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Chapter Fifty-six
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"There."
Emma sighs and snuggles against Emiliano's chest. "I don't ever want to take it off again." She rubs her hand up and down the arm that wrapped around her from behind, watching the ring that glimmered in the night as she did.
"I don't ever want you to," he whispers and kisses the top of her head, his one arm under her head as she nestled into it. "I love you, Emma," he cooed into her ear before kissing it.
"I love you, too."
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"You have to be fucking shitting me."
Emma rubbed a hand down her face once she eyes the positive pregnancy test in her hand.
"Nope." She threw it into the trash and pulled out another one from the bag that cost only a few pennies at the pharmacy store. "This is why I bought five." She smiled down at the sealed boxes. "Don't you dare. You hear me?"
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"What was I thinking!?" Emma slowly closes the treehouse door behind her and huddles up in an empty corner. "What was I fucking thinking."
She covers her face with her hands and rocks back and forth on the floor.
"I'm only nineteen. Nothing was supposed to happen." She sighs. "I'm engaged, what the fuck," she mumbled.
This was never supposed to happen, she thought. No, no, I can't think like that.
"I can't wuss out. I can't go back." She lifts herself off the floor and runs her hands through her hair. "I'm okay. I'm getting married!" She laughed happily but then frowned immediately. "I'm having a baby." She paces the floor.
"I'm going to have a baby and we haven't even talked about this." She plops down on a green beanbag. "What the fuck do I do now."
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"What the . . ." Emiliano felt the other side of the bed, only to panic when he found it to be empty and cold. "Emma." He frantically turned his head from the locked balcony doors to the wide-open bathroom door.
"Maldita sea." He threw the covers over his body, not caring when they fell to the other end of the bed.
In all his naked glory, he stood from the bed and rushed to his bedroom door, and opened it to look down both ways of the hallway.
"Shit." He rushed back inside and found his boxers to pull them over his legs.
He ran out of his room and down a flight of stairs. "Daniel!" He knocked on his door.
"What?" Daniel swung the door open. He rubbed a knuckle over an eye with the other one closed from sleep.
"Where's Emma?"
"What do you mean?"
Emiliano opened his mouth to explain but closed it back up again when caught a glimpse of the treehouse outside of Daniel's open window. There she was, pacing the floor as she talked to herself.
"Never mind."
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"Emma." Emiliano didn't mean to slam the door, but the way she reacted concerned him.
"I-" She laughed lightly and waved the sharp razor blade around as she leaned her back against a wall. "I taped it behind a bookshelf after I was allowed to leave the hospital that night." She slid down to the floor and ran the small item along her thighs and slightly normotrophic scars. "I almost died and yet, I kept this." She pressed the sharp side down on her skin, feeling it burn but not tear. "I don't remember why anymore."
"Give it." He made his way to her and extended his hand down for her to give up the blade. "Emma."
"I tried so hard." Her tears drowned her eyes. "I didn't mean to. I never did. But I couldn't run from myself." She throws it away from herself and watches it glide and come to a stop under the sofa. "I'm so fucking messed up." She trembled in her skin—the fear and longing feeling to run away from herself making it too hard for her to think of anything but self-loathe.
Emiliano crouched down in front of her and speaks, but he doesn't keep track of his words when he sees something on the shirt that she wore. It was maybe a smudge or a stain, but he couldn't believe it because he had worn that shirt the day before. The stains were red and they seemed to spread over the material.
It was blood, he confirmed it. She did it. She did it to herself again and again and he could see it through the slashes of blood that stained the button down.
"I'm sorry." She followed his gaze down to her abdomen. She sobs. "I-I tried b-but I'm scared." She lets go of his hands and turns away from him after covering her abdomen by bringing her knees to her chest. "I remember everything. I remember wanting to die and how good it felt when I was able to stop crying after I cut myself. The relief I got . . . I-I am so sorry."
He falls back on his bottom and stared down at her naked shins. "Wh-Why . . . ?"
