Not A Pretty Girl:Alchemy Dream

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A/N: Hark! Is that me actually updating this? Has it really been a month, guys? I hope everyone is doing great! Thank you all for your patience with me, here. I really needed that break. It helped me to get away from the characters, the story, everything. If you haven't yet, give my newest, "Insatiable" a shot! It's kinda different than the other EmJays I've written, and far sexier. I'm super-stressed out right now, because of my drawing for illustration class...which is more like "drawing for i-should-have-been-a-doctor"...So without further ado, here goes! (And by the way, the song in this, the namesake of my story, is performed by Ani Difranco. You should give it a listen.)

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I am not a pretty girl. That is not what I do.

At first glance, one might have decided she was an angel. Mist fluctuated around her shoulders, bouncing from her loosely folded arms creating an aura around her. Jay stood silent at the doors, staring out at the girl on the sidewalk.

She had stood there for almost a half hour, wanting no one around her, nothing to touch her. He had just watched her, unsure of what to say or do, unable to find the words to express what he felt. His girlfriend had had a miscarriage.

Jay had no idea what that meant, but through context clues had put together that somehow Emma had lost the baby a month or so ago. He was overwhelmed with a series of negative emotions he'd never experienced, the kind that come up in the form of bile and exit through your lips as you hover over the hospital toilet, unable to comprehend how quickly things are shifting in the world.

And he felt incredibly selfish.

Sucking in a shaky breath, he adjusted his hat to shield his face as he strode into the storm to at least try to understand what she was feeling. No words would form as he gripped her shaky, cold, wet shoulders. Emma sniffed loudly, trembling from cold and something else, and brought a wet hand to run through her wet blonde hair. Everything was so...damp.

I ain't no damsel in distress, and I don't need to be rescued.

He licked his lips and looked up into the dark afternoon sky, pulling her back towards him, resting his chin on the top of her head. She spoke first.

"Well, I guess you're free, Jay." Her voice was filled with anguish and sarcasm.

"What?"

"You don't have to pretend, you don't have to do..." she turned and gestured at the two of them "...this." Jay just pulled her closer, ghosting his thumb along her spine.

"Em..." she cut him off.

"I didn't even really want it that much! God, I mean, I just...why does it hurt so much?" Jay didn't know quite how to answer, so he said the most obvious thing.

"I don't know."

The two stood in the rain for a little while, before Jay tried to direct her inside. She would not budge.

"Emma, you'll get sick."

"I don't care," she said softly.

"Emma," Jay warned.

"I DON'T FUCKING CARE, Jay!" she screamed, the pain in her voice causing his heart to squeeze.

"I'm just trying to help you, Emma! Let me help you! I'm...I'm part of this too!"

"You don't have to be, Jay! Why don't you just...leave!" she said.

"Why do I have to leave, Emma? It was mine, too! Don't you think I feel a little, just a little bad, too?" Emma sighed, trying to imagine what he was feeling.

"I...I know, Jay. It's just, I don't know what to do. I mean, I, we had all these plans, and now..."

"Now, you have so many options open, Emma," Jay said, pulling her into a hug, squeezing her back. She looked at him confused, but continued to hug him. Jay sighed. "How do I put it...I mean, you wanted to go to college, right? Maybe this was some crazy...preordained thing. Maybe you and I...you and I and a kid, just wasn't supposed to be." Emma pulled away for a moment.

"Jay...I would give up college to be able to do this," she said, hopeful. Jay pushed her further away.

"Emma, no. No. You don't mean that. You're so much better than this. Than...me. You know? Maybe under...different circumstances this could work," Jay sucked in a breath, fighting the water in his right eye, "but...maybe this is what was supposed to happen. Maybe we...weren't." Emma stood for a second, letting a small, maniacal smile creep to her lips. Jay looked into the shaking eyes, the tears blending with rain, the sad, knowing smile on her pale, chapped lips.

"You want this." Jay began to shake. "How come I couldn't see it? You want this to all end." Emma reached forward and pushed him hard on the shoulders, and Jay stumbled back into a puddle. "You don't want me anyways." She looked at him and shook her head angrily.

