10. "Music of the night" (Phantom of the opera soundtrack) Emma, Bye Bye Love

Author note: Hmm…even as a child and teenager Eliza always played children from broken homes… and yet her own seems pretty loving and solid? Lol. Well her parents are divorced but she always comes across in interviews as being very close to her brothers and mother. ..

In the treehouse of her childhood home, Emma hugged her knees to her chest, tears dripping steadily, as she tried to ignore the noises all around her. They formed a nighttime cacophony that blended into a whir that seemed to roar, unbearable, in her ears. Crickets chirping, children's voices on a driveway close by, the yells of the man on the lawn- what used to be HER lawn- to get off his property, to let down the treehouse's ladder and leave. All of this seemed faint and far off in comparison to the sound of her own pounding heartbeat, to the gasping of her sobs.

Emma's stomach churned, and she hurt, emotionally and physically. She was humiliated, hurting, feeling the effects of her first bout of drinking…but most of all she was grieving. She was beginning to fully realize the extent of what she had lost, what had been gone from her long before reaching fourteen. Her home, her security, her chance at feeling completely loved, completely safe, completely happy…her family. And only now did she realize how everything was even worse than she had understood. Nothing was right, everything was so, so wrong… and it would never be better, nothing could go back to the way it had been.

Emma wanted for everyone and everything to fade away, stop speaking and moving, to leave her alone in her misery… she couldn't tolerate their voices, their yelled admonishments or calls of concern. She didn't want them, any of them.

But yet, all she wanted was to be small again… to be warm and loved and protected, cherished, to feel safe and whole and secure. She wanted her family back… she wanted everything to be the way it used to be, with her little and lavished on, for her parents to be happy…to be together.

Why couldn't she have that?