Chapter 251 : It's not fair, i used to have bones

Emmet left the ECA with his card Key and I strained myself like a flower would towards the natural light before it was blocked out again by the heavy door. I had the urge to get up and throw myself with every bit of my might into that door. I wanted to scream at the top of my voice to be let out! I wanted a key card and freedom and the rights back to my body and life back again.

I looped my thumb and little finger around my good wrist feeling for the bones, measuring how easily they still touched. This used to calm me when I was losing width from around them but now it was different, I had put on a fingertip at least in lard. I breathed in looking for the bones in my ribcage, while feeling for the sharp edge of my collar bone. It wasn’t really that sharp anymore and my ribs weren’t so visible. Even the space between my hip bones was starting to be filled in. My jeans almost had a fat layer to sit against.

I once again started not to care weather Emmet came back at all; so many pounds of this fat that I lugged around probably belonged to him. I loved him at the same time as hating him and the same went for Esmee. I felt like bouncing my body off of the walls again until it was broken into tiny pieces. Now there was more of me the feelings seemed bigger too and they were truly chocking.

“It’s not fair!” I shrieked the sound the burst from my moth confusing me; I hadn’t meant to make my anger vocal but apparently I felt too much grief over the loss of my pointed bones to remain quiet.

“I know, it’s not, nothing ever really feels like it is when you are in the position that you are now,” Esmee moaned. It sounded like she felt the same sort of ach that was somewhere inside me but could sit on top of it, she had control over her body. She controlled her feelings and what they made her do even if the feeling was killing her like it was me. I could not control the explosion they were causing even though I was desperate to. I was on my feet, crashing my body against the foam walls trying to get everything to disappear just for a little while, just so I could breathe without the elastic around my lungs.

I screamed and I sobbed and wailed as my body bounced off of the foam without harm. I could see Esmee out the side of my distorted vision too. She looked pale and in pain but calm. Her face grimaced as I bounced my body from the walls but she did not go to intervene. The truth was I wanted her to. I wanted her to stop me, for something to stop me.

“It won’t help.”  Esmee moaned after a while. “You will calm down eventually, or faint, either one, but it will have nothing to do with you bouncing you self like a ping pong ball from the walls. Your feelings are intense and yes they are very real but your body won’t let this intenseness go on for long, the brain can’t handle it and it will protect its self.

“It’s not fair!” I shouted again already feeling my head begin to spin. I clung to the wall this time instead of bouncing back off of it noticing how my chest rose and fell with my heavy breathing. Fainting would have been nice if it could stop it. My head span more as if to agree, my eyes spinning in the back of my head

“Ok, sweet, let’s get you down before you fall down,” Esmee said as she walked over to me. With the touch of her hand my head span out and my body fell.  

Chapter 250 : Guarantee

“I am sorry.” I mumbled rubbing my hands roughly over my tear streaked face after the laughing slipped away to nothing. It had been a few amazing monster free seconds in my life. For the shortest time with my head full of Emmet in frilly pants I had forgot why I was in the ECA, why I was in apple gate house and why Emmet and Esmee where there at all. For a few seconds it was simply OK but seconds were not enough and the monsters wanted back in to extinguish any joy or hope, even sanity. 

“What are you sorry for?” Emmet asked.

Everything – the way I look, feel, sound, move, have this nasty habit of inhaling and exhaling. “I am sorry that I smacked you.”

“Thank you Mi, I appreciate your apology. I also understand that you didn’t mean to hurt me. Sometimes feelings can be very overwhelming.”

“I am sorry that I cried. I am sorry that I shouted, I’m sorry that I scared you and wasted your time… I’m just sorry…for everything, I’m sorry I’m me.” The words had come out in a rush before I could control them. I had tried not to mention the sorry for everything part because I already knew the well-rehearsed response to it that would be given. They had drummed it into me like it was written somewhere on a script.

