"A lot of people have rotten childhoods Mikey, okay? You aren't alone, you have to know that," Emily assured the HT. She'd been talking to him for three hours. Matt stood beside her, and Cheryl was nearby, overseeing everything. HRT was lined up and ready to go in at her word.
"Yeah, yeah, my shrink used to tell me the same damn thing. Her parents had money, she couldn't possibly understand what it was like for me growing up. Just like you could never understand what it was like for me," He sneered at her through the phone.
"You know what Mikey? You're right I can't understand what you went through, because I didn't go through it. My mother didn't down a bottle of beer and then throw the empty bottle at me, and I never saw my father rape my mother. And I'm sorry you had to see all that Mickey, I'm sorry you had to grow up with that, but this? This isn't going to make it better, this is going to make your past go away."
"I know that! I know nothing is going to change the fucking horrible people my parent were! But, but I don't know how to make it better…I don't know how to stop it from hurting so much…" His voice was angry at first, then filled with pure anguish.
"Yeah, I know what you mean…I thought that for the longest time. I didn't have the easiest time growing up…I guess I didn't exactly know my parents. But, in some ways it was harder trying to move past it as an adult. When you begin to realize that nobody else expects people to leave, or to hurt them, that they don't keep quiet on instinct because it's safer and nobody is going to listen to them anyway. When did you start to notice Mikey?" She asked softly; she'd purposely avoided looking at Matt the whole time.
As she had spoken, Matt and Cheryl's heads had snapped toward her, surprised at her admission. They now watched her carefully as she spoke, especially Matt, who hadn't taken his eyes off her the whole time, as he wondered how much he didn't know about her.
"When I started working my full time job. I worked as a paralegal at a small law firm, and they were all so…normal?"
"Yeah? Tell me about it?"
"They laughed and talked with each other so easily…I didn't know how to do that, I didn't know to be like that. The ugly things, what people do to each other…it was never in their heads. They did freeze and cringe when they heard yelling, and their hearts didn't jump in their throats when they heard footsteps. I just…I don't know how to be with people…"
"I know Mikey, it's hard to change a mindset you've had your whole life. But, it can be done. I did it, and if I could, so can you."
"Do you have friends that you can laugh with and talk to?" He asked her.
"Yes, I have a small group of friends."
"Is it easy to be with them?"
"When I first tried in college, it wasn't so easy. But, yeah, now it's great."
"Do you have a boyfriend?" He continued asking hopefully. Matt, who felt slightly less concerned after her previous answers, was finally able to make eye contact with her.
"Yeah, I do actually."
"Does he know about your past?" His voice held a slight hint of a challenge.
"No, he doesn't. He's tried to ask me a couple times, but I kind of dodged the topic." She said, still looking toward Matt, who continued watching her with an unreadable expression.
"Then you haven't really moved on completely have you?" he fully challenged her now, determined to find anything to prove her wrong.
"Baby steps Mikey, it takes baby steps. It doesn't happen in a day." Emily told him, biting her lip, and looking at the ground again,
"I don't know if I can do that." He told her, hopelessness back in his voice.
"Well, you aren't going to know until you try, right?"
He was silent for several minutes, before sighing, and speaking again, his voice heavy with resignation. "How do I get out of this?"
As they drove home, Emily knew Matt would have many questions for her once they got home. How was she going to make him understand why she hadn't shared any of this with him? She took his hand in hers as they drove, hoping to convey how she felt about him in that small gesture. Mostly trying to convey that she did trust him, even if it didn't seem that way now.
They pulled up to his apartment sooner than she'd expected, and were soon on their way up in the elevator. Neither had spoken since they'd left the crisis sight.
Matt threw his keys on the table beside the door, before heading to the kitchen to grab them each a beer, before joining Emily on the couch. They sat in silence, sipping their beers for a few moments, before Matt finally spoke, taking her hand.
"Tell me about your parents," he said simply.
She looked at him, biting her lip, clearly unhappy with the topic. "I met my father once, and my mother twice."
"You were adopted?" He asked curiously.
"No, never officially." She said flatly.
"So then you were a foster kid?" He started the conversation again.
"According to the official records two cops that were part of a drug sting found me wandering around in Long Beach when I was four. I was this skinny, dirty little thing, with matted hair and bruises on her knees. Overall I was healthy though, so they called child services, who asked around about my parents. Somebody must have know their names, because that's how I found them, later on, but they couldn't find them then." She told him, no longer looking at him, but instead concentrating on peeling the label off her beer bottle.
"So then what did they do with you, since they couldn't find your parents?" he didn't force her to look at him, she was talking, that's all that mattered right then.
"I was placed with a foster family, the Jensens or something. I barely remember them, I was only there for about eight months, evidently they tended to keep their kids locked in closets." He gave her an alarmed look at this, understandably.
"If they ever locked me in one, I don't really remember it," she assured him.
"Jesus, please tell me that put you with humans after that."
"After that I stayed with Gary and Martha Samson, for two, no three years. They had one adopted kid already, and she got pregnant, so they sent me back," She once again looked away from him, that just sounded too pathetic to her own ears.