"I'm not ready to change." She shakes her head rapidly. "All I wanted to do when I was sixteen, was to die. And when I was fifteen I still wanted to die . . . but less. And less when I was fourteen. And thirteen. And twelve. A-And eleven." She lifts her head from her knees. "It just got worse and worse. And for the first time, I felt . . . I felt like it wasn't growing. The hatred and the loathing. I was okay. My mom died and I was still okay but I was just . . . depressed. I can't handle change. I can't."
"Emma." He had his mouth open—speechless. He was confused but understood her too well. "Emma, no."
He pulled her to him, grabbed her by the legs, and pulled them away from her chest so he was able to lift the shirt and get a look at the cuts.
"Princesa." He shook his head, not wanting to believe, and closed his eyes, the tears he was holding in fell down the corner of his eyes. "Princesa," he called even more desperately like she was running away.
He hugged her to his naked chest, her open cuts pressing against his skin as his skin pressed against hers. He had blood on him now—crimson red, smearing itself on his deeply tanned skin.
He allowed her to loosely wrap her arms around his shoulders while he gripped her body with everything he got. It didn't matter if he left prints on her, because, unlike the ones she left, they would fade.
"I'm pregnant."
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The kisses, the whispers of his icy hands on her skin, and the soft burn that rushed through her when two large bandages were used to cover her open cuts. Everything seemed interesting. Everything mixed and both she and her fiancé seemed to be thinking about everything. Every little action seemed to be narrated.
To others, they looked mad, almost tired of one another. They didn't speak, they didn't try. They were quiet and a simple sigh was able to shatter the silence and glass would break.
In reality, Emiliano's eyebrows frowned while he rubbed small circles on Emma's hip bones that looked to be much more out than before—worrying about his already messy state.
Emma asked herself what he was thinking. If she could invade his privacy and listen in on his thoughts, she would. She would most definitely choose to do that and then think about what to say next rather than making this a guessing game to what will or may not infuriate him. This was never what she wanted. He looked mad, but she wanted to think he wasn't. But she also believed it would only take a second for her to cause him to yell or make her cry with words that he would never in a million years mean.
He hadn't spoken a word the second he took her back into the mansion and his room to clean up her cuts. He didn't even look her in the eye and only kissed and cooed over and around the bandages on her abdomen. He was being so loving and caring, but she wasn't so sure anymore.
She didn't want to think like this. She trusted him with every ounce of blood in her body and every thought that ran past her mind had him in it. Suddenly, she felt guilty for thinking this way. He wouldn't be mad, she thought, he would be sorry—thinking he went too fast for proposing when she had just turned nineteen. And for getting her pregnant.
Was it time to speak? Was it time to tell him that everything was okay even when she was the one that had inflicted pain upon herself? Would everything be okay or would he leave her for someone much less of a hassle to take care of with all the love he was willed to give?
"I-"
"I-"
They both went to speak. Emma kept her eyes trained on the dark strands of hair that fell over his forehead while he kept looking down at her belly button.
"I love you." He kissed a hip bone.
She was surprised. Not that he still loved her, partly, but that he wasn't too mad to say it. If she were him, she'd be furious and disgusted. His child was growing inside of her, he filled her with his seed numerous times for over a year, and this is what happens. She felt, at that moment, she felt monstrous. She didn't feel human after it almost looked like she was trying to dig her baby out of her womb. As small as it still was.
"I'm so sorry."
She starts sobbing uncontrollably. His hands move up with the contractions of her abdomen as she tried to sit up while the button-down shirt was still open, her chest bare and nether lips only covered with the thin material of her black panties.
"No. Stay." He pushed her back down with both of his hands holding on tightly to her shoulders. "It's okay." He smiled at her. It didn't reach his eyes so her mind raised with questions.
He's mad? He's not happy. I fucked up.
"Emma, I love you." He switched with her and now she was straddling him while he held tightly onto her hips. "I know. I know it all still haunts you and, princesa, we just have to get you through this—together." He nods at her, causing her to mimic him. "We're having a baby. We're getting married."
He brings his hands up behind her head and tangles his fingers with her hair, pulling her forehead towards his.
"I promise you, everything will be okay. You can do this—I'll always be here."
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