Emmet smiled sadly as he hoisted his heavy body back to its legs. Staring up at him from the floor anyone could know what it felt like to be an ant that was in its hill while it came under attack by a toddler in boots. He didn’t scare me as such. His size was more just impressive these days. I knew that he could kill me instantly with just his brute force if he wanted to but the thing was I had learnt to realise he didn’t want to. He was more a protector for the little things – like Esmee. Esmee was such an odd match for him, so tiny and diminutive. If Emmet was to be compared to a giant Grizzly bear Esmee would have to be compared to a Salmon. He could destroy her, maybe he was even meant to but he didn’t, he loved her and it was the same for all of the little people he looked down on, he didn’t ever think of anything but the best for them. I winced realizing it was this remarkable man I had been hitting so viciously a few hours ago.

“I will spare you the lecture on why you shouldn’t be sorry for any of those other things Mi. You know it all anyway.”

I nodded once as a thank you and Emmet smiled before crouching down into a squat and cupping my sticky face in his right hand making me look at him. He gave the speech with his eyes alone. The swirling jade penetrated my bones. It made me believe impossible things. I believed that he would come back, that he cared.

“I will come back,” he promised somehow reading me. Unless there are some extreme unforeseen events I will come back and I will swear that on anyone’s life,” He confirmed passing a slight nod in Esmee’s direction. I flinched; Esmee was not to be used as a guarantor for his promises. Even with the best intentions, which I am sure she had promises could be broken.

“No!” I shouted, vicious images of a lifeless body clouding my vision that belonged to Esmee. White skin and a still chest, no flush of blood behind her cheeks, coldness. I wanted to throw up. “Her life is not something you can swear upon. Not ever.” I growled.   

He realised his mistake with my tight words and I could see through his eyes that he could see the images too. If I had wanted to be sick Emmet looked like he wanted to scream and never stop.

“You don’t have to swear on anyone’s life. I believe you, I trust you. I have no idea why but you will come back. You won’t leave me, even if you should.”

The strange part was I actually believed what I was saying. He would come back for me. It was a guarantee.  

Chapter 249 : Thank you Miss Crumple-Bottom, because of you I can laugh.

I cried into Emmet’s chest for what felt like a very long time while he rocked me back and forth and rubbed his hand across my back in big soothing shapes. He only spoke occasionally to tell me that it was OK and he wouldn’t walk out on me but that was all that was needed. I wouldn’t have had the words in me to answer questions anyway. All I knew was at that moment no matter how much of a fight that I had put up, no matter if I had hurt him when I smacked at him without cause, I never wanted him to let me go. I was a lost little girl in the world and Emmet at long last had finally convinced me that there were some good people left and at the moment he was keeping me safe inside his arms, pressed against his chest. However all good things had to come to an end, even if it felt like it would physical brake me apart and far too soon I felt his grip slacken on me letting the cold air swoop in around my body. I groaned in my panic trying to nuzzle back into him like an overgrown cat.

“I have got therapy with AJ honey in about twenty minutes.” Emmet said gently speeding his fingers wide over the surface of my back so he could try and steady me again. “It will take me about an hour and a bit OK and then I’m going to come back and see you again. Esmee is going to stay here with you for a while longer and then someone else will come in and take over for a little bit. I want you to know that we are going to keep coming back though. You haven’t scared us away and we’re not angry and we’re not leaving permanently. We are not leaving you and we will always come back.”

I wanted to demand that he stayed with me. I wanted to black mail him or threaten him that I would do bad things if he left me alone in the room without them there. At the same time I also wanted to tell him that I didn’t care, that I hated them both anyway and I couldn’t give a damn weather they left me because I was better without them but that was only my desperation to keep them there. It was only the fear and confusion that made my whole body ach and burn that tried to make me blurt out anything that came into my head to try and ease it’s pain. There was no set way I had of coping, nothing I had ever learnt that didn’t involve blood and blisters. I had to try anything to survive agony.

“It’s OK, you should both go; I’m fine now. You shouldn’t care anyway.” My words sounded stiff and they were cold and sharp. They were also fat horrible lies that I hated but I knew taken the way they sounded the people that I was trying to keep by me would leave feeling better and resentful towards me. I wanted that somewhere inside of me. The bad and dead bits that clamed my body wanted the bitterness and rejection. It gave me a reason for the pain – another reason for me to hate myself.

"I am sure that you are perfectly fine… also Mi - as we are now obviously talking blatant bull poo - did I ever mention to you that on the weekends I like to steal Esmee’s bras snap on some lacy panties and dress up as a young lady and insist that everyone calls me Miss Crumple-bottom,” Emmet announced in a matter of fact tone as he pursed his lips into a flat line and batted hi eyelashes like a cartoon character.

