N/A: Sorry for the brief delay! I went out of town last weekend and then had an incredibly busy work week! Fortunately, the Department of Education gave me the day off today so I was able to finish up my thoughts for you all. I'm a big fan of this chapter and this is only the beginning of Emily and Alison's talk. I hope you all enjoy :)
Chapter Song Title: "Needy" - Ariana Grande
There never has been nor will there ever be a moment that compared to waking up the next morning with Emily by my side again. Her sobs into my chest subsided after an extended period where she was inconsolable. I mean, I had nothing concrete to say that would be acceptable or assuring at the moment. All I could do was rub her back and repeat 'shhh' into her ear gently. After the tears came silence. Once I knew she was alright, I unwrapped my arms from around her and rolled over to face my bedroom door. We still hadn't talked about anything, and the last thing I wanted was for Emily to get the wrong idea about what me holding her meant.
Her pain deserved to be recognized. Her struggle deserved solace. Emily herself didn't deserve either. So once that pain and struggle subsided, so did my recognition and solace.
The exhaustion from her detox pulsed through her even while asleep. Her mouth was draped nearly wide open as she breathed deeply through her mouth. The bun on her head the night before had fallen around her face, and the bags under her eyes had only become more pronounced. I sighed as I slipped out from under the sheets allowing Emily's arm that had found its way around me throughout the night to fall to the mattress below. Today would be a doozy. There was no need to complicate an already complicated situation with Emily waking up to find me cuddled up next to her.
I trudged downstairs to start a pot of coffee and make some French toast for breakfast. I knew it was Emily's favorite breakfast food and I figured starting her day off on a happy note couldn't hurt. As the smells of butter and cocoa wafted upstairs, I could hear Emily stirring above me. I followed her every step through the creaks in the flooring.
Walking. One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six. Pause. Door closed. Longer pause. Toilet flush. Water turned on. One. Two. Three. Four. Water off. Pause. Door open. Walking again. One. Two. Three. Sliding closet door. Pause. Sliding closet door. Pause. Walking again. One. Two. Three. Four. Five.
"Al?" she questioned over the banister, causing me to jump out of fear that I had been caught for listening to her motions too closely.
"Yes?" I replied after I caught my breath.
I heard her footsteps quicken as she proceeded down the stairs before turning the corner into the kitchen, "Just wanted to make sure you were down here before… I don't know. Part of me forgot where I was this morning, so I was double checking." As she turned the corner, I could see that the pauses I was unable to account for earlier included her redoing her ponytail and throwing on a sweatshirt out of my closet before coming downstairs.
Emily had made her way to my island seating as she finished her comment, "Did you think I would leave you this morning?" I asked tilting my head to the side wondering how much of her trust I had lost when I kicked her out of my home a week and a half prior.
She refused to make eye contact with me again, "I thought maybe you had told Hanna to come over instead so you wouldn't have to deal with me… and I definitely didn't think you would make me French toast after everything I –"
"Please, don't make a big deal out of me taking care of you. Coffee?" she nodded as I filled up a cup, emptying a half-packet of sugar and swirling in a small dose of cream before passing it to her. "Food will be ready in just a second, okay babe?" I exhaled frustratingly, "I mean, Emily."
"Mmm-hmm." Her only reply back, apparent hesitation still lingering behind the small sound she produced, "Are you going to be ready to talk today, Alison? I really am sorry for just showing up last night. I didn't know anywhere else to go."
Placing her plate of food in front of her, I looked at her with as much understanding as I could, "I told you it was fine. I get it, I do. And yeah, I can be ready to talk today if you are."
We ate in silence next to each other. Though Emily attempted eye contact throughout the meal, I knew that seeing her vulnerable would only break me down before I could actually speak to her. She started eating slowly, cutting off pieces of her maple-sopped food gently, but as her frustration continued to build, the harshness of her fork hitting the plate grew distracting. She chewed with more force and finished minutes before I did. Picking up her plate, she walked around to the sink, rinsed the syrup into the drain, and wiped the plate off before setting it in the sink less than gently and walking into the living room.
When I found her less than 5 minutes later, she was pacing in front of my fireplace, whispering to herself, "-girlfriend, not a stranger. You can do this Emily. All you have to do is t-"
She stopped mid-sentence as she saw me leaning against the opening between the living room and kitchen, smiling at her.
