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Chapter Twenty
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Daniel nearly choked on his saliva. "Wh-What?" he stammered, barely holding on to reality.
Xavier nodded, a smile Daniel wanted to roll his eyes at appeared on his tantalizing lips.
"It was the first time I met you." He stepped forward again, the difference from last time is, Daniel stayed still.
Xavier planted his left hand on the side of Daniel's neck as he gently caresses it with his thumb.
"I didn't exactly know why I was drawn to you at that exact moment, but I know something happened."
Daniel gulped, stalling nothing but words.
"Hmm," was all he managed to do, indicating that he wasn't dead just yet.
"You were so lively." Xavier looked deep into his eyes, admiring the soft but dark irises. "You kept trying to feed the class pet eraser bits. I didn't look at you then because I thought that was cruel. But I noticed you when the teacher started dragging you out of class. That cute face you made flung me over the moon." He laughed loudly, throwing his gorgeous head back. "And that was only the first day of school!"
Daniel laughed, too. "I know. I also sat on a pencil and it stuck up my ass. The doctors said I was going to be fine, though." He waved it off as of it was nothing.
Xavier just laughed even harder. "That's what I see in you! Life!" He rested his forehead against his. Staring straight into his eyes, his gaze shifted to his lips, then to the ground. "You're so full of life," he whispered.
Daniel once again just listened, stayed mute, and let his hands rest at his sides.
"And that's what makes you my Daniel."
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"Don't grip too hard!" Connor pulled his head away from Emma's tight grip on his hair. "Ow! Will you stop!"
Emma wrapped her legs tighter around his torso. "You told me to French braid your hair," she said.
"I know! How will that ever happen if I'm bald?"
Emma shook her head. "You want French braids, deal with the pain, ass-twat."
Connor crossed his arms over his chest as he silently sniffled. He refused to blink his tears away, not letting her see the pain he believed she so badly wanted to feed on.
Brian, Daniel, and Gabriel played Call Of Duty Mobile as they conversed.
Daniel's thoughts brought him back to last night, and he suddenly found himself talking out loud without even thinking about it.
"Xavier kissed me."
They stopped their movements. A single pin could be heard hitting the floor miles away. The silence was ridiculous, crickets nearly entered the scene.
Daniel spoke again as he half-consciously shot people in the online game. "And it was good."
They all spoke at the same time.
"What the fuck!"
"Congratulations, lonely fuck!"
"How big!?"
"I'm gonna die alone."
Daniel stopped them all, raising his head from the game. "Hey! Calm down, you wild beasts."
They settled down, responding to his command.
Then, Brian was the first to speak. "What happened after that?"
Daniel turned off his new phone and set it aside. "We talked."
Emma spoke up. "And?"
Daniel nodded as he thought about it, playing the scene in his head like a gif. "I think we're both on the same page. I think."
Gabriel furrowed his eyebrows. "What do you mean?"
Connor screeched when Emma absentmindedly pulled on his hair which was still in her hands.
"I'm sorry!" she whispered to him and patted his head softly as if it'd change a thing,
Daniel proceeded, "I believe we both have a great interest in each other."
"You sound so formal," Connor blurted. "Just spit everything the fuck out."
Daniel sighed and played with a strand of his hair that fell on his forehead.
"I don't know if we'll be something. Maybe boyfriend and boyfriend or if something else will come to mind. But I think we want the same thing."
He wasn't sure at this point. Something was trying to get his attention in his mind, but he ignored it; afraid it was already the end.
"And what is that?" Emma asked.
"Maybe . . . we'll be an official thing." He shrugged like inside he wasn't using his heart as a punching bag.
"Ah!" Emma shrieked, like, girly shrieked.
Brian jumped. "What in the Barbie world . . ."
Emma stood off the bed, letting go of Connor's hair, and pulled Daniel up so he can jump with her.
"Hey, my braids!" Connor pulled her back.
Emma turned to him, apologetically rested a hand on his lap, and caressed his head. "Don't worry. I was just playing with your hair. I don't know how to braid."
