, right downstairs she saw her slim friend walk in through the dwarf gate. Roseline always swung her hips when she walked, across her shoulders was a hand knitted bag obviously made by her, for Roseline loved to knit and crotchet, they were her big hobby. Roseline was one of Emma's friends who seldomly spoke anyhow outside except when she was them, and when she did smile it was golden for she was passing through alot. At the age of twelve, her parents got separated and at fourteen, her dad had sent divorce papers to her mum. Before she concluded high school her parents had already divorced, mum got both daughters with the help of some very hard lawyers, but then mum had taken to drinking and random smoking, many a times, Roseline and her elder sister, Marilee had had to rush mum to the hospital several nights when her heart condition popped up. They were at the edge of loosing their mum to drugs and drunkenness. But as for the woman, Mrs Potter, she was a top official in her place of work but depression had weakened her mental health, leaving her at the mercy of all sorts of drinks and substance. Besides the problems she faced with her mother, Marilee her sister slept around with men carelessly. Roseline was so tired of her family and rather thought that Emma was happy to have such a home with no worries or so she thought.