"Em..."

"Don't call me that! Don't ever call me that!"

So put me down, punk. Wouldn't you prefer a maiden fair? Isn't there a kitten stuck up a tree somewhere?

"Emma, look. I mean...I'm trying so hard here, I don't know what's going on at all! No one will tell me what's happening to you! It just seems to me that I've done something wrong! Maybe it's my fault that it..."

He couldn't bear to say it. Died.

"It isn't your fault, Jay! It's just a genetic thing, it couldn't have been stopped anyways!"

"What if something's WRONG with me?" Jay shouted, unable to control his emotions. Emma was taken aback. She had never dreamed that Jay was insecure, that he had these types of feelings.

"Jay..." Emma said as she moved closer to him, moving to touch his cheeks. She almost cried when she noticed a tear slide down his pained face.

I am not an angry girl! But it seems like I've got everyone fooled.

Everytime I say something they find hard to hear, they chalk it up to my anger, and never their own fear!

Imagine you're a girl, just trying to finally come clean, knowing full well they'd prefer you were dirty, and smiling.

"I'm sorry. Look..." he said, pulling Emma into what he knew would be their last embrace, breathing in the scent of her hair, taking all of her in, "look, Emma. Get a ride home with your folks...call me if you need me. You're a pretty girl, Emma. You're a pretty girl. You'll find someone, something. It just can't be me." He offered her a sad smile and a chaste peck on the forehead before turning to pull his keys from his pocket, striding hurriedly across the clinic parking lot. He choked back a private sob, a feeling he'd never felt in his life, and looked up into heaven, the now heavy drops soaking his already soaked blue eyes. He pursed his lips as he heard her jogging towards him.

"Wait! What do you mean, Jay? What do you mean 'I'm a pretty girl'? What the hell is that?" she cried out, almost reaching him in time, but he slammed the door and locked her out of the car, starting the engine, and pulling out of the lot. It's for the best, Emma, Jay thought to himself, pushing back his emotions.

And I am sorry, but I am not a maiden fair, and I am not a kitten stuck up a tree somewhere.

Emma watched, shaking, trembling as the little red civic roared out into the storm, leaving her soaked and alone. She swallowed and her breathing became hard and strained.

"I'm not a pretty girl! I'M NOT A PRETTY GIRL!" she shouted to no one at all, as she sat down in the puddle, sobbing and screaming. "I'm not a pretty girl!"

Soon her words became a muddled mantra and hard to understand, and her shoulders heaved, and her body shook, and her hands grabbed at her hair, and the tears streamed down her face, and her tongue licked away the blood from her lip.

And generally my generation wouldn't be caught dead working for the man, but the trouble is you gotta have yourself an alternate plan.

And I have earned my disillusionment!

I have been working all of my life!

And I am a patriot, I have been fighting the good fight!

And what if there are no damsels in distress?

What if I knew that and I called your bluff?

Don't you think every kitten figures out how to get down,

Whether or not you ever show up!

I wanna be more than a pretty girl.

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She wanted to wash her skin off. She would have bathed in acid had she known it would work.

Standing in the shower, allowing the scalding water to burn her flesh, Emma focused her tired brown eyes on a fixed point against the cream coloured tiles in front of her. She had taken three showers since getting home, each ending in tears and a hot cup of tea brought in from her mother. She wanted to wash all the memories of her mock-pregnancy away, she wanted to scrub herself until there was nothing left. She felt so tainted, so dirty, so...robbed. And so alone.

As quickly as they both had come into her life, they had both left. Physically and emotionally.

There's nothing left.

Squeezing her eyes shut, Emma pressed her forehead against the humid tile. A sigh escaped her lips as the water began running cold. The end of another escape. But she would wait. Just as she always waited, for the water to become frigid, until she shook with violent chills, reliving the day. It had become a quick routine, something to remind her of what all she had lost within the period of an hour. She heard a knock on the bathroom door. Emma listened through the spray at her mother's voice.

