Wowza! So I got a bunch of alerts for that last chapter. Thank you, and also for my reviewers.
All of these chapters will be short, and my goal is to finish before next week's episode. And this was all inspired by one of Emily's lines from way back, which is subsequently the title of this story.
You Don't Choose Who You Fall In Love With
The warmth of the heat blasting in her face stings her cold cheeks as she peels out of the parking lot and heads west. It isn't until she hits the bridge that she starts to cry. The salty tears streak freely down her face, and for once in her life, she doesn't wipe them away. She doesn't try to hide her pain by eliminating the evidence that has so blatantly taken up residence on her face.
To be honest, she's tired of hiding her feelings. She's tired of the compartmentalization bullshit.
When she first started tucking away the bad, the ugly, the evil, behind locked doors, her mind was young, fresh – it was ready to face the world full-force. Regardless of what was thrown at her. She knew that when one room became too full, she'd simply create another… and another. And another.
Easy, right?
But when she took those initial steps, those very first strides toward becoming the woman she is today, no one cautioned her. No one said - be careful, love. It's only going to get harder. Not a damn person warned her of danger those doors can be; of the weight they have to hold back. And over the years, the long, tumultuous years of Emily Prentiss' life, they've been weakening. Every day, a little bit more seeps steadily out of a crack. Then two cracks… then three.
Four.
Until finally, the dam breaks. In her mind it feels more like an explosion – fire searing behind her eyes, shrapnel embedding itself in her skull, her brain – it hurts to think, it hurts to feel.
It hurts to breathe.
There's no way she could have prepared herself for this – for the pain that comes along with remembering, with reliving the past. Demons have come back to haunt her before. But not like this. This is an ambush, and she is defenseless.
Emily welcomes the sensation the tears bring as they drip off the tip of her nose, off the edge of her strong jaw. It feels good, so fucking good, to let it all out.
She can barely recall the last time she's cried – like, really cried. Her breaths come in short gasps, and go in small, erratic bursts. The sounds she emits are not ones that she recognizes as her own. They are foreign to her, and remind her of only one other time in her life – when she mourned for the loss of her baby. She was just a child herself. Weeping under layers of soft silk sheets and half a dozen stuffed animals, she prayed for the baby that would never be given the chance to live, because she was too young to bring such an innocent being into this world.
The floodgate's open now, wide open; jammed and she can't get it closed. It's all hit her so fast, like she'd been blindsided; she doesn't notice her car is drifting, into oncoming traffic.
To Be Continued...
Quite a different ending to this chapter huh?
Reviews are love!
Jessalynn