~Emmalyn~
Two days later they let me go home.
My mother didn’t speak at all during the car ride, leaving me with my thoughts, which was never a good thing. When we arrived home there was another car in the drive but I didn’t question it. I didn’t think to. But when I opened the door I was met with a surprise.
“Emma,” my father spoke out in relief. He was dressed casually, in jeans and a polo shirt. He swept me up in his arms. I hugged him back, but I felt troubled. Empty still, and I didn’t want him to see that. “How are you, sweetie?”
“Fine,” I mumbled. “A little tired. I think I’m going to go take a nap.”
He released me, plopping a kiss on my cheek. “Okay.”
“What are you doing home?”
He pursed his lips. “They gave me familial leave. I wasn’t just going to not come home, Emma. You’re my baby.”
I smiled bittersweetly. Sometimes I felt I didn’t deserve my amazing parents. “Thanks, Dad.”
“Of course.” He patted my back. “Now get upstairs if you’re ready. I’ll order out.”
I nodded, avoiding my mother’s gaze entirely as I loped up the stairs. The tears were burning at my eyes and leaking out before I could stop them. I entered my room, so consumed in my head and my own thoughts that I hadn’t known I was being followed.
“Emma.”
“Go away, Mom,” I blubbered, dragging my wrists furiously across my eyes. “I want to be alone.”
“I know.” My door clicked shut. “But you’re not.”
“Why?”
She stepped forward. “We’re going to talk.”
Last time she said that she had sent me to another therapist. “I don’t want to go back to Dr. Simmons. Or any other whacko. I’m fine.”
She shook her head. “I’m not taking you to see a therapist.”
I frowned. “Then why are you here?”
“I want to talk about you.”
“There’s nothing to talk about,” I snapped, harsher than intended. “I’m just a troubled freak who can’t get out of the past and has problems funneling her emotions in non-scarring ways.”
“Emma . . .”
“So I don’t see what there is to talk about.”
“I want to help you.”
“Help me?” I barked out dry laughter. “You can’t help me. You have no idea what I’m going through. I don’t feel like myself. I don’t even feel human half the time. It’s like there’s some other satanical demon inside of me controlling my every move. I don’t see how you can help me.”
She was oddly calm as she sat down beside me on my bed, smoothing out her jeans. “I think it’s time I told you the truth, Emma.”
My eyebrows dipped. “What are you talking about?”
“My past.” She knotted her fingers together. “You don’t know the whole story.”
“Yes I do. My grand-parents were cold-hearted pricks who put you through serious depression.”
She shook her head. “That’s not even half the truth.”
I folded my legs beneath me, listening.
“My mother—you’re grandmother—committed suicide, that much is true,” she started, staring hard at her hands. “And I did become severely depressed. I harmed myself, Emma. An unbelievable amount. And I’ll always have the scars as reminders of the monster I let take over me.”
“Mom . . .”
She held up a hand. “Let me finish.” She sucked in a deep, shuddering breath. “You and I have more in common than you know, honey. Granted, most of it is things I never wanted to happen to you, but we do share them all the same. I don’t know how to make this easier to say, but I’ve realized sugar-coating the truth never solves anything.” She locked gazes with me. “I tried to kill myself Emma.”
My eyes widened as my mouth fell open. “Overdose?”
She shook her head, laughing quietly to herself. “I jumped off a bridge.”
“No way,” I breathed, unable to believe this was my mother telling me all of this. “What happened?”
Tears glossed her eyes. “I would have died,” she murmured. “But your father . . . He saved me.”
“Dad?”
She nodded, a smile tweaking her lips. “Jumped right in after me and dragged me out.”
I always knew their story was romance book material. “How come you never told me?”
She shrugged limply. “It was never a good time.”
“He must have really loved you,” I marveled, trying to envision my parents my age, what they went through.
“He did,” she murmured. “And it took me a long time to realize that.” She picked at the sleeve of her sweater. “Do you by any chance get what I’m trying to tell you?”
I nearly groaned. Of course there was a hidden lesson in it somewhere. This was my mother, after all. “No, sorry, I must have missed it.”
She brushed hair away from my face. “Mr. Matthews put Jacob and me together on an English project, just like yours, years and years ago. I didn’t know how he knew, and I still don’t, but I’ve thanked him so many times for it. He’s like an angel, Emma, sent here to save people like us.”
“So?”
She grabbed my hand and gave it a squeeze. “So people like us need somebody else. Somebody to remind us that we’re not alone, that we’re better than the darkness in our soul.”
“But I don’t have—”
“Don’t you dare finish that sentence,” she reprimanded, cutting me off. “You always have your father and me. But sometimes that just isn’t enough. All I had was Clara. And then Jacob turned out to be my rock.”
I flopped back on the bed, staring at the ceiling. “What are you saying, Mom?”
“I’m saying you need a friend. Someone who understands.”
“Right. Let me just look through my book of BFF’s and choose one.”
“Emma,” she scolded warningly.
“I’m serious, Mom. Yeah, I like Rose well enough, but she wouldn’t understand. She would probably freak out.”
“Maybe you’re not giving her enough credit.”
“Maybe it’s the truth.”
