Falls apart
One event
For months Emma had been crying herself to sleep every night. And with each passing day it just seemed to get harder for her, she often wondered how much more she would have to take before someone noticed what was really going on. Emma was the top in her class, she fought for all of those grades and she deserved it. She had the highest grades in the whole junior high. However Emma’s family life wasn’t the best and that was mentally tearing her apart leaving her grades to suffer horrible. She fought with her mind every night. She would barely get three hours of sleep yet no one would ever know, Emma got really good with covering things up with makeup.
Beep! Beep! Beep! The sounds the alarm clock would produce gave Emma intense flashbacks from the night in the hospital. Crying and pleading while hearing the heartbeat monitor go flat and the voice on the speaker that always had a urgentency in their tone especially while yelling code blue, moments before Emma was wondering who actually spoke on the intercom and now she was screaming. Emma could feel her voice slowly leave her body. With each beep from the monitor Emma could feel her heart sinking deeper into her stomach as she clutched her grandmother’s hand and begged her to come back to her. Emma hoped that this was all a bad dream and she would wake up and find her grandmother in the kitchen drinking her coffee, black with two sugars how she always drank it.
As Emma dragged herself out of her makeshift bed her father had given her. Which was just a long block of wood with a thin sheet, a blanket and a pillow. The sheet looked as if it used to be pearly white now looked like the sheet had been stained with coffee. The blanket was dark blue but was just as thin as the sheet with no padding and no comfort. The pillow looked as though it had seen better days. It had lost most of its feathers and it was easy to tell that the pillow was ancient. Emma was allowed to keep some of her belongings from her grandmother’s house, well not so much allowed just hidden very well. Emma hated what her life had become. She couldn’t comprehend how at any moment your life can be turned upside down. She still remembered the exact moment in which her grandmother had sat her down to talk, Emma had been excited she couldn’t wait to get home while unable to control her excitement she skipped home.
As she opened the door she saw her grandmother at the round little table. Her house was very small, two bedrooms with one bathroom. There wasn’t a lot of legroom but they made it work. The first thing Emma noticed when she opened the door was the phone on the table and tears streaks down her grandmother’s face. She couldn’t remember ever seeing her cry even when her grandmother got full custody of her when she was six. Emma could tell something was very wrong; Her heart began to start pounding; it felt as if it was about to burst right through her chest. As she walked further in the doorway her grandmother motioned for her to come sit next to her. The whole situation made Emma feel uneasy. She didn’t know what was happening, she felt clueless and she hated not knowing what was going on. As she sat down her heart was beating so fast it felt as if it was one the verge of just stopping, her lungs felt dull as if they were suffocating and were desperate for air, Emma’s grandmother had told her that she had been diagnosed with stage three brain cancer. Emma’s world stopped; it seemed as if it stayed still for a lifetime as her grandmother continued to speak to her, no words registering. It just sounded like distant mumbling while Emma felt her body go numb as she gave a vacant stare. She felt a hand on her shoulder shaking her softly to bring her back into reality, she looked into her grandmother’s eyes were sapphire and in the light they would shine, it was as if looking in the ocean on a calm summer day. Emma’s eyes started to burn she tried to choke back the tears she could feel building up as it slowly started to blur her vision she could no longer choke it back she let it go, as she began to sob loudly and violently unable to control it anymore, With one swift move her grandmother drew her in, placing her granddaughters head in the crease of her neck with one hand on her head and the other on her back comforting each other as they both cried together, unsure of what the future will bring.
To Emma it felt like yesterday she was lying in bed with her grandmother watching a sappy romantic movie where the couple always ends up together and have their happily ever after. She hated the idea of happy ever after now there was nothing happy about her situation. After her grandmother died it became a battle of custody between her father and aunt. She wished she didn’t have to go with anyone and she tried her best to convince the court she could live on her own however she wasn’t of age, the court ended up giving complete custody to her father unsure of what was next, Emma could feel her heart beating faster and faster her hands were sweating as she tried to force oxygen back into her lungs recently this was happening a lot more than usually, she had no idea on how to handle it or even stop it. All she knew was her heart felt heavy as if she were being crushed by buildings. As she looked over to her father she could see him smiling unsure if it was genuine.
As she packed her last pair of shorts in her suitcase and looked around the room, a wave of sadness overcame her. How could she leave the only place she called home? She grew up in that very house and lived there most of her life, Emma felt like she was abandoning her grandmother. She wanted to stay where her memory lived, her eyes began to swell up with tears. She didn’t try to choke it back; she didn’t have the energy, unsure if it was because she had not been eating or because she hadn’t slept. As she walked past the kitchen a mix of memories flooded her mind from the night they had baked cupcakes together and her grandmother came around the table and put a chunk of frosting on Emma’s nose that night was filled with laughter and pure joy. Emma’s mind was brought right back to the afternoon where she was told the worst possible news of her life, more tears began to roll down her face as she looked around the small house one more time.
Emma hated moving in with her father, the tensions were so high she could feel it in her bones. She was always worried about slipping up; to her it was like walking on eggshells always unsure of what the night held. Emma’s father drank a lot and she could always tell what night they might have by the redness of his eyes, while she tried to avoid him altogether it seemed impossible to do. They lived in a relatively bigger house however Emma’s father forced her to stay in a coat closet that was connected to the garage. Some nights when the weather would drop Emma would sit on her bed and bring her knees up to her chest and rock back and forth as an attempt to get warmer. As each week passed it only seem to get worst, Emma couldn’t remember the last time she slept more than two hours or actually ate a meal, she wasn’t allowed to go in the kitchen without permission or even enter the house, she tried it once the hunger became unbearable and as she attempted to relieve the sharp stabbing pains that kept getting worse she instantly regretted it. The moment she called out she could feel a strong eire feeling and once face to face with her father, she could see there was no white left in his eyes, just red, her palms began to sweat and her heart felt like it was about to burst open. She struggled getting the words to leave her mouth and stuttered as she tried to speak, making her father only more angry. In a fast motion which seemed impossible to see Emma felt something connect with her face unaware of what had just happened she stood paralyzed as her father walked off to go back to his drink seeming unfazed by his actions, As Emma’s vision blurred and her nose had been rushed with intense heat it had felt like fire she was brought back from the shock. She could feel the blood pour down from her nose. She was unsteady as if she had just done a thousand circles. As the copper taste mixed with the blood she started to cry, confused on what she had done to deserve this she felt stuck. She couldn’t see a way out of this situation. She just wanted to feel better again, she wished she could sleep more than two hours but everytime she fell asleep she would be jolted from her sleep drenched in sweat not and tears, forcing her to wake up afraid, It had gotten so bad that she would only be able to get at least two hours before the nightmares occurred, She desperately wished her grandmother was here so she could talk to her she wanted to be happy again. Emma just wanted peace again.
Emma woke up from her two hour sleep with dried blood and tears both of her eyes turned black and blue she looked like a zombie she had huge purple bags that sat right beneath her eyes she now had her complete eye discolored as she washed the tears and blood with a wet washcloth cringing at the slightest touch. She attempted to cover it up with makeup biting her bottom lip everytime the brush would touch her eye she wanted to scream out in pain but in fear of her father punching her again she chose to fight through the pain and stay silent.
