Title is referring to a line in "My Skin" by Natalie Merchant. Great, moving song. If you don't know it check it out.
Oneshot starting with the end of episode 1x15. I do not own Make It or Break it, and the words that are written differently in the first paragraph are the words oft he show, those are not mine. Credit for those goes to the writers.
„Maybe I should've known that you were one of those guys."
His heart raced. Emily had seen him here. His brain needed longer to process what he already knew. She had seen him coming out of the station, after he had been arrested. What was even worse was that she'd seen him like this. Broken, with nothing, a loser.
„W... What guys?"
His voice trembled. She didn't know what she was referring to. Her voice was cold and sincere.
„One of the guys my mother dates. The ones that won't call for days and than will call from jail, when they need bail money."
He wanted to scream, wanted to tell her that she was wrong that this would be a once in a lifetime kind of situation but somehow his vocal tract would work. He stayed silent. "I've been terrified that you'd be lying in the ditch somewhere or that this was your way of dumping me."
He was so sorry but all he did was stand there. All he could was stand there. He knew that she was hurt and in pain and nothing he'd say could take that all away. He had let her down. He shook his head.
"I can't trust you."
Only those words were powerful enough for him to be able to react again. Anger came up. He wasn't angry at her but at himself. That he let it come so far. Pleading, begging he tried to convince her of something he didn't even believe in.
"Yes, yes you can."
But Emily apparently didn't listen. She still kept her distance.
"How can you say that? When the last time I saw you … you were in L.A. supposedly singing some big record deal?"
"No … not supposedly!"
His head screamed the words but Damon himself was still begging for her to come around.
"What about our pact, Damon. You promised me you would never lie to me."
Dammit. Damon saw her pain. Now he saw her pain rather than feeling it. He didn't know which way was worse. He saw her inner struggle, her hurt behind her dark eyes. He knew he caused it, caused the usual sparkles behind her eyes to disappear. He had done that, no one else.
"Emily, listen."
But she turned around.
"No… we have nothing to talk about."
His hand grabbed her arm. Not very hard but he wasn't thinking about letting her go. She had to listen to him. He had to make her understand, had to make her see.
"Please, Emily, listen to me. Please. I beg you."
He looked straight into her eyes and saw nothing. He knew she wouldn't listen to him. Not today anyway. But he wouldn't let go. Somehow he didn't know how. His hand grabbed tighter on the only thing he could never risk to lose. It was a reflex, holding on tight to something you won't ever want to lose.
"Let me go Damon. Let me go."
"Not before you listen and let me explain."
"But I don't want to. Let me go."
Her voice lost its steadiness and if Damon had been himself he would have recognized that, he would've understood that his grip was too tight, that he hurt her and he would have stopped immediately. But tonight he couldn't. Couldn't see, hear or understand.
"I cannot let you go, Emily. Please hear me out."
By now Emily was yelling.
"I said let me go! You are freaking hurting me. DAMON! Get your hands of me."
Suddenly Damon felt hands on his shoulders. He was pulled back. Part of him wanted to be stopped, so it seemed because he was removed rather easily from Emily.
She was breathing heavily and both of her hands were on her car just as if she needed the car as support not to loose herself. Her face was terrified, full of fear and scared. As Damon caught himself, still being held by Razor, he recognized that look. It was the same look he had had all those years ago. All those years ago under the kitchen table.
In that moment, with that realisation something in him fell apart.
He fell onto his knees and stammered.
"I am so sorry Emily. I am so sorry."
He was pulled back onto his feet and shaking he was put into the car. When the door fell into its lock and Razor made his way around the car, Damon felt tears creeping up. He had done something so much worse.
This wasn't about him getting arrested or about being a failure. This was about his past coming up and him scaring the crap out of her.
Razor got into the car and looked at him. His eyes were wide open and apparently he was shocked.
"Dude, that was… that was …"
Razor stopped for a while, he couldn't come up with a word that fitted. Instead he turned the key around and started the engine.