No part of me, bad or good had an answer for that - though the mental images where interesting. Emmet in frilly Ann Summers lingerie and pointed high heels…

There was a double snort as both Esmee’s and my amusement burst out through the edges and rolled into hyper laughter. Apparently Emmet in a bra was enough to break even the strongest of pains. Because of Miss Crumple-bottom I had learnt how to laugh again.  

Chapter 248 : Carried through the front lines

 “The war is only lost Mi when every last fighter has stopped fighting. We haven’t stopped and we will rally around the down and wounded until they get back up. Your story isn’t over yet.”

I didn’t respond to Emmet’s voice. I tried so desperately not to hear him. I wanted to go away so much that it hurt deep in my chest like a throbbing black bruise. I swallowed hard against the tears in my throat trying to stop them rolling out from under my closed eyes. The dead did not cry and they did not feel.

Mi, open your eyes.”  I could feel one of Emmets finger tips brushing away the solitary tear that had managed to escape under my water logged eye lashes and down to rest on my cheek and my body reacted to the ach it caused in my tummy making me burry my head facedown into the spongy floor.

“Mi, open your eyes,” he prompted again.  “Open them up, we will fight for you, we can make this better but you are not allowed to give up. It’s time to open those eyes embrace this pain and get back up again.”

“I can’t,” I said again in a whisper. “Even if I wanted to I couldn’t move from here – I can’t stand up again. This isn’t an easy way either you know. It feels like a thousand wolves are ripping the flesh from my skin and I can’t move away or fight them off.” I moaned twisting the fingers of my fractured wrist into the carpet until the pain caught my breathing making my lugs silently yell. The intense stabbing was a better pain then the void. It was a distraction from having my bones slowly chewed upon.  

“Then l will carry you,” Emmet whispered delicately into my ear before I felt him slipping his giant arms in under my floppy body and pulling me up into a standing position next to him. My body crumbled instantly as I felt my heart flutter somewhere off beat in my chest for a few seconds and my head span. I would have fallen back to the floor if it wasn’t for Emmet’s arms that supported me against him. He was the last solid rock in the battle field. He could have run and got home safe but he was unable to bring himself to leave the week. At that moment there was two choices. He would carry us both back to safety or I would drag him to the dirt with me. I was a heavy weight in his arms.

 “I mean it Emmet I can’t. Let me go” I said in a moan, “Don’t you see that I can’t be saved? but you and Esmee can get out of here alive. “Let me go now let the wolves finish what they started. I will be glad to leave.” I smiled.

 “Mi, I will never let you go,” Emmet stated firmly to me brushing away the idea like it was the most idiotic one in the world. “Too many people in this life have given up on you walked out on you and turned their back on you. Too many people have abused you and hurt you. You were just a little girl when you were left so cruelly alone in the world” Emmet said softly stroking away yet another two stray tears that had managed to brake over the surface of my eyes.

“Emmet don’t…” I moaned trying to pull away from him so I could curl back up on the floor and wait for my last breaths. I didn’t want his compassion or worse his understanding. He was right I was the little girl that grew up alone without “proper parents” but I was not the pretty little innocent party he was making me out to be but he went on anyway burning what was left of my insides as he went…

“When the world should have been protecting you from everything and checking for invisible monsters in your closet, they were being the monsters that where hunting you down. You leant to cry and scream in science all by yourself because you knew no matter how hard you cried and no matter how loud you shouted no one would come anyway. So you found a better way to get rid of all that anger and confusion. You found a way to comfort yourself. You found another way to scream and cry and your skin wept silent red tears for every time he did something to your little body that you couldn’t quite understand. You screamed bright red screams for every time she screamed in your face and you couldn’t scream back at her. You learnt to destroy yourself to keep yourself alive and everyone just turned their backs on you all over again but I’m not going to let that happen anymore. We are here and we will support you and we will fight on when you can’t.”

With every one of Emmet’s words it felt like a rocket ripped its way through my body destroying every secret and every lie I had ever kept locked up inside. It broke down every wall I had ever formed to protect me from the world around me. It melted all the icy bits that I had tried to freeze away and breathed life into any part of me that had forgotten how to feel and it hurt. It hurt more than any punch or kick ever had, it hurt more than any insult that ever was thrown at me. It hurt more than then wolves gnawing at my bones.

