AN: This chapter talks about not eating, not sleeping, and alludes at a history of child abuse. Also this is a rollercoaster so I'm just going to apologize in advance.
January 8, 2016
Sixteen - Emma
Emma was laying in a hammock outside her mothers house, trying to let the cold wind run through her brain and make all her thoughts stop. The hammock was swinging back and forth. She laid there with her eyes closed and her head hanging off the side. The wind was making her ears go numb but she didn't bother to put on a hat or earmuffs.
"Emma, would you come back inside? It's cold, you're going to get yourself sick." Her mother was yelling at her from the back door but it sounded so fuzzy. Her favorite thing about the cold had always been its ability to muffle the noise that surrounded her. She wanted to scream. If she wasn't in a neighborhood she could have screamed, right then and there. She hadn't spoken in days. Not to her mother or father, not on the phone, not when she was alone in the comfort of the freezing temperatures.
She looked towards the back door to see if her mother was still there, but she wasn't. She had no doubt gone inside to give Emma some space. It wasn't real space, just an illusion of something she knew Emma wanted. Emma had gotten back to London a few days ago. She had listened to her mothers explanation and listened to all of the excuses for allowing her father back.
'Emma, he needs a surgery. Emma, he's just staying until he's recovered. Emma, all those decades of smoking did absolutely nothing to cause his lung cancer, you can't blame him for that.' But she could, and she did. Her personal favorite had to be 'Emma, we're all he has left.' Of course they were all he had left, the man had spent his entire life trying to make everyone around him miserable.
She didn't care about her fathers surgery or his health. She knew it sounded bad, but she honestly didn't. Her life would be no different if he lived or died. She wanted to go back to New York, to leave him here to be alone like he had done to her so many times, but she couldn't do that to her mother. She needed Emma more than he did.
The first night she came back she stayed in a hotel, not being able to deal with them for more than a few hours at a time. The second night her mother had begged her to come back and to give him a chance. She did, but she ended up sleeping on the roof opposed to inside where she could hear him talk and move. It was uncomfortable and cold, she didn't actually sleep, yet she refused to go back inside. Emma hadn't really slept much, or at all, since the first day of being back in London.
Today was the day Taylor was supposed to come to London but Emma didn't want to see her. She didn't want to do anything that would require her to move from the hammock. Taylor had texted her and asked how she was doing, but she didn't respond. Taylor had called twice but Emma let it go to voicemail.
Emma knew she should answer the phone, Taylor was probably worried, but she still couldn't bring herself to do it. She didn't know what to say that wouldn't make her sound like a complete dick. She had tried to type out a response many times but it always ended with her deleting the message and putting her phone back in her pocket.
There was someone walking through the thin layer of snow towards her. It obviously wasn't her father, he wasn't well enough to walk and didn't care enough about to do so even if he could. She still couldn't figure out why he wanted her here.
Someone threw a blanket over her. Her mother. She didn't have to open her eyes to know it was her mother.
"Your mom said you haven't been sleeping." It wasn't her mother, it was Taylor. Taylor's soft voice comforted her but she still refused to open her eyes.
"I'm sleeping right now." Her mouth was dry and the words felt foreign after days of saying nothing. Emma groaned and rolled the direction opposite of Taylor's voice, using the warm blanket to shield her face.
"No, you aren't. She said you haven't been eating either."
"I just ate breakfast a few minutes ago."
"I know you didn't. It's also five in the afternoon." Emma didn't say anything else. She just laid there, eyes closed under the warmth of the blanket. "You can't stay out here much longer, it's too cold."
That did elicit a response from Emma. "I'm not going inside with him in there."
"Then I'll go inside to get your stuff and you can come over and sleep."
"I don't want you to go in there with him either." Emma threw the blanket off her face to look Taylor in the eye.
"What do you want to do? You can't stay out here." Emma didn't answer. She was planning on staying exactly where she was. "Okay, fine. I'll have your mom help me get your stuff and you can come over to sleep and eat something."
