Guilt

Chapter 2

"Thank you, and have a lovely day." Emma watched as the woman walked away with her painting. She leaned against the counter and looked around.

She owned her own gallery. Most of the art hanging on the walls was hers, but she did have some other artworks hanging on the wall. Though, frankly, people preferred her work.

Emma was often surprised to see how many people actually bought her art and sometimes she figured everyone only purchased her paintings out of pity, because she really felt like she wasn't that talented.

She loved painting. She'd loved it ever since she was a little child and working in the gallery, being able to paint whenever she wanted, was her absolute dream.

There was no one present in the room anymore. It was a Tuesday afternoon and every customer had left, so she returned to the small room in the back of the gallery.

She put on an apron and looked at her most recent painting, that wasn't finished just yet. It was a sea, an endless sea, that met with a grey sky, but you couldn't really tell when the sky started and when the sea ended.

Emma had tried her best to capture the waves just perfectly and she actually felt like she'd managed to make it realistic.

She variated a lot with different styles. Sometimes she painted realistically, sometimes she let the buyer or customer interpret it the way they wanted to. She even painted abstract art from time to time, but she didn't enjoy that as much.

The door to the gallery jingled and before Emma could've prepared herself fully to start painting, she recognized her daughter's footsteps.

Hope was on her way to her small painting room and the blonde girl looked rather unsettled.

"What are you doing here?" Hope asked and furrowed her eyebrows as her mother smiled at her.

"Well, I work here," Emma said. She was somewhat confused by Hope's hurried entrance and the expression on Hope's face didn't calm her at all.

"You were supposed to be at my school twenty minutes ago, remember? Mrs. Mills requested a talk with you," Hope said and Emma's eyes widened for a moment.

She quickly took off her apron and nodded. "Crap.. sorry, I'm going, now." Hope groaned softly in disapproval and sighed. "Bye, honey. I'll make sure I'm on time for dinner."

"Well, you're never on time, so I'm not counting on it."

Emma ignored her daughter's remark. This was the fourth time in a couple of months that one of the teachers at Hope's school wanted to talk to her about Hope, and it was the third time she'd completely forgotten about it.

It wasn't like she didn't care. She understood the teachers' concern, but with all the things on her mind, she forgot the simple appointments.

She just hoped these conversations would be over soon, because it never had been fun. People kept asking about their family situation and Emma swore that if she heard that word one more time, she'd lose it.

Emma got in her car and speeded to Storybrooke High School. Last period had just ended apparently, because many people were leaving the school, yet when Emma got inside it was almost completely empty, apart from some janitors.

She was glad she still remembered the classroom Mrs. Mills had asked her to meet her. She didn't know any of Hope's teachers apart from the ones she'd had a conversation with, but she'd heard her daughter complain a lot about Mrs. Mills and the amount of homework she received from the woman.

It was probably an angry, old teacher that hated everything that didn't go according plan and stuck to her one hundred year old method of teaching, Emma figured.