“Stop,” I pleaded my voice harsh and sore against the agony he had inflicted. I clawed at his chest and pushed with my hands to get him away and when he finally realised me I clawed at my face before screaming with the tears and falling back to the floor. His possession inside my head was worse than Sophie’s even for as he worked through me he set of feelings that I had long since forgotten where there. Quietly at first my injured broken memories started to sing the same song as him - they started to agree… I had just been a little girl and I had been abused! I had been neglected and I had been treated awfully and it wasn’t my fault… It had never been my fault. “Please stop.” I sobbed through hysterical breathing as I wrapped my arms around my chest and stomach trying to stop my insides from falling out. “It hurts! It hurts!”

“I know baby, I know.” Emmet soothed in a whisper before he bent down and tried to lock his arms around me again.

“Get Off! Go away! I hate you! I really hate you!” I yelled to shake him off as I tried to re-prove to him but mostly to myself that I had been to blame for what happened. If I was responsible for all the bad things it somehow made them feel almost OK some of the time, but how could I start to go on and live in a world where I had been the one so badly beaten for no reason? How could I ever have any faith in humanity?

“No, I’m not going anywhere Mi. I’m not leaving you there isn’t a thing you can do to push me away,” Emmet confirmed holding me tighter making my insides shriek again. They never would get the concept of understanding and they would do anything to restore the balance.

“Go away!” I screamed again sobbing as I slapped Emmet as hard as I could across the chest with my good hand. I hated what I was doing but I could not stop and before I had time to even try and stop I did the same thing again making him wince.

I saw Esmee take a step forward this time before stopping again and mouthing a swear word to herself as she fort for control of her body to keep it routed to where she was. She wanted to stop me. She wanted Emmet to let me go as much as I wanted him to. She could not stand to see him hurt. She was my answer. If Emmet wouldn’t leave I would find someone to drag him away. I smacked him hard again a further two times unable to stop the mania even though I wade Esmee’s face crumble. I was torturing Emmet but she was the one feeling the pain. I was trying to restore order in my world. I had to be hated. I had to be the bad one. I slapped him again even though it killed me, thinking that getting him away would stop my screaming head.

“Emmet!” Esmee begged the words bursting from her moth before she could top them, “Don’t,” She whined. Emmet ignored her and I could not make my brain to stop or get my hands to stand still.

“I am not letting go. I am not going anywhere,” Emmet confirmed again unwavering as he endured another blow from the palm of my hand on his chest with nothing more than a flinch. “There is nothing you can do. I’m not going to leave no matter what you do. You have not got to do this on your own anymore I am here, and I am staying with you. I will not leave you.”

“Please!” I begged slapping him once more feebly before my body broke down and I sagged into his arms while I screamed into his chest. “Please…” I cried, defeated.

Chapter 247 : The war is already lost

“I am not beautiful I said sternly towards Emmet. He casual use of what was so obviously a blatant lie irritating me. “Some people can turn cracks and scars into something stunning,” I carried on slowly, still finding it almost wired at how the words felt when my head formed them. “I know some people can just sparkle and shine and the cracks on make them brighter but others are just broken apart beyond help or repair or beauty and I am one of them. I don’t get how you do it or why even. You are both the most caring, loving, amazing people I know and you are still here. You still think that I am worth compassion and understanding. Now I am thankful that you think I am worth fighting for. I am thankful that you have tried to save me and I wish I could get better but some people don’t achieve victory over time and I am one of them, so you have to let me go now.” I tried to stay sternly even though my voice shook somewhere under what I was saying. I had almost believed that I had had a chance when I was on the beach with Esmee the night before. The feeling of hope inside me had not been faked, but hope was devastating. With hope things became even more painful when you realised it was a lie, just a semi fantasy to make you smile for a little bit.

“I’m giving up, I will not win, I cannot fight. The war is lost.” I said weekly to confirm for me that no matter what fights I had won the war had been lost. Sophie could have me and the vultures could pick apart my corps I was not standing up to be knocked over again. I could feel my body shut down again as I let the meaning of the words infect it and I let myself curl up into a ball and lie down on the floor. My eyes closed last and I had every intention of them staying that way. I willed my breathing to stop and for my heart to beat its last and for a few seconds - A few glorious painless moments of existence - I thought that they might just give up.