"… intense." He finally finished.
"Intense? Intense?" Damon snapped and stared at him with red-ish, teary eyes. "It would have been intense when I yelled at her. But what I have done was so much worse."
Razor nodded.
"I didn't wanna say that but Damon, you behaved like your father. For a tiny moment I've seen him in your eyes. Of course I didn't see your eyes but she did. And I saw her horror."
As he mentioned Emily Damon's anger calmed down and was immediately replaced with sorrow. What had he done?
Razor and he were silent for quite a while. Suddenly Damon knew what he had to do.
"Can you drive to the playground? The one near Emily's house."
"You think that is a good idea, bro?"
Razor looked at him unsure.
"I've seen Emily's face, Razor. I've seen her face and it freaked me out. I freaked her out like my father freaked me out. She has experienced the same as I have and I repeated it and brought it up. I have been her worst nightmare. I need to make this right. Please." He took a deep breath. "Brother."
Razor still wasn't convinced but he was already preparing to turn around.
"Razor, I love her. I love her so much. And I hurt her. I hurt her in the most painful day I could have done. Please. Come with me. But I need to see her, I need to fix this."
"Alright, alright."
Razor turned the car around. He looked at the road ahead of them and thought a while before saying something else.
"I will call the cops though. If you go too far, I will not hesitate."
Damon was sincere when he answered.
"If I go too far, you can do whatever you have to, to make me stop. Shoot me, kill me, fight me, I don't care."
"You really love her, don't you?"
With looking at Damon you gave him a 'tell me you are kidding' kind of look, Razor left out a short laugh.
"All right, all right, I got it."
Razor turned into the parking spot, killed the engine and got the key out. Afterwards he looked at Damon once again.
"You are a hundred per cent sure? Sure she is here and that you want to talk to her?"
Damon could only nod. His body was fighting a inner struggle with his mind. This was a question about plan and reality, logic and feelings. Feelings and Reality won and Damon got out. The cold night air hurt his lungs. He looked around. He could hardly see the shape of the playground but somehow he saw a shadow under a large tree in the back. Shaking he went towards that shadow. Behind him he could hear Razor following him, he was happy about it. Very happy. As he was close enough he put his hands in the air and whispered as softly as he could.
"It's us, Emily. It's us."
The words had hardly left his mouth when the shadow jumped up. Something sparkled in the little light that fell onto the ground from the street. He knew what it was. He knew too good what it was.
Slowly he was sitting down. Razor did the same. Damon was sure Razor hadn't seen what he had seen, couldn't know what he knew but Razor surely sensed that something was wrong. That something was very, very wrong. And because of that he did the same as him.
"Look Emily. I am here because I know exactly what I have done. Razor is here to make sure something like that is not going to happen again. Please come out. Sit down 5 metres from me and please let me talk."
"Why should I?" It was a snake like sound, short and harsh.
"I love you. And I should've realised sooner but I couldn't or I didn't want but either way I wanted let you know that I have been through the same you have been through."
Silence. Then a sudden movement and Emily came out of the shadow. For a second Damon wondered whether she would sit down but he hardly thought the question in his mind as she was sitting, but not five feet away, as he had suggested but closer to him. Him, Razor and Emily were now sitting in a triangle, only a arm-length away.
"Just so you know. I do have a knife and I will use it."
Razor behind him breathed in between his teeth.
"A knife? Why a knife?"
"Because of me." Damon looked for Razors eyes but couldn't truly find him. "Because I have done something someone else has done to Emily."
"My father and several of my mother's boyfriends."
Damon nodded. He had known that.
"For how long?" His voice was hardly a whisper but she understood him immediately.
"Until I was 14. Until the last boyfriend left."
Damon once again felt tears in his eyes. He had known that she had had an awfully hard life but that it had been so bad?
"My dad used to hit me all the time. He used to get drunk when he had left his job, obviously he was trying to drown his sorrows in alcohol," he began telling the story that he had stored as a nightmare, a bad memory in the very back of his mind. He had never told the story in such detail. He had never thought he would. But this situation required it.