She turned back around and Connor fumed in the background.
"You're acting like a girl," Daniel pointed out.
"I know!" she said with so much enthusiasm. "I just can't believe it! I've been dreaming about your guys' wedding since you told me you were in love with him. And I just can't believe this is happening!" She jumped into Connor's bed, bouncing on it like a child.
Daniel's smile dropped. "Oh, shit," he whispered, reality dawning on him.
"What?" Emma stopped jumping on the bed and looked at him worriedly.
Daniel started sweating, fanning his face like a damsel in distress while huffing. "It's just that you're right. This is happening, me and Xavier kissed . . . me and Xavier kissed! Oh, my fucking chicken noodle shit!"
He began pacing whit an occasional leap here and there as a smile widened on his face. "I need to talk to him."
Emma jumped off the bed and landed on her feet.
"You do," Brian said.
"I have to kiss him. I have to."
Gabriel scrunched up his nose. "Ew, don't tell us that, I'm still innocent."
"I have to see him."
They got him all riled up that Daniel was already gathering up his stuff to leave. "Good thing I have a phone now." He kissed the phone case.
They followed him out of the room, down the stairs, and stayed behind when he reached the front doors.
"Bye!" They held the double doors open as they watched him get in his car and drive off the property.
"Who wants chicken nuggets!?" Connor's dad yelled from the kitchen.
They slammed the doors closed and ran there.
"Me!"
Andy laughed when they entered the kitchen. "Woah. I thought there was an earthquake."
They glared at him as they all grabbed chicken nuggets from a large bowl in the middle of the kitchen island.
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Yesterday, Connor and Tara had a second date. It was a date, sure, or it could have been called Netflix and chilling . . . date.
Connor was optimistic about everything. He couldn't stop smiling, one of the main reasons was because they were currently holding hands as they walked down the hallway. Both happy that they finally had a class together.
Emma and the rest of her best friends were awkwardly walking behind the pair. People looked at the new couple, mostly whispering about how Tyler Quinn's baby sister is dating some guy in his junior year. High School made people sigh.
"Can't they walk any faster?" Gabriel angrily muttered.
Emma shrugged. "Don't know . . ."
Connor and Tara stopped right in front of the classroom, making the best friends bump into them, and of course, they didn't notice. They were too engrossed in their la-la land of hearts and kisses.
Emma separates the couple's bodies a bit and crouched to walk under their entwined hands. The guys did the same.
They made it inside and sat in the back as usual.
Five minutes later, and Connor and Tara were still talking outside. The class was about to start and they were busy saying goodbye—still—for sure.
What do couples even talk about? Emma asked herself.
Brian was tapping his pencil on his binder as he waited patiently for someone to break those
two up and sit them across the room from each other.
Emma leaned in close to Daniel who sat behind her. "If I ever get like that, smack me on the ass and show me a photo of Jeffrey Dean Morgan," she whispered to him.
Daniel nodded. "Got it." He gave an 'okay' sign, nodding in affirmative.
Emma sat normally in her seat and they sighed when they finally saw Tara and Connor walk in—hand in hand.
The teacher stepped into the classroom not a minute later than the class was supposed to begin, and slammed down a pile of thick paper packets on the desk of the student closest to the door.
"Grab one and pass them around." The teacher smiled and walked around her desk to sit down.
"Okay, class. Surprise quiz today. Hope you've studied like I've told you many, many times," she emphasized and bit into a Granny Smith apple that she took out from her bag.
"This thick bitch is a quiz?" A student muttered.
Once everyone had a copy, the teacher ordered for everyone to begin.
Emma didn't feel worried whatsoever—now that'd be a lie, she's about to shit her pants.
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Emma walked out of the girls' bathroom after she had emptied everything in her stomach.
"I hate it when they do that!" she whispers.
Daniel pushes himself off the wall and walked towards her. "Me, too. I had no idea what that last question was all about."
Emma furrowed her eyebrows. "That's the question that we had for homework last week. Remember? The one I repeatedly taught you how to solve?"
Daniel sighed. "Nope."