"You nervous there?"
Even with the stress filling her face as she turned toward me, there was a glimmer that hit her eye when she saw me. I had missed that glimmer. I had missed being seen through someone else's eyes. The feeling of knowing that someone sees you deeper than you even see yourself. It sent a peace through me I had forgotten to miss.
She chuckled, giving away the anxiety she felt about the entire situation, "Of course I am... I don't even know where we're supposed to start."
Walking over to the couch and sitting, I continued, "There's no right way, Em. We just have to figure it out as we go. We had respect for each other in disagreements for over four years; we can do it again. Come on. Come sit…"
"Can I touch you?" she asked quickly as her body hit the couch, stuttering over the next words knowing they came out wrong, "Your – your face. I haven't seen you in so long. I just want to touch your face and look at you."
Despite not fully understanding, I nodded as Emily cupped my face in her hands. It was the first time we had truly looked at each other in 10 days. She didn't start with my eyes, but instead with the crease between my cheeks and smile. Warmth radiated from the sincerity behind her touch, though the tips of her fingers felt of ice. Her thumb traced the curve, the corners of her lips turning up on their edges. Her thumb moved down to the sides of my lips, trailing toward the center of my mouth just below them, caressing back and forth. Her eyes stayed focused on my face. No smile. Only extreme kindness and care were visible from behind her eyes. Her thumb proceeded to ascend through the middle of my lip up to the tip of my nose. She continued by following the bridge of my nose to just below my forehead. It was then she met my eyes, smiling for the first time since she reentered through my front door.
"I missed you." She whispered keeping her hands steady on my face as she stared at me endearingly.
Putting my hands on top of hers and hooking my thumbs under her palms, I replied, "I missed you too, Em." Using the thumbs I had just hooked around hers, I slowly pulled her hands from my face taking keeping my hands around hers, "And I'm happy you're okay, but we have to talk this out."
"Yeah…" Emily looked back down at her lap. The shame of the entire ordeal leaving a shadow over her demeanor.
Keeping her hand in mine, I began rubbing my thumb across the top of it gently, "So let's start where I tried to last night. How are you? Actually?"
She took a deep breath, but couldn't even make it through that without her shoulders shaking and chin quivering, "I – I'm okay. It's been a lot to take in over the past 10 days. But, I'm better. I see everything more clearly, and Ali, I'm just so sorry. I can't even beli-"
Her tears had taken over before we had even really begun. She collapsed into herself, bringing her face up to her hands. It was apparent that she was beating herself up over and over again for her repeated missteps.
"Hey, Em. Look at me, please." She raised her head, tears still streaming down her cheeks, "It happened, okay? You can wish to take it back all you want, but it happened. You can't change the past, but we can do all we can to change the future. You've already done half of the work by getting sober, and from here on out, you're not alone in it. Hanna's here. Your mom is here. I am here."
She nodded while simultaneously continuing to cry. I understood immediately what she was thinking behind her emotional exterior. "I know. You wish your dad were here, too. He may not be directly walking alongside you, Emily, but glimpses of him are in every life he touched."
Emily wiped her tears off with her palms, talking while trying to pull herself together, "Do you see your mom? I remember having to take public transit to come and find you in the library last year and literally carry you across campus, but we haven't really talked about that stuff since."
"Yeah, I see her. I think less now than when she first passed. But freshman year of college, I used to go to this one coffee shop because I could swear that one of the female baristas had her laugh. And sometimes while crossing campus, I can smell her perfume like she's never left me…" I took a deep pause to inhale before continuing, "You, whew, you do this thing when you smile that sends me right back to every time my mother was proud of me. And the way you take care of me, Em. You have this ability to know innately what I need at any given moment. You'll find those moments too. No one will take his place; no one can take his place. But, people will help fill the void. It will get easier. Maybe not today or tomorrow, but someday. I promise."
Emily grew silent once again, most likely trying to cope and process for one of the first times in over a month. She was working on her breathing like I had taught her. Eyes closed. Palms up. Exhaling bad. Inhaling good.
I reached toward her trailing my fingertips from the bottom of her palm to the tips of her fingers causing them to instinctively curl toward me. I whispered my next question, not wanting to startle her in her meditation fog, "So, you're doing better?"
