First of all: August is back on the show! Thoughts, feelings about it?
Second of all: ... I sorry for that chapter. I really am.
She barely hears the footsteps following her over the sound of her own heart drumming against her ribs almost painfully. Her breathing is ragged as she runs up the stairs and it has little to do with exhaustion and a lot to do with the tears blurring her vision, the sob getting caught in her throat.
"Emma, wait!"
But she doesn't – it is a feeling she had almost forgotten, the need to run, fly, flee, the need to get away as fast and far as possible. Something she thought was behind her, now that she is living with Marco. How wrong she was, to let her guard down, to let someone in – how wrong she was to trust him, to believe he would keep his end of the bargain.
She fights against another sob, almost chokes on it, as she reaches for the door to her bedroom. He grabs her wrist before she has time to open it, and her only reflex is to jerk him away. Hurt flashes through his eyes, but Emma refuses to focus on it right now – who gave him the right, anyway?
"Don't," she say, and it sounds like poison in her mouth, rolls like an insult on her tongue. "Don't do this."
"Do what, Emma?"
He's playing dumb and she hates him even more for it. Because Killian Jones may be a lot of things, but 'dumb' doesn't make the list – far from it. He knows, surely he must be aware of what he's done, what was happening when he uttered those words. He wanted a reaction from her, quite obviously, and he got one. Not the one he expected, but a reaction nonetheless.
She's so upset she tries to push him away, both hands on his chest. "Don't act like my boyfriend."
"I am your boyfriend!"
"NO, YOU'RE NOT!"
Her yell startles her as much as it does him, and they just stare at each other for a very long time, unable to say anything, unable to even process what is happening between them.
And it is the problem, isn't it? Nothing was supposed to happen between them, those were the rules. But she let him in, let him get comfortable around her in ways he never should have – they had a plan, they were supposed to stick to it. But between library dates and fleeting touches and heated glances, it had become more than a contract, Emma herself is aware of it now.
She let it become more, and she hates herself for it, too.
"You're not my boyfriend," she goes on, lower this time. "We are not dating. This is fake, you know it is! You agreed to it being fake!"
"And you're lying to yourself."
"You're delusional."
"You're in denial!"
Her fingers tingle with the urge to slap him. Emma knows it wouldn't help – if anything else, it would only make matter worse – but she needs to do it anyway somehow, needs the release it would bring her. Needs him to hurt physically the way she's hurting emotionally right now, needs him to feel like shit too. This isn't fair, she knows – but she's Emma Swan and so she, more than anyone else, knows nothing is life is ever fair.
"Everything okay?"
They both turn around to find August standing on the last steps of the stairs, his blue eyes travelling between both teenagers in front of him. Emma forces herself not to sigh in relief at the sight of him.
"Yes. Killian is leaving."
Another pair of blue eyes lands on her then, and it is no longer hurt she sees in them – it is blatant heartbreak, exactly the reason why she is pushing him away.
"Killian is staying," he replies in a heartbeat, and maybe it is the most surprising of all. His determination, so far from the shy, awkward nerd she's learnt to know during the last past months. This isn't him, not the him she's used to, and it throws Emma off more than she's willing to admit.
"Yes, you are. This… Whatever this is, it's over."
Killian's mouth opens wordlessly as he tilts his head in a way that can only mean don't. "Emma, no…"
"You heard the lady," August chimes in from behind. "Time to go."
She's never been more grateful for her brother's presence – she can handle her shit alright, and they are both aware of it, but it is still nice for him to have her back no matter what. Still nice for him to pointedly look at Killian until he sighs and makes his way down the stairs.
(She ignores the pang in her heart as she watches him go.)
"You okay?"
August's words bring her back to earth, and Emma slightly shakes her head before she looks up to him now that he's standing in front of her. It's as loaded as questions go, but she finds herself nodding anyway, not in the mood for his big brother act and useless probing. He stares for a little while longer, before he opens his arms even so slightly. It is all Emma needs to accept the comforting hug he's offering her.
The front door closes downstairs, and she snuggles a little closer to him.
…
She goes to the mall with Mary Margaret and Ruby on Black Friday – some kind of ritual now, even if it mostly is to watch Ruby fighting with other shoppers all day long. Emma doesn't really feel in a shopping mood this year, thought, and her phone is heavy in her pocket with the weight of texts unread. All twenty-seven of them, last time she checked. This is just sad at that point – both the number of texts and her stubbornness not to read them. They go to the same school, she won't be able to ignore him forever.
She can try, some part of her brain tells her.
And trying can be more than enough.