They walked down the hallway and pushed the cafeteria doors open. They walked towards their usual table by a corner and sat down. There was something different—something wrong.
Daniel felt uneasy, too. Then they spotted it. It was Tara, she sat beside Connor. He fed her with her spoon as if they were in some kind of romance movie.
They rolled their eyes when they saw Tara blush after Connor called her beautiful.
They all believe in love, it was just too cringe-y to physically see.
After Connor kissed her lips, Gabriel lost it and pushed his food tray away, mouthing something incoherent.
They might be exaggerating, but they also aren't. They weren't lovey doves, and they didn't expect this kind of behavior from Connor either. Of course, they supported his relationship, they just needed some time to adjust to the big changes, that's all.
When they got seriously irritated, was when Xavier joined the group and sat beside Daniel. They held hands on top of the table where anybody that walked by could see. They appreciated how Xavier and Daniel weren't so affectionate towards each other in a cliché kind of way. But that all changed when they started playing with each other's food and bumping one another's shoulders while blushing profusely.
Emma, Gabriel, and Brian move their chairs so the three were sat in front of the two cute couples who were now making out.
Making out was okay, they were okay with that. But they admitted defeat. "We lost them, boys," Brian whispers.
"We lost them. They were defeated and taken away by the enemy. Love," Gabriel said, a scowl invading his usually soft features.
Emma sighed. "We're gonna die alone, aren't we?"
They nodded in agreement. "Yeah."
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Emma and her two other best friends who weren't engulfed by an overwhelming need to sing and dance around were walking out of the school. They saw Daniel and Xavier holding hands in public.
It was like nothing had happened. Maybe nobody cared that Xavier was also swinging the other way, or maybe everybody accepted it that easily. Their relationship going public didn't quite catch the stares or badmouths that Emma was expecting. Maybe she watched too much television, or maybe the real world isn't like it is in the movies—or nobody actually cared.
Emma dismissed herself from them and separated herself from the little group to walk to her car. She had work today and she wasn't as surprised to find that she was excited to attend. She felt safe when she was surrounded by books—that smell and warm feeling when you come in and spot the easy-going decorations.
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Emma felt naked. Suddenly she was dirty and in need to brush the mud off her bare body. One second she's reading 'Pride and Prejudice', and the next, she's holding in her tears.
She excused herself to go to the bathroom. She was the only female here at the moment so she wouldn't have to worry about someone being in the staff bathroom.
She pushed a stall open, went to her knees, and stuck two fingers down her throat before she felt herself gag. Her gaging reflex intensified and her stomach's fillings were coming back up and exposing themselves into the toilet bowl.
Emma's face was red, her knees were giving up. She wasn't satisfied but didn't want to do that again—it scared her.
She shivered as she hugged herself while getting up off her knees. Her mouth tasted of vomit and it was disgusting. She couldn't take it, she just wanted to let it all out. Let everything out, everything she was holding in.
Emma wanted to cry, scream and hit whatever was in her way. She wanted to let everybody know that she was okay even if she wasn't. She wanted to seek help and get that awful voice out of her head.
She felt like she was going crazy when she talked to herself. She knew that she was the only one that was saying those bad things about herself. She knew that it was her fault that she thought the way she did. And she was so tired, she just wanted to sleep.
But then came her nightmares. They were so realistically excruciating. She kept herself awake until four in the morning or seven so she wouldn't have to sleep in the dark. She hated it there—being trapped in her head.
Emma was alone, no matter who stood beside her. She was so done with herself, she couldn't take it, but she couldn't end it either. She was afraid of judgment.
They would call her an attention seeker, a pathetic little girl, a slut. Emma has her insecurities, just like everyone else. But her insecurities consisted of her being everything she can't be, being everything she is. No matter what kind of person she was, she didn't quite fit into that layer of skin, no matter how many times she's tried them all on.
She cried evaporated tears that had boiled due to how much anger she hid inside. On the inside, she wasn't safe but slowly rotting in her bed of frail bones and dead skin.
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"Sweetie!" Debra sped to her daughter's bedroom. She knocked on the door before barging in.
