She fills out paperwork and sits in a waiting room that's painted too bright of colors and has florescent lights flickering. Her name is called and she follows a nice nurse, Leah, to a room where she asks basic questions.
There's a sharp knock on the door and in frightens Emma into sitting up straight. A kind looking woman comes in. She's young, early 30's and smiles at her. "Hi Emily, my name is Doctor Cleary." She holds her hand out for a shake. "I'm here to help you okay?" She says and takes a seat. Emma nods.
"Can you tell me what happened?" The doctor asks "With as much detail as you feel comfortable with." Emma doesn't know what to say. She just looks at the nurse sitting in front of her and shrugs. Leah scoots in a little closer and offers a small smile. "I want to help you, but I need you to tell me what happened."
She stays still, sitting on the table she feels like a frog in biology class. Like the jar of Lisa's guts. "I don't want to press charges," Emma says to her, speaking in a whisper.
"That's okay." She pats the girl's leg. "You don't have to, and you don't have to decide right now." Emma nods understanding but knowing she won't change her mind. "My concern, as your doctor, is to help you. What I'm asking you won't be shared unless you want it to."
"Okay."
"When did the assault take place?" Emma tells her the truth. "And where?" It's followed by a list of questions that she can't help but turn red when answering. Things that she didn't want to share with anyone. The questions continue to pour from the doctor's mouth. Emma slowly begins to tell the story in its entirety.
"It's not your fault. Hey, hey, look at me," Emma looks up. "It's not your fault. "
"I'm going to give you this paper skirt, okay?" The nurse hands it to here. "We're going to step out and let you change. When we come back we're going to do a physical examination." Emma shakes her head quickly. "Emily, it's important we make sure you're okay." She looks empathetically towards her. "We want to make sure you're not hurt."
....
Emma sits up on the table while the doctor finishes her notes. She swivels back to face her when she's done. "Emma, it took a lot of courage for you to come to us today. All of us are extremely proud of you, I want you to know that." She leaves the office with an antibiotic prescription, self-help pamphlets full of phone numbers to various suicide hotlines, one plan-b tablet, and a significantly lower amount in her bank account. Out of habit she had handed them her insurance card but has to grab it back quickly. Her mom couldn't find out where she went.
She goes to a pharmacy a town over. It's not like she's buying anything to hide, it's that she herself wants to hide. The wait isn't too long and she makes it home in enough time to slip in before her mom wakes up. She sits down on the couch and skips through the channels unable to find anything entertaining.
When Kay wakes up Emma resumes the 'stomach bug' charade she had begun that morning. Her mom puts an extra plate of dinner in the microwave for her in case she gets hungry later. She doesn't.
Instead, Emma finds herself pulling spare blankets and pillows from her closet. She unfolds and places them carefully on the floor, making something resembling a bed. She knows she can't remain in the living room for another night.
The next several days happen in a blur of eating an occasional granola bar or bowl of cereal, watching TV, and ignoring texts from Ally and Kim asking where she is. She hasn't slept for more than a few hours in a row. She likes to try and sleep in the day when her mom is home and be alone at night.
The days have blended together and Emma knows she has to go back to school. Stomach bugs don't last this long. It's gotten late and she still hasn't fallen asleep. She decides now might be a good time for her to break her own rule of not drinking from her mother's limited amount of liquor.
Kay rarely drank, it reminded her of Emma's father and her own father. The bottle of rum was strictly meant for occasional summer mojitos on the porch. With her work schedule that never really happened. Emma doesn't even know how old the rum is but she takes a couple of swigs from it, fills the missing gap up with water, and returns to her room. It doesn't work exactly like she'd like it to, but she fades in and out of conciseness enough to consider it a night of sleep.
Worst of all, she misses Roman the whole time.
Emma finally comes back to school on Wednesday. She's careful to sit as far away from her friends. She looked sick. Maybe not to other people, but the group of people Emma surrounded herself with could tell almost instantly. People take notice of her moving from her normal seat next to Roman to one as far away as physically possible.