"It started when I turned 6. Pretty much the only memories I have of him are violent once. At first he wouldn't aim at me. I was his son, and in a twisted way he was proud of me. He was proud to have son. That meant something to him, I still haven't figured out. So he was gone half of the day and everything would be good. I would play football (soccer), play with Lego or would simply play guitar. My mother gave the guitar to me, it used to be her old one."
Damon sensed that he got carried away. That he did that in front of Emily he didn't mind but Razor did not need to hear all that.
"Anyway, he used to return in the evenings and than I just heard shouting and banging and shattering of glass and china all over the floors. I heard slamming doors and cries, sometimes even sobbing. One day, my dad would come up the stairs and found me singing to my guitar. In that moment something snapped in him. He was shouting and raging that he didn't work his ass up," Damon let out a dark, deep chuckle before carrying on. "Just to gave a fag as a son. That I also played all sorts of boyish sports didn't matter to him in that moment. So he pulled me up, I felt my shoulder bone leaving its rightful place, a sharp pain that was going through my whole body before I would stand in front of him. He would shake me and slap me until his five fingers were all imprinted on my cheek. Getting an adrenaline kick, or whatever, I was able to get rid of his hands and I would run out of my door. But he got me on top of the stairs and would push me down."
Damon suddenly stopped. There was not much more to tell.
"I ended up in hospital, my mum got a lawyer finally divorced herself from that ass and later married that lawyer. I haven't spoken to her since all that happened."
As he was looking up from the grass he saw that Emily had put away her knife, she could still reach it but it was a first step. She was always sitting closer to him. Razor was totally silent, not sure what to say, he was just staring on the ground drawing shapes into the mud.
"When did that happen?"
Damon looked at her. Directly into her eyes.
"I haven't spoken to my mum in 1a years. Since I was 7." Damon smiled at Razor but Razor didn't return his smile. "In middle school, people started to notice that I wouldn't speak and they would make fun of me but Razor wouldn't. And we've been friends ever since."
"Have you known?"
Razor looked at Emily, carefully avoiding Damon.
"I've known through his songs. When we started the band, Damon used to write some really dark songs." Razor coughed a little. "And I've seen his dad for a quick moment when he first got out."
"You dad is out of jail?"
Damon shook his head. He smiled weakly.
"He was. But then he decided to steal a car and he was straight back in." Damon was so happy that he was. He had been so nervous when he had heard that his dad would get out.
Emily got nervous. Damon sensed that something had changed within her. He put his hand on her knee. Razor was immediately tensed, as was Emily who shivered beneath his touch but would pull away.
"You don't have to tell your story. I just wanted to let you know how sorry I was. And that I know exactly, what you must have been through."
Emily chuckled darkly.
"Apart from the fact that I am a girl."
Damon knew what she meant. He knew it on the spot. Razor behing him needed a lillte longer but got it eventually. Razor was also the first to find his voice.
"Don't tell me you've been ra…" His voice lost it strength. He couldn't say it.
Emily shook the head and Damon had never been more relieved as in that little moment.
"No. Luckily not. Just touched. And that only once. With the last boyfriend. That's why me moved to Boulder. To get away from him."
The three hadn't said something in quite a while. Razor suddenly got up and looked at them.
"I'm getting cold. I am getting my jacket out of my car. Are you two all right out here? Can I leave for a second?"
Emily looked at Damon for a short moment. She let her eyes wander across his face, his body and stopped at his eyes, trying desperately to read them. Then, after a time that felt like forever she nodded. Razor gently squeezed her shoulder before turning around on the spot and going back to the parking area.
"That explains why you have a phobia of singing."
Emily looked at Damon with an intensity that made him feel uncomfortable, as if she could see right through him. Suddenly he felt so exposed, so naked beneath her stare.
"I haven't told you the story for you to play my therapist." He smiled at her and his smile grew even wider as he saw that her lips were smiling back at him.
