It was late before Emma returned home that night and Elle and Mikey were already upstairs in their rooms getting ready for bed when the front door shut quietly behind her. Will stuck his head around the kitchen door and walked over to meet her. "Hey babe, do you want dinner?" He asked as she rubbed a hand across her face tiredly.
"Uh no thanks I grabbed something to eat during refs not that long ago." She replied, kicking off her shoes and following him into the living room. "So what's been happening today?" Emma asked flopping down next to him.
"Well I uh…I don't know how you'll react to this but just hear me out before you go and do anything okay." Will said, puzzling Emma. "I got home at lunch today and I heard noises coming from upstairs, erm when I went to see what it was I found Elle in bed with her boyfriend David." He finished quietly.
"SHE WHAT?" Emma shouted in exasperation. She was about to get up off the sofa but then remembered the promise she'd made to Will at the beginning of the conversation and settled herself back down, still fuming silently.
"I took her down to the clinic and she took the morning after pill so she's fine in that respect but really I don't think sleeping with him was what she really wanted. I think that she's a little confused about how to behave with a boy at the moment, you should probably talk to her, you know find out what's going on. There's got to be more to this than what it seems, she's a good kid, she wouldn't do this I know she wouldn't." Will said still in a state of mild confusion.
Emma just sat in silence staring at the wall with a large picture of their family on it. It had been taken last year when things had been normal. It wasn't on of those traditional family photos where the were all sat on the floor with cheesy smiles on their faces, they had gone into the studio and the guy had produced tonnes of beach balls which they kicked and threw around while he took the photos. The end result being that Mikey was throwing a ball at Emma who was ducking and laughing and Elle was under one of Will's arms being tickled.
"Em? Honey say something, please." Will said desperately. Emma continued to sit in a trance, tears sliding down her cheeks. Will sighed and pulled her closer to him, he lay back on the sofa and she rested her head on his chest, his t-shirt soon becoming soaked from the tears. Eventually she stopped crying and sat upright. She gestured to upstairs and began to walk slowly towards the upper floor of their house.
She tapped softly on Elle's door before letting herself in, closing it behind her. The room was pitch black so Emma reached across and hit the touch light which illuminated the room in a soft pink glow. Emma saw a lump on the bed which was shaking slightly and she tiptoed forwards. "Elle? Elle baby it's me." She said gently. In return she got a sniff so she sat down next to her on the bed. "Why did you do it Elle?" Emma asked resting a hand on her daughter's side.
Elle sat up resting on her elbows and looked Emma in the eyes. "I…I didn't want to but David did, I didn't want him to dump me Mum." She whispered tearfully.
"Oh sweetheart come here. You don't have to sleep with anybody if you don't want to. You shouldn't be anyway but people can't make you feel like that. It's not right honey. He's not worth it baby." Emma said curling up next to Elle on the bed.
"He…he said Tom told him that I'd already done it before and it wasn't fair that I did it with Tom but not with him. It was scary it was like he had some kind of control over me." Elle whimpered into Emma's t-shirt. Emma shook her head gently, what did Elle do to deserve this, she was a mess.
"Babe did you actually agree to having sex with him?" Emma asked softly. Elle nodded tearfully.
"I'm sorry Mum, I've ruined everything now haven't I? I'm glad that Daddy found us because otherwise it would have gone on longer and…and it wasn't nice." Elle said, tears running faster down her cheeks now.
"Did he hurt you?" Emma asked worriedly.
"A little bit but I don't think he meant to. It hurt the other times as well but not that bad." Elle said blushing furiously.
"Baby it's okay to be embarrassed, I can't imagine talking to my Mum about this kind of thing. You're doing really well just speaking to me about it. It's normal for it to hurt a little, especially the first few times but really you shouldn't be sleeping with people yet, you're not ready for it. Your body might be but you're still a child, emotionally it's too much." Emma replied smiling gently. "How are you feeling now?"