Her eyes opened meeting mine as my fingers still traced her palm. "Yeah… I am, Al."
"That's good." My voice started breaking coming to terms with the reality that she was actually in front of me. She had returned to me, to us. She wasn't gone. "That's really good."
I turned my head toward my shoulder. Tucking my chin just below my collarbone and clenching my jaw, I tried to prevent my tears and nightmares from seeping through.
Emily clutched tighter around the fingers still lingering in her palm, "It's okay. I'm okay."
I nodded, still not facing her, but no longer attempting to hold back my tears. "I know us not speaking was for the best, but it just took me to a really rough place." My throat started to thicken, getting heavy with the thoughts and tears escaping from me. "It was hard to think that addiction had taken yet another person out of my life. That you were gone. That once again pills and chasing a high was chosen over –"
"Please don't finish that sentence."
I turned to her looking her dead in the eye, days old mascara undoubtedly running down my face by this point. I didn't care that she didn't want me to finish my thought. I didn't care that she could finally see my opinion of her choices. To move past this, we both had to understand the other completely, even through this,
"Me…"
I let the word linger in the air, "Emily, I love you. I'm so grateful that you are okay, but I hate what you did to me. Whether you thought about how I would take this news or not, I hate that for even one moment you didn't trust me to just come and ask me for help."
"It was a mistake, Al." Her fingers connected with my forearm as I processed her sentence.
"That's where you're wrong Emily. It was not a mistake. It was mistake, after mistake, after mistake. You cannot become addicted to pills and act like the first pill is the only one you are responsible for! " By this point, I was standing, pacing back and forth in the spot Emily just was. I was trying to keep my voice stable but knowing that my volume had raised dramatically, "Answer me this, Em. How many a day were you taking? At least 2 because that's how many you needed to even have a conversation with me ten days ago and that wasn't even civil." I paused, looking at her to fill in the blank.
She turned her body completely to face me, not getting upset at me standing or becoming agitated, "No more than 5, but usually 3." She said it plainly knowing that adding any more fuel to the conversation may cause me to explode.
"So every day you were making at least 3 mistakes. You can't just pass that along as one decision. You chose something else over me multiple times a day so you can't ask me to not finish a sentence, and then call it a fucking mistake when it's all you did for over a month." I realized that I was walking toward her, my voice rising with every step.
But Emily still didn't look angry or upset. Her face was empathetic, and her voice remained calm, "Okay. You're right. Can you come sit?" She extended her hand to me. I exhaled and reciprocated her grasp as she pulled me back toward her.
"You're right, Ali." She assured wrapping my hands between hers. "It wasn't just a mistake. It was a choice. I am so sorry that I was selfish and already too lost to come to you. I didn't feel in control of anything. I told you that morning that I needed something to be in control of."
She paused tracing her fingers over the back of my hand looking for some sort of reciprocation in what she was saying, "No, I get that, Em. We have to accept it at this point though, right?"
"Yes, but honestly though, it wasn't some master plan. I found the bottles and knew that any further prescriptions on them had expired. I figured that I could take them until they were done and then go from there. But no, I wasn't thinking about you. I wasn't thinking about anybody really. I was thinking about trying to get my brain to stop. I just needed to stop thinking about him and how he isn't here."
"Babe, I would love to tell you that you're going to stop thinking about him at some point, but he's your father. I told him so many times about how grateful I was that he made you into the woman I fell in love with. Every bit of him and his being continues on in you, so the best you can do for him is to continue living out his legacy through you. Be the person he dreamed for you to be, Emily. Let him continue watching your every step and have no choice but to smile. The more you live out your life with him in mind, the less you will think about how he isn't here. Because he will be here as part of you."
"I never thought about it that way…"
"And any dose of him that is reflected through you is bound to help me, as well." I continued lazily tracing my fingers in her palm as silence blanketed our conversation.
She squeezed one of my fingers lightly as she spoke causing me to gently look up from staring at our hands together, "He was more important to you than I realized, wasn't he?"
"Yeah, Em," I spoke curtly but softly looking back at our hands, not really wanting to get into a conversation about Emily's dad without telling her everything our conversations had entailed.
"Okay then, tell me." She moved one hand to my forearm willing me to speak with her touch.
"Tell you what?"