She was sleeping. She smiled with content, with peace.
She walked over to her and sat beside her on the edge of the bed. Only the bottom half of her body was covered now.
Poor baby, she thought. She must be so tired.
She was about to pull the covers higher when she stopped. She looked at her daughter's arms. The scars, the cuts that once bled with no near end.
Debra's eyes glossed over. She gently grabbed her daughter's hands in hers and examined them. She made sure to be gentle because Emma was a light sleeper. Fortunately, she was so tired she couldn't feel anything at the moment.
Debra released a hand and with her index finger, she traced the scars. She felt the little bumps on the skin, the little lines that healed but not so quite blended in with her skin tone. She silently sobs.
She then held on to both of Emma's wrists, wrapping two fingers around them, overlapping each other. Her vision blurred. She couldn't help but break down at the state of her daughter. She was so small now, skinny and frail. Her skin wasn't ever going to look normal again. Some scars were worse than others, showing off how many times she repeatedly cut in the same spot.
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Emma searches for her mother. She walked down the dark hallways, she couldn't find her. She looked in her bedroom already and she wasn't there.
Emma almost tripped on her foot as she finally heard the humming of her mom as she cleaned the sliding glass doors.
Emma couldn't believe it, she couldn't believe that this was it. It was time.
Debra turned around at the sound of her daughter's cries. She was lost for words. She was shocked, scared, and couldn't help but feel angry under all that. She couldn't believe what she was seeing.
It was her daughter—her fifteen-year-old daughter before her—with a cut the length of her entire forearm. She was bleeding. She saw muscle, she saw torn skin and was afraid she was going to see a bone if she went any further.
Debra choked up on her sobbing. "E-Emma! What d-d-did you do!?"
Emma tried to apologize but it hurt so much she couldn't breathe. "Please!" was all she managed to say before she collapsed onto the floor, her grip on her arm falling along with her.
Debra ran to her daughter and begged and begged for her to open her eyes. She tried opening them herself but then focused on the cut.
Was she trying to kill herself? she thought.
Debra took off her white cardigan and wrapped it tightly around her arm, watching it turn red. Blood was everywhere. There were pools of blood that trailed from the doorway to where she was now.
"Emma!" Debra crawled to the couch and grabbed her phone and dialed for emergency.
"Please! M-My dau-daughter!" she cried.
"Ma'am, what wrong with your daughter?" a man asked.
"Sh-She's bleeding. S-S-So mu-much!" she sobbed.
With uncontrollable sobbing, she gave the man the address after he had asked.
"An ambulance is on their way."
Debra threw the phone somewhere, she didn't care where it ended up. She just couldn't stop stroking her daughter's beautiful brown hair, her skin that was coated with sweat. Debra couldn't stop crying as her tears fell on Emma's cheeks.
Debra's never been more scared of losing someone in her life, never. She lightly held onto the arm covered by her cardigan and tried to keep blood from spilling out, but with little success. She couldn't lose her, she refused to let her daughter go. She'd rather her life be taken away than hers.
After it felt like hours and hours of waiting for someone to come. She felt a pair of arms pull her away
"No!" Debra tried to get back on the floor, to her dying daughter.
"Ma'am, stay back!" The paramedic held Debra back as he had his arms around her waist.
Michael came rushing into the room. "What's going on?" He let his briefcase and suit jacket fall on the floor without a care. "What are you doing to my daughter?"
He looked at Debra's weeping state. He went to hold her to his chest as he looked down at how they carried Emma away.
"M-My b-b-baby!"
Michael started crying as they walked behind the paramedics. They jumped into the back of the ambulance and sat beside Emma who lay on the stretcher.
The people were talking and trying to help her breathe through a mask. They checked her pulse and took a lot of information and did everything they could to keep her at least a bit stable until they got to the hospital.
Michael and Debra were tightly holding hands.
"Please, sweetheart," Michael whispers and presses his lips that were wet from tears onto her forehead.
At that moment, Emma has never felt more peaceful in her entire life. Not ever.