"I'm fine where right here." This time it was Taylor who didn't answer. She turned around and started walking towards the back door to the house. Emma scrambled to get out of the frozen hammock and chased after her.
Inside was exactly how she had left it. Her father on the couch with the television remote and her mother tending to his every need. Emma rolled her eyes and tried to figure out what was on the television. It was probably a sports game but she couldn't tell. A commercial was playing with two sets of lungs in giant glass cages. The one on the left was perfectly healthy and the other showed lungs that had been damaged from smoking.
Emma couldn't help but laugh. Her dad was doing everything in his power to avoid looking at the television while the commercial was playing. She looked her father right in the eye and turned the tiny amount of Tennessee in her voice up ten notches. "Sweating like a whore in church, ain't ya daddy?" She repeated the same words he had told her countless times.
"Emma!" She wasn't sure if her mother had said her name out of anger or shock that she was speaking. "Don't talk to your father like that." Her mother yelled at her from the kitchen where she was organizing pills into a week-long organizer.
"No. You were the one who always said to treat people the way you want to be treated. I think he should've lived by that a long time ago."
Emma used to be scared of him. She was once a thirteen year old girl that was terrified to be near him, scared she was going to say or do the wrong thing. Now she was twenty three and stronger than him in more ways than one. He wasn't going to hurt her like this. He was gaunt and could barely move. He had no power over her, let alone the ability to physically hurt her.
"Emma, darling, you need to be nice. He is still your father." The fake smile on her mothers face was audible.
"No, mum. I don't know why you let him back in the house. I am a full grown adult, I will say and do as I want. Right now I want to leave. That's what I'm going to do." Emma turned to go up to her room and zip up her suitcase. She hadn't actually unpacked anything, there was no need when you slept on a hammock outside and hadn't changed in three days.
Taylor
Taylor was sitting in the back of a car with Emma. It was completely silent. No music was playing and no one was talking. Taylor didn't know what to say about what just happened. She wasn't entirely sure she understood what just happened. Emma never talked about her dad, she tried not to talk about her family at all, but Taylor never realized the relationship between her and her father was this bad. Taylor sat there until the silence started to consume her.
"Do you want to talk about it?"
Emma shook her head. "No. I want to sleep but I can't fall asleep."
"I'm sorry love. I don't know if it will help but I can hold you for a minute." Taylor hated seeing the people she loved going through things like this and not knowing how to help.
"Please do." Emma laid her head on Taylors shoulder and Taylor wrapped her arms around her. Taylor ran her fingers through Emma's short hair and started humming a melody she'd had stuck in her head recently. It didn't take long for Emma to fall asleep.
When they got to the house Emma didn't wake up. Taylor didn't want to wake her up so she tried to pick her up instead. It wasn't hard, Emma wasn't very tall and had started to look more like skin and bones over the days they had been apart. Emma didn't wake up when Taylor walked inside or when she laid her down on the bed. She put a blanket over Emma, not wanting to wake Emma by trying to put her under the actual comforter.
Even in her sleep it was so obvious that something was wrong. Emma was a shell of the person she was two weeks ago, just someone going through the motions of something they were being forced to relive. She had a frown on her face. Taylor had never seen her frown in New York.
Taylor moved Emma's hair out of her face before leaning down to kiss her forehead. It was hard to leave her alone but Taylor didn't want to risk waking her. She walked out of the room slowly, unsure if the floorboards made noise or not.
Emma didn't sleep for long, only four or five hours at the most.. Taylor was sitting in the makeshift music room playing some keys on the piano and mumbling to herself.
"That's pretty. Does it have a name?" Emma walked to sit down next to her on the piano bench.
It did have a name, but it wasn't really something she wanted to share with Emma at this exact moment. "I have a couple that I'm considering. Nothing final."
"Cool. That's cool." Emma fingered one of the keys on the piano.
"Do you play?"
"The extent of my piano knowledge is how to play hot cross buns." Taylor stood up and moved behind her so that she could move both of Emma's hands. She started playing the beginning chords to the song using Emma's fingers instead of her own. "That's gorgeous, baby. I hope you release that one."