"Why have you told me the story, Damon?"
Damon couldn't find his voice. He lay back on his back and looked at the stars.
"I wanted to make sure that you don't see something in me that I am not. Coming out of prison I felt so worthless. Not only had I screwed up my music career in L.A. but also did I get arrested. I felt like my dad. And then, when I got so desperate, when you threatened to leave, that I behaved like him. And that freaked me out, Emily. That freaked so much that I thought I had to fix that. I had to tell you everything. So that you could understand."
"Have you ever hit a girl?"
The question came out of the blue and Damon considered lying for the blink of an eye. But Emily deserved the purest truth he could find.
"Once. My first girlfriend, when she cheated on me. I slapped her when I found out and afterwards I was so ashamed and felt so dirty. I would love to go back to that moment and change it but I can't."
He felt the pressure on the ground next to him as Emily lay down beside him. But he didn't turn his face. He kept looking at the stars. Swelling in all the things he had done wrong.
"You see why I freaked myself out? What happens if I turn out like my father? What happens if I disappoint you, we break up and I start hurting you. I couldn't live with that. Emily, seriously, I couldn't."
He felt the heat on his cheeks as she let her fingers run across his skin.
"We are both so messed up, you know that?"
Damon couldn't suppress short chuckle. It was misplaced and shouldn't have happened but did. Luckily Emily didn't mind.
"I have trust issues, you broke my trust, you restore it, break it. You have troubles with being left out, failing. The thing is Damon… Look at me."
He turned his face to her.
"Life is about failing. It is about being hurt. It is about breaking and mending. It is like in gymnastics where you need to fall down more times than you can count before finally holding on, keeping up, making it. You need to break before you can make it."
Damon saw her eyes becoming wetter.
"And we both have issues and we probably should even be together, and maybe it won't work out, but the thing is… I cannot live with the thought of not having you in my life. Because I feel like I can only work on me when you are around. You make me the person I see myself being in the future."
"Does this mean … ?" Damon couldn't believe was she was saying, he couldn't believe what he was hearing.
"Yes, Damon. I love you, too. I want to take this risk with you."
"Ohhh." He moaned. "Do you know how much I love you?" He was pushing his head a little closer to hers, wanting, lusting for her kiss, but she turned away in the last moment and got up. She was now sitting next to him.
"We need to be truthful to each other. And speak about things like that. Is that clear?"
"Yes, ma'am."
"And if you ever hurt me, I am gone. Understood?"
"Of course, ma'am."
"And if, and that is a very big if, we ever have a child, we cannot, under any circumstances let our pasts, fears and doubts let affect the child."
With one slick movement Damon sat up and pressed his lips against hers, his tongue looking for an entrance, playing with hers, discovering her mouth. A kiss full passion, lust and promises. Between kisses Damon could change but ask something.
"Given that we just got back together, isn't it a bit early to talk kids?"
Emily laughed a kiss.
"But one can always try for one, right?"
She pushed him down on the grass and now lying on top of him, she started kissing him again, although it felt like they never stopped.
"Ugh! Guys! Stop it!" The voice cleared its throat. "We are on a playground and I was only gone for a couple of minutes, this is gross."
Damon broke the kiss and looked up at him, seeing his face upside down.
"Jealous? Do you wanna join?"
"Haven't you heard what I said? G.r.o.s.s."
Now it was Emily's turn to look at him, she got up, helped Damon do the same before putting her arm around Razor and nudging him in his side.
"And that coming from the boy who had this huge crush on me!"
With those words, loud, free laughing suddenly filled the clear, cold night.
This story had to get out. I am going to continue my WilSon Story very soon and I take this as a good omen that I actually start to write again.
I hope this story is not to dark for you, I kind of was intrigued by the fact of both Emily and Damon being messed up so much and that they both had to struggle a lot but in the end found each other because of that.
Would love to hear what you think about it? Reviews, reviews, reviews! :D Thank you so much!
xxx