Friendly Secrets
Disclaimer in first chapter.
Emily and Layla stayed with Corey for three days and then they caught their flight to Port Charles. In the time that they had been at the ranch Emily learned a lot about her mother and her family in general. She found out that even though the men ran the business–and she still wasn't sure what 'the business' was–the women were the strength. She also found out that not only did she look a lot like her mother, but she acted like her too, Paige wanted to be a lawyer so that she could work in the family business and she was planning on going to law school when all of this stuff started. That was out of the question considering the fact that she now spent her life on the run.
"Hey, Em can I tell you what I wanted to say?" Layla asked as she put the magazine she had been looking at away and turned around in her seat.
"Oh, yeah definitely, I'm sorry you wanted to have this talk days ago," Emily said all of the sudden feeling very guilty about how little attention she had paid her friend who had stood by her side through all of this.
"Don't worry about it you have been going through a lot, I just thought this would be good for you to know before we got to Port Charles. I mean it's kind of important and also part of the reason I wanted to come with you." Layla said as she twisted her fingers around each other in a nervous gesture. "I just want you to know that I'm really sorry for not telling you this earlier and I don't want you to be mad…"
"I'm not going to be mad at you," Emily interrupted her. "No matter what you say I won't be angry with you I promise. I've learned a lot in the last couple of days and I think the most important thing is that no matter what the people you love do they always deserve a second, third, and even fourth chance. And I love you like family, regardless."
"Okay well I'm just gonna come out and say this then. I'm…umm well I'm Sonny Corinthos' sister."
"Huh, that's not exactly what I was expecting you to say…I mean don't get me wrong I'm not mad, I wouldn't really have a right to be, but…umm how do you know?" Sonny had a sister; Emily couldn't believe it. This would be really funny if it wasn't so crazy.
"Actually I found out a few years ago," Layla said. "I even went to see him, but I couldn't do it, I couldn't walk up to someone I hardly even knew and tell him that I was his long lost sister. I mean really would you believe that, but then I saw you getting ready to go and meet your aunt and find out what was happening in you life and I just took my chance. Crazy, huh?"
"No, not crazy at all. Just human." When Emily said that Layla looked at her through different eyes, she couldn't believe that someone actually understood what was going on in her head. She had never really had a true friend and now she had one that was willing to forgive a lie. Even though so many people she loved had lied to her.
"Well how about you sit back and get ready for another long story?" Layla asked smiling. She knew it was time to finally get all of this out in the open and maybe even gain a brother. "Okay well, first off I'm really only his half sister, we share the same father. I guess it had been about a year since I tried to see him when you came to the clinic, at first I didn't know who you were, Jason came to visit you and I knew who he was. You see before I went to see Sonny I did some research on who he was, there were a lot of headlines and your brothers name was right next to his in most of them. Anyway, imagine my surprise when I found out who you were, I wanted to get to know you so I requested your case. I thought maybe I could get some information about Sonny out of you, but then I got to know you and I realized that you could become a really good friend so I let it go…"
"I sort of remember that you know," Emily said. "There was a time right after I broke up with Zander when you didn't want to talk about him or anything that had happened in Port Charles I just figured it brought up bad memories from your past or something. You know the whole rough past and getting stuck doing something you didn't want to…I thought maybe my talking to you about how he got stuck dealing drugs would remind you of your time as a…"
"Stripper," Layla interrupted. "It did a little, but I'm not as ashamed of that as I used to be, I mean it put me through school and now here I am a 25 year old physical therapist. Anyway, let me tell you about my life. Most of it you already know I just left out whom my father was. As you already know when I was five my mother was in a car accident while my father was gone on one of his 'trips', which really meant he was out gambling or doing something else to blow all of his money. Anyway, when the accident happened I was in the car along with my best friend and her mother. When the EMT workers got there they couldn't really identify who was who, so I was sent to the hospital under my friend Maria's name and when I arrived I was in a coma for a couple of weeks. In that time my father had come back and found out what happened, but they told him that I was my friend and since I was the only one to survive the crash he though my mother and I were both dead so he left and by the time I came around he was nowhere to be found.
"Considering the fact that my friend and her mother's only relatives lived in Europe and couldn't get there the hospital didn't really believe me when I told them they had the identities mixed up. So I had to wait for them to arrive and confirm what was going on. After that I was placed in foster care and I stayed in contact with Maria's grandfather for a while and he sent me money and stuff when I really needed it, but he died when I was sixteen and by that time I had gone through numerous foster homes. Some of them were abusive homes and by the time I turned seventeen I was done with that so I ran away and eventually became and emancipated teenager and had to earn a living on my own. That was when the stripping and drugs came in.
"I stayed on that path for a little while until I got into another car accident and had to have some physical therapy done, while I was in rehab for my legs I got off drugs. I was really grateful to the workers at the hospital so I decided to become a therapist too, only I didn't really have money for school so I went back to stripping again and I did that for three more years, until I was 21 and then I got a good job, finished school, and here I am. Now you know the whole story."
By the time Layla was done, Emily was speechless. She had already known most of the story with the exception of the two car accidents, actually until now she had never even wondered how the woman across from her lost her mother and now she felt ever worse than she had before for never asking. Then a thought occurred to about how much Layla and Sonny actually had in common; first of all there was Mike and they both had the same experiences there, but Emily also knew that he had a history of abuse also, in his case she just didn't know the particulars. He was very guarded whenever the subject had come up. Now that she thought about it Emily realized that they were very much alike in the way the dealt with things; neither of them would show weakness to anyone unless they were forced to and even then they didn't want help. 'I'm her Jason,' Emily thought to herself realizing that in the past couple of years whenever Layla was really down or hurting the only person she would ever let try to help was her.
"So what, you don't have anything to say?" Layla asked with a hint of annoyance in her voice, she wasn't accustomed to not be responded to immediately.
"You and Sonny are going to get along just fine." Emily said laughing and then started telling her what she knew about him and including information on Michael who she later pointed out was actually a nephew to both of them.