Hey guys!A new one shot series here. I really love the ending to A day in the Life of Gwen. The music Emily was playing was simply beautiful. I found her character...annoying. No one is that happy, her face was too bright and joyful over nothing. I notice some holes in her and Gwen's relationship, I couldn't resist! I feel like she and Kevin could really get along! One of these days, I'll write them interacting. Anyway enjoy the fic!
(Note: ETNRL4L I know you said you would edit it for me but I can't wait! Curse my impatiences! And I know your busy. Don't worry about it!:P)
Disclaimer: Can I really own Ben 10? Come on now...think a little. (I don't)
Chapter 1: My Positive Cacophony
The blonde allows the sweet melody of the piano to wrap around her softly as she sits alone empty auditorium. Emily's symphony plays off the grand walls and vibrates through the windows in the roof. She gently falls from her gusto and changes her back interval to speed up. Her delicate fingers press on each key with graceful elegance. Her head rocks to the rhythm in short concise bobs. Her pink lips mumble something to go along with the melody of her work. The young girl herself didn't know what she is saying but it fits.
When she plays, Emily loves to forget. She pulls herself away from whatever is in the world and allows the keys, notes, and sounds to become her universe. On the piano, she is God creating life with each stroke of her hand and flick of her wrist. She doesn't even care to see if what she makes sounds good. If her creation is a Frankenstein of random keys and disconnected scales played in forte, so be it. Her work, her art, isn't about beauty or the perfect sound.
Emily slams her finger tips on the edge of the keys ripping the innocent melody into sherds.
No...it is never about that.
Emily's hands slowly fall from the keys to her lap, they were still humming with adrenalin. She glares through her fingers then her school skirt at her legs. With burning eyes, she wills the pent up energy from her hands to move to her limp legs. She feels a twitch in her thigh- or is it a spasm in her ankle? She can't tell the difference. Then there is nothing more.
The young pianist cringes and swallows back her anger. Positivity is key she thinks. Bad thoughts wouldn't maker her legs work any faster. Emily grips her thin wheels and backs away from the grand piano. With practice ease she maneuvers off the stages and down the ramp they installed just for her.
Yes, Bellwood Preparatory had to keep their prized pity story comfortable encase any journalist wants to come by for a news story. "A real tear jerker to rattle the 6 pm show." She chuckles darkly to her self as she exits the stage. Yes, she is just a cute little spectacle. No one listens to her artwork, her creations. They all come to see the little crippled girl play Beethoven. Look at her! She is a fighter, a dreamer! How adorable is she? They clap and cheer and smile up at her while they look down on her.
Adorable indeed.
As she rolls over the marble flooring she plasters on a smile, calculates the correct cheery factor, and adds some confidence in there for good measure. Positive.
She sees a beautiful red head chatting on the phone and frantically taking things in and out of her locker. Gwen. Perfect, smart, loving Gwen. Super natural, alien fighting hero. Gwen is something amazing. Something amazing that Emily could never be. This conclusion can be maddening at some points. Such as life, Emily has long cut off any disabling bitterness towards her best friend. Hating Gwen would do nothing for the damaged girl. Emily has convinced herself that hating Gwen isn't right.
"Hi Em!" A red head calls from her locker as she hangs up the phone. With a wave of her hand, Gwen gestures for best friend to walk- no roll- over to her. "finish piano practice?"
"Yeah! You wanna go to the library and study for Mr. Ferigan's calculus test?" Emily's smile is too bright. A better friend would have caught that.
"Sure but can I get a rain check for late on tonight? Kevin and Ben called me. We need to check out a warehouse. You know, alien business." Gwen isn't the kind of friend that notices.
"No, it's cool. I understand. Don't worry about it."
"So when I'm done I'll have Kevin drop me off out your house and we can walk to the library."
"Sounds like a plan!" The teen hero bends down to kiss Emily on the top of her head. Blue eyes are blinded by the curtain of red and Emily picks up a hint of her perfume. The wheel chair bound girl is happy to see that her best friend still wears their matching necklaces.
"I gotta go but I'll see you tonight okay?" She rushes off too soon and forgets to close her locker door and leaves her back pack on the ground. Being the loyal friend she is, Emily picks up after her friend. Emily knows she's busy with saving the world to notice such mundane things like closing lockers and getting her books. But Emily? She is all about the mundane, the regular.
