Hi there. Hola.

I wrote this chapter as an insert to chapter 26 of another story I am currently writing, If It Hadn't Been for Love'. I wanted Emily's perspective of what was happening in her head when she 'confessed' to Jenna's murder and during her catatonic episode. For those of you familiar with catatonia( not always related to schizophrenia but a break from reality) I am not an expert.

Seeing that the story mentioned above is a Spoby story, I decided to do something separate for Em. Anyways read. and if any of you want to read my other story, I would love that.

Gracias, Adios.

Ps. If you need a song to listen to: That Home- The Cinematic Orchestra (feat. Patrick Watson

Oceans Deep

I have this memory. I'm not riding a bike. I'm not tying ribbons in my hair or wishing to be a princess when I grow up.

I'm five and the waves are white and blue and at times transparent and at others, blinding.

It rushed at me in a speedy attack and I braced myself against its hard lashes. I would lay on the sand afterward taking my defeat seriously and despite my aching body and my immeasurable fear, I'll swallow them all in the hopes that I'd feel what it was like to win.

I have this picture seared in my mind: my father, sitting on the damp sand at the shore, his knees up, his hands draped over them and the sun in his eyes.

His laugh played in my ear: low, sweet, harmonious.

Years later, I'd ask him, if he was scared.

He had told me 'no'. He said that that was the moment he realized that he was father to an extra-ordinary child.

I would like to say that the waves didn't conquer me that day that I didn't go home bruised and battered, but I can't.

But for today, this day, I can say that I have.

Or at least….at least I thought so.

I found 40 cents at the bottom of my pocket, a hairpin and a ticket stump to a movie I had forgotten I'd gone to. I'm big on sentimentality so I keep them in there, hidden like treasure. Those are the things that go with me, when I enter Rosewood Police station. Those are the thing I grabbed at, at the bottom of my jeans as I told the officer, that I was responsible for Jenna's death.

Honestly, I don't know why I held onto them. I guess I was the one to always believe.

I was the five years old, tooth missing, battling my giants. I was the girl who believed that shooting stars heard my whispers hopes and hinged them on their back where they'd make them come true. I was the person who saw in color and bright lights. I'd unravel threads of hope in the most hopeless of places.

I found meaning in the meaningless and love in the loneliest corners.

Then when did I become this person?

I always thought when people said "it was all a blur" it was just something they said. I know differently now because this week has been exactly that. It's the strangest thing when you're not aware of time- the world seems shapeless and ununiformed. Instead, the pieces that were once smooth and fit into the other parts of the puzzle are now jagged and forcing it to make sense- to fit- could cause it to tear.

When it hits me what I've done, it hits me hard. I feel like a million brick have slammed right into me. That's the thing about revelations though- they're sudden, they are the 'a-ha' moments.

Except no one is laughing.

No one is laughing at all.

I see my dad again.

But this time, he isn't the man laughing, the sun in his hair on the seashore.

He's walking down the driveway, his back strong and broad- fitted in his uniform. I knew he was smiling just because I knew him so well.

He waves and my heart is hopeful, my mind dreaming of the day he'd walk up that driveway and be home.

Sometimes I still dream.

"I don't remember much"

"But you confessed!" the officer said, his voice raising. He slammed his hands on the desk. "Did you or did you not killed Jenna Marshall?"

I was silent then, in case my own words betray me and set me free.

…

Days later I look into a mirror for the first time I've been here. It's not me, that girl, I conclude.

…

My mind wonders at silly things. Like the ingredients to the pie Hanna and I made last summer …or the motion of the road as it wounded and expanded the horizon beyond, an elusive creature in the dawning sky. I remember the way Toby's hair had lifted in the breeze, massaging it with its windy finger as he rode his bicycle far ahead of her.

Simple things like intonation in Spencer's voice as we had traded our sleep for conversation way into the night and into the early morning hours.

I guess it is true then: you never miss a thing until it is gone.

…

My insides churn at the idea of a clock with no hands.

Think about it for a moment.

You are stuck. No way out.

A prisoner in an invisible prison.

…

To be dead while alive

Is worse

Than

Death after dying.

I hear the ocean. I taste it on my tongue. I feel the wind tickling and soothing my face.

I see the infinite expanse of the earth sky and I feel infinite too.

I'm safe here. So maybe I'll stay here.

Thanks for reading. Don't forget to review.