She leaned the side of her head against the back of the couch as our eyes connected. Kindness and empathy seeping from them, "Tell me who he was to you, sweetheart. I want to hear about him through your eyes."
For as many times that Mr. Fields and I had caught up late at night on their front porch, there was still many a time that were manufactured through other events entirely. One such weekend was when I came in for my brother's college graduation which coincided with our own finals and made it so that Emily couldn't come home until a few days after, leaving me in the Fields home alone.
As Mrs. Fields was cleaning up for dinner, Mr. Fields asked if I wanted to catch up. Settling into our spots on the porch, Mr. Fields chose to bypass our usual silence for a question of his own.
"So, how long's it been, Alison?"
"Since?" I turned my body to face him legitimately confused by his line of questioning.
"Since we started these chats? Since you started dating Emmy?"
I chuckled, "Well, those are two different questions because these chats started after the second time Emily and I began dating, so three and a half years ago, but I started dating your daughter for the first time over 5 years ago."
"So then we can both agree that it's been a long time."
"Yes, sir. We can." By this point, I had begun fidgeting with my fingers, twirling the edges of my shirt between their fingerprints.
"And now that Emily's not here, we can actually be straight with each other."
"I mean, I've always 'been straight' with you…" I laughed internally at my unintentional joke.
Mr. Fields sat across from me nervously for the first time since I had known him. His legs were crossed at the ankles, and despite always making eye contact with me, this time there was concern in his eye, "No, I know that. I guess I'm just nervous to ask this. My wife and I have wanted to ask you for a while, but we could never figure out the exact phrasing."
"Phrasing? Of what?"
"Hmm. Well, I guess this is the best way we heard it. What…" he readjusted himself to appear more self-confident in his questioning, "… well, what are your intentions with Emily?"
"My intentions?" I coughed startled at what he said, "Oh, well I always thought it was obvious, but that's a valid question. How do I phrase this?"
I thought genuinely about what I was going to say next. How do you tell your girlfriend's father that she's all you ever dream of? That when you two are lying in bed together, entangled and enraptured, you can't imagine your hands touching anyone else. That when she smiles, the butterflies in your chest can't be contained. How do you tell him that you would marry his daughter tomorrow if he would grant you her hand?
"I know we're young, but I do intend on spending the rest of my life with Emily. We've only briefly discussed getting married, so I'm not sure if that's something she sees for herself. But if she'll have me, I would love to be her wife some day in the future… Is that uh, what you were looking for?"
He chuckled, smiling at my response, "I guess it was, Alison. We don't picture her with anyone else, so I guess we always just worried if that was something you both talked about."
"To some extent, we do. But we really talk about having children a lot more than getting married." I looked at him while blushing, noticing his grin at the first mention of 'children.'
"Really?"
"Yeah, we talk about raising kids in my house a lot."
"So you guys would come back here?" The more I spoke about the future, the more his eyes lit up.
"Well, we do have a house completely paid off and in my name here, so at least when we first graduate. We haven't fully talked about that yet, but it's what seems the most likely."
My voice carried off while we both sat in the idea of the future.
"I think we both want something happy to fill up that house." I followed up timidly not wanting the conversation to end.
"That house?" Mr. Fields glanced at me knowing my phrasing was off. I hadn't caught it until he said it either.
"My house, you know?"
"Yes Alison, I do know. It's just interesting that you choose to call it that house and not your house."
My hand instinctively moved to my neck, scratching it nervously, "I know that it is mine, but I'd rather not lie and say that I feel an attachment to it."
"What do you mean?"
"I guess over the years, through the trauma and verbal abuse I faced at the hands of my parents' addiction and divorce that I learned to disassociate from my environment. The where is never as important to me as the who."
"And that's where Emmy comes in?"
"Exactly. We've talked so much about filling that house with joy again. I mean, a majority of the happy memories I have there already include her. So when we talk about the future, that's what we focus on. Letting laughter fill it from the floorboards up. Caring enough about its bones to send love through every fiber of its foundation. Allowing our love to permeate its walls so that it actually feels like ours and not like a distant part of my past."
"Don't get me wrong Alison, that does sound like a great plan you two have. But that's a lot to put on two 20-year olds."
