Chapter 3
AN: I am still a little uncertain of exactly where I am going at this point, I have a clear picture of the characters in my head, but they are not cooperating with me. That being said, I know it has started off a bit slow, especially with it being all in Emma's head/voice. I think this chapter may be the last of the back story fill-in, and we should be getting to the point in our story where things are happening either in real-time or in the very recent past. I am also toying with swapping the pov in the chapters that arent being "written" by Emma. Maybe 3rd person omniscient or alternating character POVs. If anybody reads this and has any suggestions, I would love it. I have also picked back up writing a few of my other TNG fanfics that have been left unattended. As of right now, I don't have a clear posting schedule. I have allotted an hr a day to writing, but that won't necessarily only be for writing on this story. Trigger warning for this chapter, There is mention of rape, and the emotional aftermath. I do not get into the graphic details, but it is discussed.
Part 1:The Begining-Growing Pains and Junior High
The next two years flew by without much incident. I had mastered the art of turning myself into the perfect friend, student, and daughter. My mom's crappy boss left, and the new owner of the salon was a nice woman who was fair, and business started booming yet again. Our money problems got better, and we were happy. It took about a year after that big fight with my mom for her to put the bottle back down, but we had made it through. My friendship with Manny, JT, and Liberty was thriving, and I felt like I was no longer drowning. My only worries were the normal troubles a 12-year-old had, waiting on puberty to hit, and getting ready to go to middle school.
It was the summer before grade 7 that would leave yet another scar on me that not many knew about, and that only one other person know the whole truth about. It all started when I had made an online pen pal with a boy named Jordan. He was perfect, everything that a girl like me should want. And as none of the boys that I went to school with were interested in me, it seemed like a great idea at the time. We emailed back and forth for months, and the week before school started, he said that he was going to be in my town for a school trip. It seemed too good to be true. I was anxious about starting middle school. While I was by no means boy crazy like my best friend Manny, I did hope that by the time I turned 13, which was in a few short weeks, I would have had my first kiss. It seemed like the normal teenage rite of passage that all girls my age were going through, and in my desperate effort to fit in, I longed to get it out of the way. It was the week before Jordan, that we met Toby Issacs and welcomed him into our little group. Toby made me a little uncomfortable at first. His obvious crush on me was worrisome; I am so thankful that he found his way into our lives, though. After all, had we not met him, I may not be alive right now to tell you this story.
The Jordan Situation, as we took to calling it in later years, is not exactly a secret, but even those who know about it, do not know the full extent of it. As this is not something that I particularly enjoy talking about, I am not going to go too in-depth about it, but I do want to set the record straight, if only for peace of mind in knowing I was finally able to say it out loud. When I finally went to meet Jordan, I found out that he was not a boy my age at all but a grown man who was pretending to be my age. I can honestly say that it was one of the scariest moments of my life. The story that I told my mom, the cops, and all of my friends was that Spike had made it there in the nick of time and that other than a little bit of roughing me up to try and prevent me from leaving, nothing else had thankfully happened. I couldn't bear to tell them the truth. I was so ashamed. I was ashamed of myself for being so stupid as to have fallen prey to this man. I was worried about my mother finding her way back into the bottle and not being able to look at her own daughter without being heartbroken, and I could not bare for the reputation and personality I had spent so many years constructing to be shattered. What they don't know is that I was in that hotel room a lot longer than they thought I had been. I was so excited and anxious to meet Jordan, that I arrived almost 2 hours earlier than our planned meeting time. That man kept me locked in that hotel room for over an hour before I was able to break free and run out and into the arms of my mother and the cops. I think about that a lot, about what would have happened if Toby hadn't figured out what was going on, and hacked into my email to send me help. Who knows, in the long run, maybe it would have been better if I had met my end then. There would be so much less pain, heartbreak, and pain for so many people, in the long run, had I met my demise then. I spent the next several months having nightmares about being in that room with that man, and still, to this day, I can feel his hot breath on the back of my neck and feel his hands grabbing at me. I guess some wounds don't ever completely heal. It took almost 3 more years before I was able to finally say the word for what had happened to me in that room, rape. It is such a small little word, and yet I couldn't even think about it, let alone say it for years.
Having tucked my dirty little secret into the back of my mind, and after assuring my mother that I was ok enough for her to let me out of her sight for more than 10 minutes at a time, the first year of grade seven started, and life went back into a normal pattern. I went to school, focused on my grades, and spent time with my friends. I continued to tuck those fraying edges of myself away where no one could see them, and they couldn't hurt anyone. It was during the year of grade seven that I meet the third person who would impact my life, none other than Sean Cameron. Now, I know what you all are thinking, what could I possibly have to say about me and Sean, that hasn't already circulated around the school gossip chain at least a few times. And for the most part, you are right; most of you know about the star-crossed love that was me and Sean, but what you don't know, is that there was more that went on than you could ever have guessed. The second revelation is this, and I know this will come as a shock to pretty much everyone, except for maybe Sean himself; Sean was not, and never will be, the love of my life. While I do think that, at a point, what I felt for Sean was love, I'm not really sure that we were ever really and truly in love. I don't think either one of us was old enough or mature enough to really know the difference. I can promise you this, my statement of this fact is not some petulant way of trying to get in a last dig at an estranged ex-boyfriend. It's not even me being in denial about what we had, or felt for each other. I am not denying that we didn't have a certain chemistry about us or that we felt nothing for one another. But after having been truly in love with someone, That all-consuming, brightly burning, and completely gut-wrenching love that changes you to your very core, I know that what Sean and I had wasn't that kind of love. But I am getting a little ahead of myself here. After all, I did warn you that this was a story in 3 parts, The Beginning, The middle, and The end, and you, my love, will have to wait your turn before I get into our story. After all, you are part of the reason that I am sitting here, writing this all out. Now be a good little boy, and wait your turn.
