No Escape

Love Me or Leave Me

Emily was quiet at the revelation, and she wasn't exactly sure how to react. On the one hand, it was too big a secret for Alison to have kept from her. On the other, instead of feeling angry or hurt, she felt the all too familiar feeling of worrying about Alison start to spread through her. She tried to pull back from Alison, but the blonde held firm, not wanting to let go just, yet. But Emily knew that they needed to talk about this, so she pushed against Alison again. Alison gave the second time, and she looked resigned at the fact that she had to talk about what had been happening with her for the past few months without Emily knowing about it. She had taken advantage of Emily's distraction.

They were quiet as Emily tried to figure out how to approach the situation now that she knew why Alison sometimes wasn't home when she returned from her therapist. She wondered how she could have missed the fact that Alison would need a psychiatrist in the first place. But then the past few months, Alison had only been paying attention to her and doing everything that she could so Emily would be well. Alison had even taken to exchanging cooking duties with Pam so she'd be able to cook for Emily, too. Alison had only been directing all her energy into taking care of Emily. Emily doubted Alison even wanted to go to a shrink.

"It was the alternative," Alison began, uncomfortable with the silence. She had been keeping her sessions to herself partly because admitting to them would make them feel more real. But what she had been telling herself was to protect Emily from the mess that she was. The longer they were together, the more Emily probably realized that she wasn't just an ordinary girl who had an ex-boyfriend who still stalked her as baggage. Alison was a lot more complicated than that. She was a lot more difficult to accept, infinitely more difficult to understand.

"The reason why they're not sending you to juvie for Jenna," Emily said, her voice low. It was a question, but things were finally falling into place for Emily, too. She had been trying to figure out how much it was that Alison revealed to the police. Emily had assumed she only revealed those that would get the police to work with them. Apparently, Alison told them so much more.

She watched now as Alison nodded jerkily, and knew that despite telling Emily about it now, Alison would have rather kept the information to herself. Emily had no qualms about Alison taking her time in revealing certain things about herself to Emily. She knew Alison was still trying to get used to sharing parts of her that she would rather conceal from the people around her. But having had kept this particular piece of infromation when Emily had told her everything about her fears about her shoulder not healing felt too much like a jab at how awry their relationship was.

"Too fucked up even for jail, yeah." Alison replied in a voice that could barely be heard, pulling farther away now, certain that Emily knowing would make the taller girl not want to be with her anymore. Alison knew Emily was patient with her, but Alison was just too much to handle for someone who was just turning eighteen. Alison sucked in a breath, and directed an apologetic look towards Emily, despair clearly evident in the way her shoulders were slumped and her hands hung limply on her lap. "It was selfish of me to keep being with you after I found out there's something wrong with me."

Emily felt an overwhelming urge to correct Alison. She wanted to reassure the blonde that there was nothing wrong with her, and that everything was just wrong around them. She wanted to speak up and atest to how much she was helping Emily heal and that someone who was selfish couldn't have possibly put Emily first in the months that Emily had needed Alison. Emily wanted to reach out towards Alison, hold her hands tightly and keep her from pulling farther away from her physically and emotionally.

But for some reason she didn't.

Emily simply sat there, staring at Alison, wondering why she wasn't doing any of the things she felt she needed to do. She sat with her good hand lax on her lap, and her eyes unfocused, even as her body oriented itself towards Alison.