Within
An Emma story, by Juliet
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Have you ever had the feeling of your skin wanting to erupt; it starts out feeling like your legs do when you've been sitting cross-legged for too long and they're beginning to numb? That tingling feeling that begins to feel more like prickling than tingling when you try to move and have to sit stationary in one spot for a long period of time, because you either can't move a muscle or it just hurts - physically hurts - too much to stand or roll over. I've been sitting at this desk for an hour just contemplating things; how things got so blatantly screwed up. I've been counting down the hours until The Talk.
That's what I've been calling it for the past couple of hours. It's not like that horrifying Birds and the Bees talk my mother graced me with when I entered Grade Six; it's more of a "What's wrong, Emma? Why are you acting like this, Emma? You haven't been yourself, Emma. Tell us what's wrong, Emma. We love you too much to see you hurt like this, Emma." Emma is dead. Or I was dead, and then reborn within a matter of minutes. And the person I've become is frightening, I'll admit that. Because it's different than the person I used to be. I still like watching documentaries on endangered turtles every now and then, but something inside of me has completely morphed into something so foreign. I feel like an alien within my own body.
I could say a bunch of things, blaming everything on the damn shooting. After all, he pointed the gun at me, you know? But I feel like I got out almost easy, because Jimmy was the one who got shot in the back. In the back. Rick was his friend - was he not? Or something close to a friend, I suppose. To all of us, until he . . . exploded, like I feel I'm about to. Only, a hundred times more intense. The gun was pointed directly at my head. I could practically see into it, almost awaiting the bullet, thinking that if my reflexes were quick enough, I could jump out of the way or duck. But then Sean stepped up - Toby and I couldn't. We just couldn't. It was as though my feet had melted into the floor. I couldn't move, not that I hadn't wanted to.
I just remember him - Sean - taking a hold of my arm and pushing me back, trying to reason with Rick. He almost died, too. The gun went off and I clung to Toby like he was my last link to redemption. They both fell. They were both still against the hall's floor. I saw it in black and white; and I know that must sound somewhat strange - but it's true. I saw it like an old black and white movie, in slow motion. I could hear them fall to the floor . . . and then silence. The echoing of the bullet had came and went - they lay there entangled and still. I wanted to shout, "Move! Somebody just move!" But I couldn't say anything. I just cried. I felt like the most coward of them all. At least Toby had said something. I just tried to walk away.
He got up, though. Sean. And he was okay. But Rick . . . dead. Dead. And a part of me died with him. And another part of me died when Sean left, because he was the only real person I could talk to about it, other than Toby, who is too caught up in his friend's death and the death of a friendship to even bother to become my therapist for a little while. And now that Sean's gone, I feel like I have no one. I wish I could talk to Toby, but he's not there. And Sean isn't. I had no one. No one. So I had to turn to the only person I shouldn't have. And now I'm sitting here, completely unaware of my surroundings.
But I do hear the door creaking open and my mother's voice at the top of the stairs. "Coming, Mom." It's okay, though, because I had time to practice my smiles earlier.