"Then can just do that? Send a kid they raised for three years away like she meant nothing?" Matt asked incredulously.
"It isn't that uncommon in the foster care system Matt."
"Okay," Matt shook his head in disbelief, "so you were what, eight by then? Who'd they put you with then?"
"Uh, then it was Ben and Gloria Carson for another three years, he lost everything they had gambling so they couldn't take foster kids anymore. After the Carson's they finally placed me with Margaret Miles, who was pushing seventy, worked full-time, and still took care of two or three foster kids at a time. Maggie was great. She made me feel like someone cared, but she rode us about school. I was always a good student, I didn't have much else to turn to, but she made it seem like it actually mattered. I was only with her four years though, she died when I was sixteen…" Emily's voice trailed off, running out of energy to go through her sob story.
"So where'd you go then?" Matt was struggling to wrap his mind around everything, but her story obviously wasn't over yet.
"Then I filed papers to become emancipated. Maggie left me a little money, so I put a deposit on an apartment with that. I got a job and worked that while I was in school. My childhood is about as pathetic as they get so when I went to college, I got enough grants and scholarships so that I graduated with less loans than most people," she joked, desperately trying to lighten the dark mood her past had created.
"That takes guts Em, and a hell of a drive to survive," he told her, a slight tinge of awe in his voice.
"Yeah well, I didn't really know what else to do," she said shyly.
"You said you met your parents, what happened with that?" He asked suddenly remembering her earlier words.
"Once I was emancipated I immediately did the parent search. According to my file, my parents were being investigated as part of a OC syndicate, that specialized in cocaine and heroine. They took off when they found out the group was being investigated, and just left me behind. My mother served a short sentence in prison, and I was able to track her through her PO. She'd gotten a job as a waitress, and I went and met her at the restaurant…" She trailed off, biting her lip.
"Sounds like it didn't go to well?"
"Not really. We didn't know what to say to each other. It was thirty minutes of awkward silence with an occasional more awkward exchange. So she told me to meet her at her apartment in two days, when she had her day off. I got there and she was busy cleaning and entertaining her two-year old. She told me that I grew up without her better than would have with her; she was married then, and trying to start over with a new family. I couldn't really fault her for that; everybody deserves a second chance. So I gave her what she was too afraid to ask me for- I walked out of her life for good."
Matt shook his head, unable to understand the people were responsible was taking care of the love of his life when she was a child. He almost didn't want an answer to his next question, "what about your father?"
"He got a longer sentence than she did, and got out two year before I went looking. Unfortunately, he had no interest in reforming, and almost immediately got put back in for possession with intent, possession of a weapon, and manslaughter. So I met him in prison. He barely remembered me, had no interest, and I was out of there in less than twenty minutes." She pushed her hair behind her hair, nervously.
"Jesus Em, I'm sorry. You should have been treated better, you deserved so much better than they gave you," he told her, with pain in his eyes.
"It's alright Matt, like I told the HT, I've gotten over it by now."
"Then why didn't you want to tell me?" He finally asked the question that concerned him the most, the one that had him questioning their relationship.
"I knew you wouldn't just let that go," she said with a smirk.
"So, why Em? You know you can trust me now right?" He said taking her hands in his own.
"Of course Matt, I don't doubt that for a minute. It's more…you have this 'Princess from Princeton' image of me, and as much as it irritated me at work, it was nice to be thought of as something other than a broken, messed-up foster kid, damaged goods. Besides you seemed to like that image, I didn't want to ruin it," she told him, offering a shy smile.
"I heard someone say once that we're all damaged goods. There's not a person on this planet that hasn't been hurt, betrayed, or had their mind screwed with at some point. It's how you get past the fall out that counts, and you are the last person that I'd label as messed-up, damaged, or especially broken," he stared directly into her eyes as he spoke, needing her to believe him.
She just gave him that shy little smile again. Shy? That wasn't something he typically associated with Emily Lehman. Determined, opinionated, smart, but shy? This was new to him.
"As for the princess thing…while knowing about your past might make me feel slightly stupid for the worst thing you ever suffered was a broken nail, that doesn't mean I think you treating you like deserve to be spoiled any less. And, even though I know it pisses you off, that also doesn't mean I won't still try to protect you," he told her, grinning and pulling her close.
"I could get used to that, just one thing," she said, kissing him.
"And what's that?" He said after breaking the kiss, quickly initiating another kiss.
"I get to spoil you back," she answered, kissing him and running her hands over his abdomen and around to his back, pulling him as close to her as she could.
"I could live with that," he mumbled against her mouth deepening the kiss, tempting to start undressing her, but managing to regain control of himself long enough to lift her up and take her into the bedroom, where they spoiled each other senseless long into the night.
My philosphy is until they tell us anything on the show, we get to make up whatever we want about Emily's parents, so this was a little idea that I had floating around. I don't know if I'm that happy with this one though... But, I promise the next time I write her parents, they'll be likeable. Again, thanks for reading, and especially reviewing.