At lunch she takes a seat with her tray in the hallway, hoping to not be bothered. On the other side of campus Peter, Roman, Shelley, and Letha sit at a table under the tree. "What's wrong with her?" Peter finally asks. "Do you know?" He looks at Roman who shakes his head.
"She's probably having a bad day." Letha offers.
"She hasn't been in school for like a week."
"Maybe she's been sick?" She asks.
"I think she's mad at me," Roman says and looks up from his lunch. "I think I upset her."
"Think?" Peter asks and Roman shrugs. "I'm gonna go talk to her."
Peter searches through the cafeteria looking for her. He checks with Emma's friends to see if she had been sitting there, but they say they haven't seen her. He spends almost half of the break wandering around the school until he finds her in a side hallway alone. "Hey!" He calls out and she looks up. "I've been looking for you everywhere."
"Hi." She offers him a half smile.
"What are you doing all alone? Everything okay?"
"I'm fine." She pushes her peas around.
"Come sit with us." He kneels down next to her.
"I'm fine." She makes eye contact. For the first time, Peter sees her up close, eyes set back and dark, lips red and chapped, and her typically normal skin is splotchy and dry on her cheeks "I'm fine." She repeats.
"We've got supernatural shenanigans," he tries to joke. "Tonights the night, gotta make plans and stuff."
"You guys go on ahead without me," she forces out a small smile.
"Em," He sighs, "You'd tell me if something was wrong, right?" She nods. Peter stands and pats the top of her head. He returns outside to the table of rejects which is now void of the Roman.
"What do you think's wrong?" Letha asks, taking a bite from her sandwich.
"No idea," Peter shrugs.
"Maybe her other friends know. She probably told them," she offers.
"No, if she didn't tell Roman she wouldn't have told anyone else," he takes a bite from his sandwich. "Where's the large child now."
"Chasing after some girl," Shelley types out.
"Should've known."
On Friday Emma pushes herself to be around Ally and Kim, wanting to save face. Attention is the last thing she wants right now and acting normal will help. Sitting in the hallway during lunch just seemed weird. Of course, her friends ask what's wrong but she just says family issues and they let it go.
She hears about what happened at the steel mill at lunch. Apparently, the twins are giggling and telling everyone about Roman's French porn joke and how he's 'such a bad boy.' She leaves the cafeteria quickly and wanders around the school until she sees him. He's sitting in the library, books piled high around him, working on what she assumes is a paper for English. "What happened?"
"Oh, now you want to be involved?" Peter doesn't look.
"I just wanted to make sure that you're okay," she means it. She doesn't want him pulled into Roman's dangerous and idiotic gimmicks. Peter didn't have a family name to get him out of jail or a mommy with endless supplies of money. She stands from the table when he doesn't answer. She knows when she's not wanted.
"I'm fine," he mumbles. "Had to walk home, but that's it."
"Well, I'm glad you're okay."
"Thanks."
Emma leaves. She glances back once at the door, but he's still not looking at her. It's fine, it's for the best, she tells herself and returns to her lunch table. The girls around her giggle and laugh so she follows their lead. Laughing when the laugh, gasping when they gasp.
She walks home from school that day. She's got a book bag filled with biology work today and an SAT prep guide. She has to get her score up if she wants to get in anywhere good. Emma's feeling okay, ready to go home and move forward. The school year will end and she'll go to college far away from here.
It doesn't work out that way. The moment she gets home she has to take a mental break from the day, then that break turns into a nap, then that nap turns into hours of reality television, then that fades into drinking more of her mom's rum. Emma doesn't have an older sibling, but thankfully she knows someone who does.
To Ally: Hey, can you hook a bitch up with some tequila.
Ally: You know it. Venmo me.
When she finally falls asleep she dreams of driving by strange figures that line the highway sporadically. The vulture's peck at the bloody remains. As her car drives past one she realizes that it's a white horse there, it's eyes long gone.