So Emma focuses on the throng of people around them instead, letting her eyes wander in case she finds something interesting to buy. Not likely, because she never buys anything on Black Friday, but it never hurts to check. Especially when Ruby is fighting with another woman over a red dress she doesn't need. It could take hours, so Emma gets curious in the scarves on another shelf to pass time.
"Do we tell her she already owns the exact same dress?"
Emma looks over her shoulder at Mary Margaret's words. Indeed, the dress is very familiar, even if she couldn't tell if Ruby owns it already – her closet looks like a mall of its own, after all. She shrugs. "Let her, it keeps her busy."
No amount of staring at the scarf in front of her allows Emma to ignore Mary Margaret's frown. Ah. "Are you okay? You seem a little… down."
"I'm fine," is her immediate reply – she had time to practice, what with August asking her the exact same question a hundred times last night.
"How was Thanksgiving with Killian?"
She doesn't beat around the bush. Neither does Emma. "We broke up."
"Wait, what?" comes from behind them, and both girls turn around to watch Ruby letting go of the red dress. She glares at the other woman, points a threatening finger at her face, "You're lucky it's an emergency."
She elbows her way to her friends until she's standing between them, and Emma heaves a sigh when she catches a glance of her face, stern and angry. No doubt Ruby thinks the breakup comes from Killian, which is laughable really – especially knowing how everything went down, especially when the words he uttered in the kitchen still come back to haunt her every five minutes or so.
"Why are you guys so concerned anyway?"
"We didn't know you we actually dating."
"We – I – no!"
It is as painful as reminders get. That neither of her friends know of the pact she made with Killian, neither of them know he was in on it from the very beginning – which makes things worse, come to think about it and… Wait, they really thought they were a couple? Why? How?
"Emma…" Mary Margaret starts, in that voice that makes it clear she's the mom-friend of the group. "What happened? I thought you liked him?"
"Wait, you like him?" Ruby chimes in before Emma has the time to even think of what she could reply to Mary Margaret's question. She turns to the petite brune, literally ignoring Emma. "Since when?"
It's like Emma isn't even there, the way her friends talk about her in front of her – Mary Margaret explaining everything since the Miner's Day Festival and Ruby commenting everything with 'oh' and 'ah' and 'hmm' when it is needed. So Emma busies herself with playing with the end of the scarf in front of her, if only to keep herself busy while Mary Margaret gives a detailed account of everything that happened during the past two months.
"He kissed me during my birthday party," she adds at some point.
Both her best friends stare at her with their mouth agape, until Ruby's turns into a wolfish grin. "You so like him. We wouldn't be wasting our Black Friday speaking of boys if you didn't."
…
She looks over her shoulder one last time, at Mary Margaret and Ruby still in the car. They wave at her when they see her looking, and so Emma braces herself when she turns around to face the door once more and raises her hand to knock. There are long seconds of silence before she hears the shuffling sound of footsteps, then the metallic click of a door being unlocked.
The wrong Jones face her then, and she takes a step back out of instinct.
"Erg – hi. Is Killian here?"
Liam looks her up and down, one hand on the doorframe while the other is still around the handle – it effectively acts as a shield between her and the inside of the house, which means that things will obviously not go her way. Obviously.
"He doesn't want to see you."
His voice is clipped, leaving no place for argument. Still, Emma rises on her tiptoes to look above his shoulder. She only gets to see the stairs in the corner, a coat draped over the railing, before Liam closes the door a little more. She glares at him.
"I mean it, Emma. He doesn't want to see you, so leave now."
"Please, just five minutes?"
She knows it is a lost cause even before Liam shakes his head, and feels herself deflating at that second-hand rejection. So she offers Killian's brother a weak smile, one that would never reach her eyes even if she tried, before she takes a step back.
"Tell him I came by, okay? And that we'll have lunch on Monday."
As she makes her way back to the car, avoiding the curious stares of her friends, she knows her message won't bet delivered – and even if it is, it will most likely be ignored anyway. So she opens the door to the car and sits inside without a word. Her friends both stare at her before sharing a glance, and Ruby doesn't need further prompting to announce they're having ice cream and waffles at Granny's.
Emma inhales as much as she can, even if the chocolate isn't as soothing as it's supposed to be. But drowning her sorrows in sugary food is as good a solution as any when you feel as shitty as she does – which is a lot, right now. Neither Ruby nor Mary Margaret bring the topic back on the table, discussing their plans for Christmas break instead, and for that Emma is grateful.
There isn't much left to say, anyway.
If you're willing to drop a review, please consider telling me what you thought of that chapter instead of demanding the next one already. Nothing more depressing for a writer than a "more!" or "update soon!" without a kind word about what you just read.