Chapter 246 : Beautifully broken

I wanted to talk. I wanted to talk to them more than anything else right then but even with the extra strength inside me to ease both Emmets and Esmee’s pain there was no way that that part of me was going to work right. The stupid thing was that until that very moment in my life I had always liked and respected science. I found audio output almost an annoying factor when there was so much going on inside my head but I had always been forced to speak. The irony of the situation irked me. The first time in my life I wanted to be vocal I had been rendered speechless.

It was my hands that I explored with first. They seemed the most external part of my body to work with so the less chocked up on the black smoke. To my surprise they worked as I wanted them to first time round and I enjoyed spreading my fingers in and out. I had feared for a few seconds when Sophie had seemingly possessed me that I would never be able to do anything with myself again but the movement was easy. It appeared when it come to my hands my brain was still controlled by me alone.
I saw Emmet looking suspiciously at my hands as I practised with the fingers and then very slowly moved it over towards his. He moved his hand closer so I could reach it and I saw the hope in his eyes again and then a smile as I placed my hand in his and made my fingers lock around his. It was hardly comforting or reassuring but it was all I had in me to give to him while I tried to fight for the control of the rest of my body. Sophie had been forced back to the shadows but it felt like she left my body with a new set of commands to make it work that I had to learn. How could she leave me like this? What fried would rearrange the way someone ran?

I moved my other hand next and directed it towards Esmee. The movement was smoother and easier that time and I could grab her hand with ease. It was amazing at how quickly after I had held of them both my confidence over my own body came flooding back in.

Pleased at my new freedom I moved my whole body closer to Esmee’s. She leant out and pushed my hair back behind my ears. Her face a mixture of relief and almost disbelief at what she was seeing. I wanted to tell her that I was sorry for what I had done. That I had never wanted to hurt her but Sophie had left me somewhere that I couldn’t quite claw back from right away but Speech was still something I couldn’t access right so is settled for a smile as I nuzzled my cheek into her hand. It wasn’t much but it made her face light up like I had always remembered.

“Hi there honey, you had us all terrified for a bit then. Are you feeling a little bit better? Do you know where you are?”

Where I was? I doubted there was anybody on planet earth that could forget the four walls of an ECA after they had spent some of their time in there, even if they went totally mad and even forgot who they were something like that would never fade.

I nodded to answer her question at the same time as I felt my bottom lip start to quiver threatening tears. I didn’t know why I suddenly wanted to cry. I didn’t even know what the feeling was that was inside me threatening to produce them. It wasn’t sadness – at least it wasn’t the sadness that I was used to feeling.

“It’s OK,” Esmee promised picking up on my sudden facial sadness. “Don’t be scared honey, we are both here and lots of people are going to look after no matter what’s happened. We can make it OK. I’m going to make it better.”

Tears dripped from my eyes as I nodded again even though I didn’t believe that she was saying. I wanted to. I wanted to believe that tiny little five foot Esmee could sleigh an army of dragons but we were not in a movie. No one was going to yell cut and open the ECA doors and take all the feelings away.  She might not make me feel like I used to again, and I might have to live the rest of my life inside a room like this one, slipping in and out of Sophie and myself until I couldn’t tell or couldn’t care which one was real.

“I’m broken,” I said my voice finding me and speaking out before I had even realise that it had come back in use. “You can’t save me Esmee. I am patches of odd cloth that no else wanted. I don’t even want them.”

“We are all patches and sticking plasters. We have all been held together with thread and glue and we have all fallen to pieces and left them around for someone else to pick up,” Esmee said holding my hands before smiling up at Emmet. He had been the one to pick up her pieces every time. He was her thread and glue and he didn’t mind. He loved every tiny mismatched piece of her like it was the most precious thing he would ever get close enough to touch.

“We are all broken Mi,” Esmee smiled as Emmet reached out and tenderly placed his hand on the top of her crossed leg.

“Beautifully broken,” Emmet corrected sternly, wincing as his only heart’s desire put herself down just inches from him. “You’re beautiful. You both are. Broken or not.”