There it was. The title of the song. But it wasn't the song that was gorgeous, it was Emma.
Emma stood up and grabbed Taylor's hand before she had a chance to realize what was happening. Emma dragged her back towards the bedroom and flung herself and Taylor onto the bed.
Emma landed laying on top of Taylor, looking down at her. "I don't think I tell you enough how gorgeous you are." Emma leaned down and kissed Taylor hard.
Taylor was taken aback for a minute, trying to figure out what exactly Emma was doing. Emma's hand made its way up her shirt and she gasped at the cold touch. "What are you doing Emma?" Emma didn't stop, she kept kissing her. "Emma, you aren't in the right place to do this."
That made Emma stop. She pulled her hand back and rolled off of Taylor. Taylor took a deep breath when Emma was off of her, wanting nothing more than for Emma to not have stopped there.
"I'm sorry. I don't know why I did that." Emma laid there and stared at the ceiling.
"It's okay. I don't want to do that when you're in a position where you aren't fully yourself. Any other time it would be okay." Taylor almost didn't say the last part. It wasn't because she didn't mean it, it was because she didn't want to suggest it to Emma like this.
"I don't really know why I did that if I'm being honest. I want to, trust me I do, I just don't know why I thought right then was a good time."
Taylor's heart skipped a beat. "Are you hungry? I can order a pizza." Emma shook her head but Taylor insisted anyway. "Do you want something on it or just cheese?"
"I'm not picky, I'll eat whatever you like."
Taylor scowled at her. "When was the last time you ate an actual meal?"
Emma shrugged. "Yesterday. I think." Taylor raised her eyebrows at Emma. "Okay fine. It was probably back in New York."
"Exactly. You need to eat something, I'm getting the kind you like." Emma mumbled the word cheese. "Cheese pizza it is."
Taylor didn't want to push her to talk but she also wanted to know what was happening. She looked at her for a minute and rubbed her shoulders before Emma started talking without having to be prompted.
"My dad has lung cancer. He needs a surgery that they only do in England and he doesn't have anyone else to stay with so he called my mum. I'm still not really sure why I'm here. They could have done this without me, he'd probably prefer it that way."
"I'm sure that's not true. He's your dad, he loves you."
Emma rolled her eyes. "No he doesn't. He loved me until I was nine and started having thoughts and opinions."
"Do you want to go back to New York? You don't have to stay here."
"That's all I want. I have to stay for my mum though. I can't leave her here to deal with him on her own." They were both still laying on the bed, staring at invisible things on the ceiling. "I don't know how to deal with being back here with him. I haven't talked to him or seen him since the day I turned eighteen and I'm just so fucking exhausted."
"I know. I wish I could make this all go away."
"I do too." Emma found Taylors hand and intertwined their fingers together. She turned her head to face Taylor and Taylor did the same. "Does this house have a pool?"
Taylor narrowed her eyes at her, unsure of where she was going with that. "Yes. Em, it's January."
"Inside or outside?"
"Outside. It's way too cold to swim." The look in her eyes told Taylor she was actually considering getting in the pool. Sure enough, Emma got out of the bed and started looking for a door outside. Emma was walking much faster than she normally did, Taylor was almost running to keep up.
Emma had found the pool by the time Taylor could catch up to her. She was sitting on an outside chair, taking off her socks and shirt. Taylor went to sit next to her while she started untying the drawstring of her sweatpants. "Are you coming in?"
"Emma, you can't get in there. I could draw you a bath with water that's warm." Taylor's eyes widened as Emma stood up and walked over to the edge of the pool. She held her arms out in a 't' shape and fell backwards into the water with a large splash. "Oh dear lord." Taylor started mumbling to herself when she ran over to the side of the pool. Emma had lost her mind.
"Are you coming in?" Emma asked again, smiling and holding out her hand to help Taylor in.
"Abso-fucking-lutely not. Emma it's like twenty degrees, you need to get out and go inside."
