Borderlines

Chapter 3

Scared.

That was all Emma felt. Scared for herself and for those around her, especially for her nephews of they ever came to visit. The story goes that whoever lives in the apartment she does now can be expected to hear those random clicks and see the flash of bright light, only Emma didn't know about this when she moved in. It wasn't until a few months later that she received an anonymous letter from the previous owner who told her this had been happening for years. She thought it was over with when she didn't hear the click and see the flash for nearly two years, so hearing it and seeing it out of nowhere was just completely paralyzingly. Slowly, Emma unlocked her door and made her way inside her apartment. In her right hand she held her house key incase she needed to protect herself, (by jabbing someone's eye out) and with her left hand she slowly shut and locked the door.

Sleep didn't come at all that night. She was too afraid to even change out of her clothes or even sleep. It was like this paralyzingly mental fear that as son as she stood up, a million camera clicks and flashes would go off, and then somehow those pictures would be turned into bad things and she wouldn't have the courage to go anywhere or do anything.

The first thing she did when she awoke was close all the blinds, and then quietly she tip toed around to make sure she was the only one in her apartment. Her bedroom was still clear and all the windows were shut and locked, so Emma decided to do something not worth taking pictures over: clean. Not because she actually wanted to, but because she knew that if she cleaned, whoever this picture-taker-stalker person is, they wouldn't have any good photos to do anything with.

She stopped cleaning whatever she was busy with if she heard any unfamiliar sounds, but in this case all she heard was a loud, angry knock on her door. Timidly, she walked to the door and slowly opened it.

He sister Stephanie was standing on the other side holding a laptop in her arms. She was alone so she was able to barge right passed Emma into her apartment.

"Have you seen this?" Stephanie asked, opening the laptop. They moved over to her couch that Emma had just cleaned chocolate brownie smudges off of.

"Seen what?" But she didn't really need a further explanation. On the screen showed a picture of her and Ryan below the headline,"Well, well, well," followed by a degrading article about why Ryan would go out with her. She quickly skimmed over the article. Words about her body, her clothes, her "homeless appearance", and other things were written across the screen, waiting for others to read them.

"Who wrote it?" She asked, and Steph scrolled back up to see that it was written by a person named Andrea Flabbergast. "Well, it's fake. No one has the last name Flabbergast, and even if they do, it's too much of an ironic last name for something like that. I wanna bash her face in. Like, smear her face in bird poop. Or make up a rumor about her. I mean, obviously she's too scared to come forward with who she is because she has to use a last name, like really? You're going to make someone feel bad and hide behind a fake name? Wow." Emma took a deep breathe, leaned forward, and rested her chin in her palms.

"We can do something about this. We could ask  Ryan about it. See if he knows anything." But Emma knew Stephanie would say that. Stephanie is the reassuring one out of the two sisters. She always knows exactly how to make people feel better, unlike Emma.

"Who cares about Ryan. Not me." You did last night, stupid.

"You're only saying that cause you think he might have something to do with this."

"Who cares, I'm moving anyway. I'm thinking California or Washington, maybe even New York. Those are general places that I travel to a lot for weddings and a clean fresh start, away from all of this would be nice. Why wear old clothes when you can afford new ones?" It wasn't really a question; more of a metaphor, but Stephanie answered anyway.

"Um, to save money. Which you're all about. Are you serious about this? You can't be serious. You're not really moving, are you? You've been fine here this whole time traveling to places for weddings." Stephanie was standing up now and looking down at Emma like she was a child in trouble for cutting her bangs, which actually used to happen quite often.

She shrugged her shoulders in response.

"Emma, I need you to be serious about this. Are you moving? Yes or no?" And it was one of those times for Emma that she realized how little freedom she had here, which is why she wanted to move even more. Here, she was stuck being like this glue that held her sister's life together. If she moved, she would be able to live her life on her own terms and not have to be someone her sister depended on.

"Maybe, probably. I don't know yet." She didn't make eye contact with her sister or even look up at her. Instead, she looked across the room at the kid movies resting on her tv stand. She knew she'd be sad to not see them everyday like she usually does, but that will make the visits more special, right? She'll probably pack them up just incase Steph and her family do come to visit.

"Emma, why would you do that to me?" And Emma swore Stephanie was about to cry as she barged out of her apartment the same way she barged in. The next thing Emma heard was the door being slammed shut, and she hurriedly went to lock it. She sat back down on the couch and began looking up homes in California, New York, and Washington. Everywhere seemed too expensive  so she turned her phone off and decided watch tv.

However, watching tv on her day off was a little bit tricky for Emma because her laptop was right by her feet and the article that Andrea Flabbergast had written was still stuck in her head. She just wanted to know why someone would write such rude things about someone, weather they hated her or not. How can someone so easily hate other people? It was something Emma never understood. Against what she knew she should be doing, Emma opened her laptop. She was greeted with a black screen and reminded herself once more that she shouldn't be doing this. She shouldn't be reading mean things about herself because she knew it would only make her feel bad, but against her better judgement, she logged into her laptop, looked up Andrea Flabbergast on Google, and read the article.

It consisted of things that made it so that Emma never wanted to talk to Ryan again because she thought that he too would agree with what was said in the article. Demeaning things like,"And her social skills need some work. The conversation died about half way through. I'm surprised she didn't start talking about the grass they were sitting on," and more things like,"Emma, honey, you're going on a date. You're not camping in the woods for three weeks. Dress a little classier next time."

It made her mad. She didn't know what to do or how to react. To her, the date went really well and she had a nice time. She hoped to see Ryan around more and possibly go out on more dates and get to know him. But she couldn't do that anymore, and she had trouble with it. She wanted to talk to him and learn about his hobbies and favorite bands, but that was difficult to do when she was planning on moving. Instead of thinking about what could've been, she thought about what could be. So instead of thinking about what his favorite bands were and what he did in his free time, she thought about what she didn't like. She didn't like how he seemed so rushed all the time to leave or change the subject; it's like he was always uncomfortable about everything. She focused on that as she began looking for studio apartments in New York City. Not because a lot of clients were there, but because she is being selfish. She shouldn't just leave her sister here alone with her two children that she made herself. It's not like Stephanie has a husband or anything.

She tried to brush away the article and the conversation with Stephanie by telling herself that she wasn't the words someone else wrote. What one person thinks doesn't define what a million people would think of me. Because if there's one thing that Emma was good at it was trying to be positive, even if she's really bad at it.

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The air in her room was cold the next morning, and Emma wanted nothing more than to wrap herself up in a warm blanket but she gave hers to Mag last night. Mag was the older homeless lady who lived a few blocks away from Emma and Emma always made sure to visit her about twice a week. She goes over to brush out her hair, give her a few blankets to keep her warm while she washed the other blankets and things to keep her warm. Mag is like a mom to Emma, or a grandma, either one, but despite Emma's best efforts, convincing her to go to a homeless shelter is something Mag doesn't want to do. "Here's the deal, if you die before me I'll go."  Mag always says, but the thing about her is that she was just a wanderer. She's never stayed in one place too long.