chapter 5

Emily. 

My eye lids are heavy and tired. They slowly close, blocking my view from the sky that I've been watching for a while now.

The events of today taking its toll on me, along with the exhaustion of everything that I've heard and everything that I've said, everything that I'm currently doing. It hits me like a ton of bricks and before I know it, I'm drowned into the darkness of sleep.

I'm not sure for how long I've been asleep but when a jumpy five year old next to me starts shaking me in my seat, it only feels like a minute. 

"Yes, Archer?" I mumble, rubbing away the sleep from my eyes to look down at the curly head. 

"I'm scared.” He sticks his lips out in a pouting motion, up at me, with widen and scared eyes as he snuggles closer towards me. 

This is the first time he has been on a plane and I understand why he would be scared. I was scared too, terrified even, but after many business flights, it got some what okay and not that much of a scare. 

I remember the first time how ansty and uneasy I was. I had no one at the time, no one to comfort me and no one to tell me it's going to be okay. 

I smile down at him, pulling him closer towards me in a hugging motion. I cradle him in my arms. 

"It's going to be okay, baby. I'm right here with you okay?" I pull him closer. "Do you want to sleep for the next few hours?" I softly ask. 

He nods his head and moves his small body to hide his head in the crook of my neck while his arms try to loosely wrap around my chest. I wrap my arms around his small figure, rubbing his back and humming his song to him until I feel his breathing even out.

I eventually fall asleep straight after him for another hour or so until my sleep breaks and I'm forced to watch the stupid show for a bit.

Forty five minutes later is when I hear a clicking sound near my ear but I choose to ignore it. It stops for a while before starting again for a few seconds and going off again. This happens for another five minutes until I had enough.

"Alex! I swear to god if you don't stop right this instant then I'll be forced to throw you off of this goddamn plane!" I snap.

I hear him mutter a fine and Jasmine telling him a 'I told you.' but I don't bother with the two right now. I freeze when Archer starts to shift in my arms.

My loud voice must have woken him up and I blame Alex for this. I watch as he shuffles for a few more seconds before his grip on me tightens and he falls off to sleep again. I breath out a sigh of relief while reminding myself to scold Alex as soon as we land.

Alex and Jasmine had forced themselves into my plan for going back to Rosewood and even offered to help with Connors situation.

The funny thing is that. . . I didn't tell them about it because I thought it was wrong for me to share someone else's secrets but Connor just so openly told them what's going on and they were on board almost immediately.

I told them that they didn't need to come with,

but with them being so annoying about it, somewhere along the line I had given up and nodded my head at them. 

And that's all the confirmation that they needed to start jumping and racing around to start packing up their things for the week away from home.

The five of us are on a plane to where I grew up for eighteen years and I'm not sure if I should be scared, frightened, angry or excited.

I knew this week is going to be stressful and painful for me and adding my two new bestfriends to the already bubbling and boiling mixture, I knew it wasn't going to turn out pretty at all, far from it actually.

There's going to be more questions asked and more answers demanded, and in all honesty, I don't know if I'm even ready for this or that kind of thing yet. 

I let out a sigh, closing my eyes and waiting for the next hour to be done again, for the next week to be gone as quickly as it came.

"Emily, wake up." A shove to the shoulder has me snapping my eyes open to only be met with a grinning Alex.

I groan, running my hands down my face to waken me up. "You're definitely not the first thing that I want to see when I wake up, especially with that grin of yours." I mutter.

Alex rolls his eyes and starts moving forward after taking the carry on bags from the above compartments.

I look around me for the small figure but I don't see him anymore. My eyes widen in panic and my heart beat increases. Shit. I jump up to look around me and around the plane, but I don't see him anywhere.

My feet move quickly towards Alex's retreating back. I shove him which makes him stumble a little. He looks back to glare at me after regaining his balance. I ignore it.

"Where's my son?" I frantically ask.