"Em...I know you don't want to, but if you need to, or want to talk, then please...oh, and the doctor gave us the release papers, if you," her voice became small and weak, "want to know what happened..."

After a few moments, she heard the feet pad back into the distance, and Emma bit her lip. She didn't want to face her family. She didn't want to look at papers that spelled out scientifically that her baby had died.

Gosh, I didn't even get to find out if it was a girl or boy...

Emma closed her eyes again, as fresh tears ran down her face. She had everything planned out. Her and Manny and Jay were all going to celebrate tonight, celebrate that Emma and Jay were going to bring a new life into the world, no matter how reluctantly. And now, it all seemed so far away.

Emma slid the shower door open, drying herself thoroughly, her skin red from the harsh toweling. She put on her long pj pants and a long t-shirt with a hooded sweatshirt and twisted her uncombed, wet hair into a messy ponytail. Pausing for a moment, she peeked out the bathroom door, noting that Snake and Spike were all in the kitchen eating. Emma slid on socks, to add to her stealth, and crept down the hallway into the living room. On the coffee table sat the release papers. She froze, and shook her head violently. What had she been thinking, of course they wouldn't know the gender, the baby had been lost unconsciously when the bleeding had occurred. Turning on her heel, she made her way back down to her basement room. A tug on her pants stopped her in her tracks. She turned and was met with the innocent eyes of her baby brother.

"Emmiiiee..." he said, more about question than acknowledgment. Emma smiled wearily.

"Jaccckkkiiieee."

"Emm, why're you..." he pointed to her room.

"I don't feel so good tonight, Jackie." Emma smiled. Jack wasn't satisfied.

"I feel sad tonight, Jackie." Jack waddled forward a little and clung to her leg, resting his chubby face against her knee.

"Why?"

"Because I lost something." Emma said, trying to push back the tears. She couldn't cry in front of him.

"I lost my bear..." Jack said, trying to help. Emma smiled a little.

"I have some in my room, if you want we can find you one." Jack brightened up with a smile.

"Okie."

The pair walked to her room, hand in hand, and Emma directed her baby brother to a basket of animals. Jack began going though them, eventually settling on a stuffed velveteen rabbit, an old one with a missing eye and split seams in the rear end. Jack smiled mischievously and jumped onto her bed with a squeal.

"Jackie, you better get to bed! Mama, and Emmie too, are really tired." Emma just wanted the boy to go away. He reminded her of Jay, in child form, and of how it would feel to be a mother. She didn't want to see children. She didn't want to hear them, hear their mother's proud happy voices, she didn't want to imagine packing lunches for them in Batman boxes, of helping them with times tables. She just wanted to be alone. Unconscious. Jack looked up at her.

"Night, Emm. I love you." Emma picked him up and transported him back to his room. He yawned a little, and rolled over to sleep with the soft bunny. Emma wiped a few tears from her eyes in the dark.

"Goodnight, Jack."

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Emma collapsed into her warm blankets and sobbed. It was ridiculous, all this crying. She was sure that it was only natural, but she felt selfish and stupid. Turning the bedside lamp off, she flung herself around a little, frustrated.

She felt like dying.

I just want to die.

Emma had never felt suicidal before, she had always been so positive. She didn't even know how to feel suicidal. She had known people who had cut themselves, people who had attempted to suffocate themselves with pillows...but she had never felt that extreme about her distaste with life. She had no way out. Her cell phone rang for the eighth time in the last hour. She sighed, exasperated and picked it up from the table. The caller ID blinded her in the dark.

Nine missed calls.
Manny, Manny, Manny, J.T., Manny, Manny, Manny, Private, Hogart.

Hogart!

Emma noticed the voice mail icon blinking and pressed all the necessary buttons to hear his voice.

She curled up in a sobbing ball as she listened.

Em..Emma, this is Jay. Look...I don't know what's gonna happen. I don't, I can't predict the future. I just know I can't be alone tonight."

Click.

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Well, there we go. Not as good as it could have been, but I hope that it kinda captured the anguish...I hope you enjoyed it regardless. Reviews are love! XOXO