Before It Ends • Hessa • Emery Scott

𝔽𝕠𝕣𝕥𝕪 𝔼𝕚𝕘𝕙𝕥

I stare at him for a couple minutes, slowly shutting my eyes and focusing on drifting off til morning. I'll see him in the morning. Maybe he'll bring Auden and Emery tomorrow too. Excitement fills my chest and I smile, finally drifting off into slumber.

◉‿◉

Present

EMERY.

Cole and I lay in the hotel bed. Both of us staring at the ceiling with our arms out of the blankets. Thoughts are filling the room, all different kinds of them. I don't know what he's thinking about, but I'm thinking about my mom.

How could I have let this happen? Especially to her, the person who deserved it the least. Almost losing her has opened my eyes to a lot of things... well, opened my eyes sounds like I didn't see them right fucking in front of me.

I did see them, I just didn't want to. I didn't want to let go of it that easily. 'It' being, calling the cops on Robby. It was my little fucked up way of proving to everyone— mostly myself— that I did, in fact, love Robby so much. It was my way of burying down the relief I felt when hearing he was gone and it was over. I also buried down a lot of guilt that I carried.

"please, I need you, Em. Don't leave me. I can't live without you."

"I'll kill myself, baby. Please."

It's funny how much words can change a person. Words alone can morph someone into a totally different person. Those words alone are what drove my decisions when it came to Robby.

I know what you're thinking, who the fuck cares what he says? He's all talk.

No. He had tried killing himself multiple times before we met, once while I was getting to know him. He wasn't joking. And he had made it very clear that his own life was on my shoulders.

How could you leave someone like that? You probably think it's totally out of my character to care about someone so tremendously like I did Robby, putting him before me. Well, he's the reason I fuck over every other relationship I have. He's the reason I build a tall, thick, and dangerous brick wall around myself. He's the one that made me petrified of any types of relationships, mostly dating.

I can't give anyone any more of my time and love. I had given it all to Robby and it still wasn't enough. I just wasn't enough. Then again, he wasn't either.

There were times he would be perfect. He'd be smiling as we sat in the car, my bare feet propped onto the dashboard with frozen yogurt cups and plastic spoons in our hands.

He'd tell the most stupidest dad jokes he had learned from his uncle, the uncle he had lived with for a couple years until he passed, leaving him to move back in with his mother who reluctantly agreed to take him back under her arm.

His mother and father separated when he was very little. His mother turned to drinking and drugs which got her in an accident. They sent Robby to his uncle's who was a doctor. He was never home.

His uncle died from a heart attack and child services sent him back to his mother at the age of fifteen. She had been clean for ten years. I guess that's enough to send a child back to her home.

Sadly, her new husband wasn't as nice as he seemed in public. At night his mother and her husband would either fight or fuck, not caring a flying fuck about Robby. It was so fucking insane. I was so innocent back then and I couldn't even fathom my parents doing such a thing.