The locker doesn't close quick enough on the books. She isn't tall enough to stack them on the upper shelf. They tumbled down into her lap. The heavy textbooks are nothing to her but she lets out an involuntary yelp. There would be a bruise but there was no painful pay off. She sighs and collects the scattered papers on the floor. In the back of her mind, Emily secretly wishes the unexpected injury would spark some life in her and hurt. Just a bit of pain so she could know that this seemingly dead half of her truly had life. No such luck.
Emily wheels away and into the complex layout of her school. The stainless steel lockers are devoid of individuality. The marble pillars and intricate moldings lining the ceiling are squeaky clean thanks to Consuela. The award case where she catches her reflection is fill with first place medals and trophies. Only the best to be put on display. The decadent campus spews of the wealth upper middle class. It's sharp lines, elegant styles, and imported wares are indulgent of the spoiled lifestyle she and many of the other students here lead. Like them, like who she is suppose to be, the school is perfect. Everything is neat, clean, and pretty.
Emily examines her face a bit longer than she herself is comfortable with. She decides that she embodies that unofficial motto: neat, clean, and pretty. But she is missing the critical piece.
Perfection.
The handicap girl is half wrong. She can't fully be what the school is all about. But don't worry, even this imperfect model still has a place. She is a piece of diversity that upper middle class people love to boost they have. The girl in the wheel chair is her title, her name sake. As long as she and all the other pieces of diversity stay neat, clean, and pretty, they are loved and prized. Like Rayquan and his sharp, close shaved head, warm brown skin, earring-less ears or Jamie Hicks, the under the poverty line scholarship student who is given not only a uniform but charity clothes so she has something presentable to wear for picture day.
The halls were nearly empty save for a few band members who just finish packing away their instruments and a hand full of kids staying after for tutoring. They chat and murmur amongst themselves, some greet her as they pass. All of them are smiling.
What is a frown to them? Emily muses. Missing a play at practice or leaving their cell phone in the last class, that's what. Frowns are fleeting things that never last for long. For them, frowns are the resultant of problems, problems that will eventually get solved.
Emily wheels pass them and out the side door which didn't have the grand steps like the front did. She isn't smiling.
She breathes in air, real air that hasn't been stewing in pretentious grandeur, and it feels good but it's numb. The sun shines down at her not on her. The rays touch her legs and of course she can't feel the spring time warmth. Nothing new.
Her legs aren't hers but own by that near fatal accident. She has no use for them- or better yet- they have no use for her. Her legs are content sitting all day in this wheel chair. They don't care if Emily can ever run or walk or dance again.
She needs them, they don't need her. If anything, she should be grateful that they weren't ripped off by the car and that the nerves aren't completely damaged. She should be thankful that they are still there for her. She should be thankful that she is even alive. But she can't manage it.
She is a pessimist at heart.
Peace in it's own right, being negative is a dark cup of coffee. It's bitter and burning hot but the pure caffeine has a way of dulling you to it's off putting side. It's like eating chocolate while dating Ben. Emily allows herself a real smiles at the thought.
Weird, smiling is strange. The facial movement is a good friend and a foreign stranger to the girl. She smiles all the time. People tell her it's beautiful. But the emotion only goes skin deep. Emily's smiles are rarely genuine.
The pianist rolls her body down the street. The loud noises of positivity are too hard to ignore. The bashing, crashing fits of sound screams at her all the time. Positivity is key! Positivity is key! POSITIVITY IS KEY!
She is an optimist in her mind.
She succumbs to the demand and paints on that beautiful smile everyone loves so much and plays the part of the adorable girl in the wheel chair who plays Beethoven.
That fighting hope. That pitiful dream. That convincing facade. That damn good lie. Whatever it is she does it well.
Ahhh Emily! I really like this look on her. I was watching True Life one time about how this young teen become blind by a rare genetic disorder and it ruined his life. He was didn't respond to the constant mantra of being happy and positive and was very cynical and depressed. It was really sad and that's my transpiration go this. These drabbles are focused on the idea of body mutilation/ self harm so be prepared for some...deep things. Well...Tell me what you think! In a review. Please? Thank you!