Portrait of a Fallen Angel
Chapter 4: Ghost of You
I never said id lie in wait forever
If I died we'd be together
I cant always just forget her
But she could try
He stepped inside the church, his mind flashing back to another event that had made him notice Emma more than normal. It was shortly after Rick came back. Emma had tripped him in the dot, and Rick became really mad. He looked like he was going to hit her. And that's when Jay dragged him outside and punched him. Everybody was going to beat him up, but Emma had stood between Alex and Rick, pushing Alex away and telling them to leave him alone. Such an act of bravery, Jay had thought, and it amazed him.
As he walked down the aisle to find a pew, Jay couldn't help to think that if Emma had noticed him, talked to him, or even tried to like him, things would have turned out differently. People around him were all dressed in black. Shocked looks on their faces. They couldn't believe what had happened. It could have been different, Jay kept telling himself; it didn't have to be this way.
He looked at the front of the church, where Spike and Snake and Manny were gathered around Emma's coffin. He walked up to them cautiously, afraid of what he would see. Lying inside the dark brown casket was the beautiful love of his life. Her blond hair spread out on the pillow, her arms at her sides. People used to say that the dead looked peaceful when they are buried, after the morticians have made them look 'like the people they were when they were alive'. Someone who didn't know Emma, someone who hadn't really paid attention to her, someone who had just seen her masquerade, would have said, "she looks beautiful. She looks like she has found peace." But the truth was that she didn't look like Emma. She looked pale, and unhappy. She looked dead. His mind flashed back to the way she got that way.
At the end of the world
Or the last thing I see
You are
Never coming home
Never coming home
Jay had been waiting for Emma outside of her house. He was in his car, parked out of sight. He hadn't seen her much all day and he was getting impatient. That's when he saw it. She was walking down the street, her beautiful blond hair swaying back and forth. Her fragile hands laced with Peters.
Could I? Should I?
And all the things that you never ever told me
And all the smiles that are ever ever...
Ever...
The anger inside him began to build. Emma was his. She belonged to him. He loved her. He watched her every move. And now she was with the very pervert that had exposed Manny Santos to the entire school? He couldn't allow that to happen.
Once she was inside, he saw her silhouette through the window. He waited long enough for her to go to sleep, and then he walked up to her window and climbed down through it.
But she wasn't in her bed.
He saw her shadow, in the bathroom. He heard the sounds of her vomiting. And his heart shattered. How could she hurt herself like this? Was her body not as sacred to her as it was to him? How could she not see how beautiful she was?
Before he had a chance to hide, Emma came out of the bathroom.
"Jay, what are you doing here?" she asked, startled.
"I…I…Emma, I love you," he blurted out.
Her eyes narrowed in a look of disgust. "Do you need another blowjob or something, because I don't do that anymore," she said, pulling the blankets of her bed down.
Get the feeling that you're never
All alone and I remember now
At the top of my lungs in my arms she dies
She dies
The comment shattered him. And he lost it. In a couple of steps, he was in front of her, his hands around her throat. The look on her face was terrified. Shocked. Relieved.
"I'm sorry, Emma,' he was saying. "I'm so sorry. I love you. I only wanted to help you. I want to end your pain."
She struggled a little bit, trying to claw at his hands, trying to breath. But the anorexia had made her lose her strength and she couldn't fight long. Her body went limp underneath his hands.
Tears streamed down his face. "I'm so sorry, Emma." He picked her up and laid her down in her bed. He pulled the blankets up over her.
He kissed her on the cheek. "You're pain is over now," he said.
She looked peaceful.
At the end of the world
Or the last thing I see
You are
Never coming home
Never coming home
Could I? Should I?
And all the things that you never ever told me
And all the smiles that are ever gonna haunt me
Never coming home
Never coming home
Could I? Should I?
And all the wounds that are ever gonna scar me
For all the ghosts that are never gonna catch me
If I fall
If I fall (down)
At the end of the world
Or the last thing I see
You are
Never coming home
Never coming home
Now, standing above the casket of his beautiful Emma, his tears began to fall. He wanted to hold her, to kiss her and to lie across her casket and cry his eyes out. But he couldn't do any of that. All he could do was watch as her body was lowered into the cold ground.