A Pirated Relief

That night with Zoe and Kira... (Chapter 16)

*WARNING SOME THINGS IN THIS CHAPTER MAY TRIGGER AND CAUSE TRAUMA*

"She can't stay in that room forever." Kira muttered to Zoe in a side conversation at the dinner table. It was very quiet. The 2 empty chairs were haunting the room even though one of the occupants is right upstairs.

"Then you don't know nearly how much she cared about him. Besides, I've been making her food on the side so she doesn't starve." Zoe replied in the same hushed manner. 

"But didn't she break up with him? Why would she do that if she loved him like that?" Kira asked Zoe. Zoe knew Emily the best but did not know how to explain her complexity to the girl in love at her side.

"She said it was because she wasn't good at relationships and he deserved better but that's not the case. I did some research" Zoe said to Kira who was wearing a tiara that Peter had bought her. A look of confusion crossed her face. Zoe spends a lot of time researching because that's a weird thing she enjoys doing. Being Oar's Rest's salutatorian made a lot of sense to anyone who's ever met her.

"Emily and Ben were close." She started off saying something that everyone knew. Those two spent a lot of time doing things labeled "Mara things" (labeled by Zoe about people she used to know in high school). "She is NO virgin. But again common knowledge." Back at the old base Emily would bring people home for a night at a time. Kira just nodded at this information.

"They had gotten pregnant on the down low. They didn't want anyone knowing. Emily was afraid it would happen again." Shock could be seen in Kira's eyes. But before she could ask any questions about what "it" was; Zoe continued.

"She never wanted to talk about what would happen when she got pregnant." Zoe felt bad spilling her best friend's secrets but felt it necessary to provide some closure to Emily's reaction to his death.

"She had a miscarriage again. It had happened 3 or 4 times before; but none of them in relationships. When it happened again, she was crushed. She shut everyone out. Blamed pms, but I knew what was up. She broke up with Ben since she couldn't look at him without being reminded of what had happened." Kira looked back on those events and everything clicked. Everything from those 2 weeks fell together over her. Zoe wanted to go upstairs and just hug Emily again in their dark, shared room.

Instead of Zoe going up to visit Emily who hadn't left her room in days, Emily came down into the dining room. Grace dropped the plate she was holding to put her hands on her face in shock of the sight. Freyja cursed since the plate shattered on the marble floor.

Emily had the blanket wrapped around herself and her eyes were red. From what everyone else could tell, she was wearing one of Ben's t-shirts and fuzzy pink pajama pants. She overall just looked awful.

Emily saw everyone staring at her and just sat down in Ben's seat, away from Kira. She grabbed some food onto the empty place setting and gave Kira a constant dirty look and shoveled the food into her mouth.

"Emily, are you okay?" Mikayla asked slowly. She cared about everyone's well being and was nearly driven insane with Zoe banning anyone, except herself, to going into their room. Emily whipped her head around to look the curly haired brunette in the eyes.

"No" that was the first thing anyone, except Zoe, had heard from her in a week. "And you want to know why?" Emily was laughing and stabbing her food as though she was losing her mind. Everyone was starting to get concerned.

"Em, calm down..." Peter began as Emily suddenly stood up and threw up her hands

"I will NOT CALM DOWN. It's HER fault he's dead. If SHE hadn't come he'd still be alive!" Emily angrily pointed at Kira who stood up just as quickly to defend herself.

"I came to protect Peter---"

"Which he told you NOT to do" Emily interrupted; this started a shouting match between the two girls.

"I'm sorry he got killed--" 

"HE DIED BECAUSE YOU GOT INVOLVED!!" 

"Both of you calm down! You're acting like children! You're 19 and 20! Grown ass adults! So start acting like it!" Zoe mediated the situation. Silence ensued. Kira turned to Zoe. 

"Zoe you know it wasn't my fault..." Then Emily barged into their conversation off to the side in the silence uninvited.

"And you also know that if she wasn't there we could have saved Kevin without difficulty." Kevin sat up in his chair when he heard his name. He was healing well. The cuts had closed up and the bruises had turned a gross yellow color. He overall looked better, his face was still drooping, but not nearly as badly as it was a week ago.

"Kira you DID sabotage a mission that would have gone uninterrupted and have been successful" Zoe said, looking at her boyfriend. Her stomach was looking really large today at almost 7 months in her pregnancy. 

"I can't believe you're siding with her! What are you going to do? Banish me?" Kira was pissed that Zoe, her best friend, was against her.

"No one is being banished. Maybe slightly isolated until this all blows over." Zoe explained to the girl whose tiara had tilted over from her sudden upright movement before.

"Isolated? Isolated where?" Peter finally stepped up and backed up his girlfriend, putting his arm around her protectively.

"Your room I guess. I don't know." Zoe answered honestly. She didn't want to lie to Kira after Emily argued with her.

"With Peter with me, I can do anything." Kira said, mushy eyes directed at her boyfriend whom was giving her the same eyes back.

"Ewwie" Patrick gets up to leave the room.

"Well this has been an interesting dinner. " Mikayla shared with the rest of the table whom had no words.