"Oh, wow, no. This isn't anytime soon, soon. If you remember Mr. Fields, you started this conversation. I'm not asking for your blessing for marrying your daughter right now, sir. I promise I'll make that clear as day for you. You just were asking for our plans."
"I guess I just worry about you two growing up too quickly. When you've loved someone for so long, it is easy to get lost in the motions and not realize what's best for you both in the moment."
"I understand that. I'm just missing her right now. Like even though I know that I will see her in a few days. Even being in the same city, I miss her the 5 days out of the week we only speak on the phone. All we have done the past two years is figure out what is best for us, Mr. Fields. We would never make a rash decision about something this important. She's the best woman I know."
"I feel the same way. Well, I guess I have two great women in my life."
I laughed out loud at his sincerity, "You do. They're both excellent."
I relished in these moments, these conversations. We had grown comfortable in knowing that silence simply meant we were on the same page.
"You're second." He interrupted my train of thought.
"What?"
"Emily and my wife? They're tied for being the best women I know. And I know that had very little to do with me and more to do with how wonderful my wife is. But you are second."
"I'm second?" I smiled unsurely, not knowing exactly what he was saying.
"Of course you are, Alison. You have changed close to every assumption I had about my daughter and her feelings. You help me know that even when I'm gone, well in Texas, that she is okay. You have people check in on my wife, and you make sure that my Emmy is loved every, single day. What else could a father have dreamed of for his daughter?"
"I really am not sure. I haven't exactly – "
"The answer is you, Alison. Every father dreams of someone like you…"
As I finished, I noticed that we had subconsciously adjusted ourselves so that Emily's arm was draped around my shoulders as I held her hand, leaning into her side, "So other than you, your dad is the only person I really felt like I could ever talk to. I mean, he's the first person I ever discussed so many things with like loving you, fears about the future, my sexuality, how I –"
"Wait. You talked to my dad about sex? My dad? About our sex life." Emily tossed back her head in laughter.
"No, not sex life." I blushed more deeply than I had in years, "We talked about how I knew I was bisexual and what that is like in everyday life. You know, like if we were ever ostracized or anything for our sexualities. We talked about how you were the first woman I ever was interested in and how that affected my psyche. You know, stuff like that."
"And he was cool with that?" I nodded silently across from her.
"I think he really wanted to understand you, Em. He would mention every now and then how he wished you could talk to him about stuff that we talk talked about, but he knew how different it was, you know?"
Looking up at her, I noted the deep thought she was in. Her face appeared frozen at first glance, but when you stared closely at every facet, you could note the smile in her eyes and the smirk on the left side of her lips. She was both grateful yet remorseful. Grateful that I was able to find an adult in my life to confide in. Remorseful that she hadn't found that herself in her own father.
Attempting to console her, I turned my body to cuddle more deeply into her chest, wrapping her arms around my body as I nestled my head between her neck and left shoulder, "But yeah, he really was like my acting father the past 4 years. He meant a lot to me. Not as much as he meant to you, of course. But I will never have another relationship like I had with him in my life…" I sighed continuing my thought, "You lucked out in the dad department, babe."
"I did, didn't I?" she leaned her cheek down to my own before turning and lightly kissing me below my eye. Though romantic in nature, her gesture definitely felt more like an 'I'm sorry' combined with a 'thank you' than a true come on.
Silence flooded the room as we sat comfortably in each other's arms. I closed my eyes feeling her fingers cascade down my forearms. I felt incredibly at peace in her presence knowing that our conversation was far from over, but that we were now on similar pages. Little did I know that Emily's next question would show just how far we still had to go.
"Al, I gotta ask you something."
My eyes fluttered open wrapping my right hand over hers that was resting on my opposite shoulder. "Mhm?" I asked behind me.
"I can understand a lot of what happened last we spoke. I get your frustration and anger and disappointment. But why did you kick me out? It went against everything our relationship stands for. It went against every promise we made to each other. Why did you give up on me?"
"Em, I didn't give up on you."
"Okay, then I'll rephrase. Why did you give up on us, Alison?
A/N: There we have it! Part 1 of the talk. They still have quite a few topics to cover before they're truly patched up. Can't wait to explore Alison attempting to reason kicking Emily out (which is quite obvious, duh, but you get it). See you all the next time around.
Read. Review. Favorite. Pass Along.
Love you all
-secretpen28