“So maybe she’s not the person you should be focusing on.”
I closed my eyes. “If you say Rhys I’m going to throw you out.”
She huffed. “Why? He seems nice enough.”
“Yeah, key word being ‘seems’.”
“You’re being judgmental.”
“I’m being realistic.”
“Emma,” she sighed, holding her head in her hands. “I love and hate that you’re so much like me. I know you’re scared to—”
“Am not,” I interjected quickly. She sent me a droll look.
“Yes you are, don’t lie. I know that you’re scared of letting people in. I was, too, and we can’t do anything about that. Our pasts won’t let us. We have to let us.”
I said nothing.
She stood, patting my arm. “Food for thought,” she murmured.
“Wait,” I blurted out. She paused with her hand on the door, half-way out of it.
“Yes?”
“How did—how did you make yourself able to let—to let them in?”
She smiled softly. “It’s a slow process,” she murmured. “And it all begins with trusting yourself first.”
~*~
My mother’s words still echoing through my head moved me to do what I did after dinner that evening. My father had ordered pizza and it was all bacon and sausage, my favorite. I chalked it up to my improved mood that I took the car out at ten-forty-five with such a heinous destination in mind.
Maybe my mom was right—no, scratch that. Of course she was right. When wasn’t she?
“You can do this,” I murmured to myself, a weak pep talk. It was pretty trivial and stupid compared to anything else I had done. “You just have to go right up there and do it.”
Right. Easier said than done.
I unbuckled my seatbelt and sidled up to the front door, hands shoved in my jacket pockets. I hated winter. It was always so cold and frigid and worsened my mood tenfold.
I stood on his doorstep, contemplating if I was doing the right thing.
Fuck it, I thought, and rang his doorbell. My life was about mistakes, screwing up, and being screwed with, and that wasn’t going to change. Might as well just go with it.
The door opened several moments later and Rhys answered it, looking shocked to see me. My words died on my tongue and my throat dried up as I looked at him.
Damn, I though, eyes grazing over his bare torso appreciatively.
“Emma?” he questioned, leaning against the door frame. “What are you doing here? Is everything okay?”
I nodded, clearing my throat. “Yeah, everything’s good, um . . . I just . . . You’re not wearing a shirt,” I finished inelegantly, fumbling over my words. He smirked.
“No, I just took a shower,” he answered simply. “Are you lost?”
I frowned. “No.”
“In some kind of trouble?”
My eyebrows drew in. “No.”
“Then why are you on my doorstep?”
He sure made these kinds of heart-to-heart things hard to do. “I needed to talk to you.”
One eyebrow crooked up. “Well, here I am.”
“Right.” I shifted from foot-to-foot awkwardly. “Can I ask a question?”
"I guess."
“Why do you hate me so much?”
He froze, face pinched in bewilderment. “Pardon?”
“You heard me,” I continued, curling my fingers into my palms. “If you have some sort of problem with me I’m sorry. I just want to know what it is.”
“Emma, I don’t have a problem with you.”
“That’s bullshit and you know it.”
He threw his hands up in the air, joining me on the step. “Did you come here looking to pick a fight? Because if you did please just go home; I’m not in the mood.”
“No, Rhys,” I insisted, eyes burning. Damn tear ducts. Why couldn’t they function right, lately?
“Jesus Christ, Emma, don’t cry,” he practically pleaded, rubbing the back of his neck.
“I’m not crying, dammit,” I blubbered pathetically. “And I didn’t come here to fight with you. I’m sorry you and I don’t get along, I really am. God knows I’ve tried but I guess some things just aren’t supposed to work.”
“Emma—”
“Why, I don’t know. But I’ve come to a realization on something and I want to tell you but I know you’ll laugh at me. I don’t want you to laugh at me.”
His face softened, the hard, defensive edges falling the slightest bit. “You haven’t even told me anything yet.”
“I thought they were my friends,” I burst out. “I thought they had my back, through anything. I thought we were close. But I was wrong. So horribly, freaking wrong.”
“What are you going on about?”
“Mike!” I exclaimed, seeing him visibly stiffen. “And everybody else there that night. I thought they were . . . Oh, God.” My voice broke off and a hic-upping sob took its place. Before I knew what I was doing I was throwing my arms around his neck, hugging him tight as I pressed my tear-soaked face into his bare neck. He was rigid and probably repulsed against my closeness, but I didn’t care.
I didn’t care at all.
“I need you, Rhys,” I whispered brokenly. “I know it sounds stupid and weak but I do. I don’t trust easy and I know you don’t like me very much but I need a friend. I need somebody.”
It was agonizingly slow but eventually his arms did wrap all the way around me, holding me tight against him. I felt incredibly small enveloped in his arms, impervious to the cold ensnared in his warmth.
I pushed away from him, realizing how pathetic I looked. “I’m sorry,” I blubbered, fervently wiping at my face.
“Emma . . .”
“I’ll just go. I’ve probably caused you enough heart burn,” I muttered, a dead shot at humor. I didn’t want to give him a chance to respond, not that he was fighting too hard for one. I left him on his porch and more or less ran back to my car, feeling a hundred kinds of a fool as I drove away.