"Truthfully?" Elle asked and Emma nodded back. "Tired, confused, scared of what you're going to say." She said in a very small voice.
"Why would you be scared of what I have to say baby, I've already said everything and I'm still proud of you." Emma said, wrinkling her forehead in confusion.
"I um…I have something to tell you though." Elle whispered refusing to look Emma in the eyes. "It wasn't just Tom that I had sex with before I was pregnant…I did it with Peter…and Gary and Beth's brother Steven." She finished turning away from Emma.
"Well we all make mistakes honey, I'm just glad you've told me now. You know yourself that you shouldn't done it but it's your problem and you've obviously been dealing with it. You don't have to deal with it by yourself though, you know that your Dad and I are always here for you." She said and Elle turned back round to face her.
"I know we all make mistakes but I made the same one…five times over." Elle replied dejectedly.
"I suppose but the important thing is that you're going to learn from it. I've made some pretty big mistakes in my time as well so you don't have to feel that bad honey, we all do it occasionally and there was a point in my life where I made a series of mistakes." Emma said wistfully.
"What? You made big mistakes?" Elle asked incredulously.
Emma nodded and took a deep breath. "You know I was married to a man before your Dad well his name was Matt. When he proposed to me for the first time I got scared and said no and he reacted pretty badly and I thought we were over. I was really upset and felt that I didn't have anybody to turn to except your Dad so I turned up at his flat and he comforted me. We were both attracted to each other and had kissed before but that was it, that night though one thing led to another and we ended up sleeping together."
Elle's eyebrows shot up her forehead and she swore under her breath almost in admiration for her mother, as she never thought that she'd be one to pull a stunt like that. "What happened next Mum?" Elle asked intrigued.
"Well I felt really guilty about what I'd done so I went back to Matt and we got engaged. The night before our wedding though the guilt and the amount of alcohol I'd drank had a strange effect on me and I came clean about the one night stand. Matt went and got his friends to beat up Will but I didn't know this much and I married him. It was a few months later when he started abusing me. I won't go into detail but things ended messily and that's why he's in jail. Your Dad was there for me when nobody else was and I fell in love with him all over again. A year later and I fell pregnant with you two." Emma finished smiling reminiscently.
"How come you never told me any of this before Mum?" Elle asked sleepily.
"I didn't think it was relevant and it's not really a story that you'd tell to your baby is it?" Emma replied kissing Elle's cheek gently. She got no reply as Elle had already began to fall asleep. They lay together for about twenty minutes with Emma stroking Elle's shiny hair before Will came to the door and beckoned Emma over.
Emma curled up on her side of the bed and pulled the covers up around her chin. When she thought that Will was asleep she let the tears out and lay crying quietly, thinking about all the times that Matt had beaten her and all of the horrible things that he had said. She ran a hand across her stomach and felt the three scars that ran in a sort of pattern. Two were from fights with Matt and the third was the scar from the caesarean section that she'd had to have due to complications that her violent encounters with Matt had caused.
Will moved closer to her and placed his hands gently round her middle and Emma flinched. He sat up straight awake and pulled his hands back. "Baby don't think about it, he's locked up, he can't hurt you." Will said softly. This time when he put his arms around Emma she relaxed into them and he pulled her gently on his lap and sat rocking her back and forth.
"I remember the first time you did this." She whispered before falling into a deep sleep. He could remember too. How could he forget? The first time the love of his life had confided in him about the abuse she was suffering. It would have been hard to deny it given that her face and hands were covered in scratches and her stomach was bruised black and blue. He'd held her in his arms and rocked her until she fell asleep. Recalling the same feeling that he was having now, he never wanted to let her go.
Tee hee I'm going to be very very evil in the next chapter...you know part of it Emz but do you know what happens in the end...can you predict it based on what you know already...don't tell me in the review...tell me on msn or email lol I want to know what you think will happen...xxxxxxxpip