"No, I'm doing great right here." Emma dunked her head back under the water and started swimming around. For a minute her head didn't come back up. Taylor started to take off her socks and clothes like Emma had and stood on the edge. The wind whipping around her was cold enough, the water would add an unnecessary edge to it. She didn't care. She still couldn't see Emma so she plugged her nose and jumped in.
It was like trapping yourself inside an ice cube. It was so cold she thought she was going to turn blue. Emma popped up beside her, cold water dripping down her face. Her cheeks and ears were bright pink but she didn't seem to care. "We need to get out."
"What? No, you've just gotten in."
"There's a bathtub inside. Let's go get in that." Taylor was begging her at this point.
"Is it big enough to swim in?"
"No, but it's pretty big. Please come inside. I need to get out and I can't leave you out here."
"You can go inside, I'll be okay."
Taylor looked around for someone to help her. She was shaking. Emma was shaking but refused to get out. There was of course no one there besides Freddy, who was standing at the door mouthing 'what are you doing' at her.
She got out and walked over to him. It was worse when she got out of the water, every part of her was covered in goosebumps. "Will you watch her for a second? I'm going to call Amanda and see if she knows what to do."
Freddy nodded and walked out towards the pool. Taylor grabbed Emma's phone to call Amanda. She watched Emma try and coax Freddy into the pool while the phone was ringing, but fortunately he didn't. The phone barely rang twice before Amanda's voice came through the other side.
"Emma, what are you doing? I've been trying to get a hold of you. Why won't you answer your phone?"
"This is Taylor."
"Oh. Is everything okay? How's Emma?"
"She's currently having the time of her life swimming and refuses to get out of the pool."
"Oh, that's good. What were you calling for?" The concern dropped out of Amanda's voice instantly.
"It's an outside pool. It's twenty degrees outside."
"Yeah, that makes more sense. She goes a little bit crazy when things having to do with her father come up. Honestly, I don't think you will be able to talk her out of the pool." Taylor didn't know how that was supposed to help her. It had already become obvious that she wasn't going to be able to talk Emma out of the pool, that's why she called.
"What am I supposed to do?"
"I don't really know to be honest, we avoid the topic of her dad like the plague. Can you drag her out of the pool?"
"I can try, thanks." Taylor hung up and put the phone back down, trying to resist the urge to stick her fingers in her ears and la-la-la-la her way out of the situation. She jumped back in the pool and swam over to where Emma was now doing laps.
"Hey Tay! You came back." Emma swam over to her and wrapped her arms around her neck.
"I did. I think we should play a game."
"Oh fun. What's it called?"
Taylor didn't really have a game, she was just trying to get her attention. She said the first thing that came to mind. "It's called sloth. You can be the sloth and I can be the tree." She felt like she was trying to get a child to go to bed. Emma still had her arms wrapped around Taylor and Taylor was moving them slowly to be closer to the stairs. "You can stay like you are now, you just have to put your legs around me like a sloth."
"I've never heard of that game." Emma questioned it but didn't argue. She did as she was told. Taylor had set it up so that it was easy to get her out of the pool as soon as she had a good hold on her. Freddy put a beach towel around her shoulders and opened the door for them. Taylor didn't really know what to do with Emma now that they were inside. She was still shaking, they both were. "That was cheap Taylor."
"Do you want to get in the bath?" Taylor asked her, holding onto her for dear life.
"Yes, please." Emma nodded, her voice shaky.
Taylor sat her in the bathtub and turned on the warm water. She poured in some bubbles that were sitting by the sink and let the bubbles and water fill the tub. Taylor didn't bother to try and get the rest of Emma's clothes off before putting her in the bath. They were already soaked and it didn't really matter by this point.
"Can I get in with you?" Taylor asked her. The bathtub was big enough for both of them to fit comfortably. Emma nodded and Taylor slid in behind her so that Emma was sitting in between her legs and Emma's back was resting on her chest. "Will you please tell me what's going on?"
Emma sighed and leaned her head far enough back so that she could see Taylor. "No."
"Will you talk to someone about what's going on? I know of some good therapists that are around here."
Emma nodded. "I will. I need to."
"Okay good. That's good."