A/N I'm almost done! I think I'll probably add about four or five more chapters. It will get better, I promise! Enjoy! (:

Emma loved Gabe so dearly. She couldn't believe that she could love someone as much as she loved him. Or did she love him? Maybe she didn't love Gabe at all, she just disliked herself more than she ever had before and was just confused.

Regardless, she wasn't willing to loose Gabe, no matter how much he hurt her.

She almost had forgotten about how bad it was at school, she remembered every time she saw, Terri though.

"Emmy Wemmy." she said, her usual smile plastered on her face. Emma figured that she would let it go in a week or two like she usually did when she found a victim. She underestimated her hatred.

"Terri, it's getting so old. It's all getting old."

"I don't think so." She said, grinning. "I think it's still just as fun as it ever was. It must be awful to know that Will can forgive Gabe, but not you."

"I know I didn't do anything."

"Well Will doesn't."

"One day Will is going to realize what an awful person you are and everything you've done and it will all be over, until then… His loss." She walked away, proud of herself, because for once she actually sort of believed what she said was true.

-xxx-

Her positive mood didn't last long, however, Gabe made sure of that. Another fight about something so stupid and generic. They all seemed to blend together, all the fights. Emma even started to wonder if maybe it wasn't all her fault after all.

Gabe reminded her every fight, though. It was the hate that he spewed at her that hurt the most. She could take a punch, hell she'd done worse to herself, what really hurt was the things that he was saying as he hit her. That she couldn't take, because those were all the things that she feared he would think of her.

Emma always just wanted the fights to end, which was why she closed her eyes and pretended like she was some where else, she imagined sometimes that she was with Will, making snow angels, only she wasn't six years old any more. She was sixteen, almost seventeen, and they were best friends, like she so badly wanted them to be.

"Emma, I don't know if I can handle you anymore." He said, her blood on his fist.

"What are you talking about, Gabe?"

"I don't think that I can handle you anymore. There is just so much wrong with you."

"I know. I know there is but please don't be saying what I think you are." Her voice was stricken with panic.

"I don't want to do this anymore. You turn me into this total dick."

"I know!" She screamed. "I know everything that's wrong with me! You don't have to remind me."

"Then you should understand why I'm done with you." He didn't understand what he did when he walked out and left her like that on the floor of her kitchen, covered in her own blood and tears.

She stayed there until her mom came home. "Emma, oh my God, sweetie, what happened?"

She didn't stop crying to answer, but she didn't have to, because she knew that her mother already knew.

"Did Gabe do this?"

She responded with a simple nod. "It's not his fault though, Mom, you can't blame him."

"Like hell I'm not going to blame him."

"No. I made him so mad, that's why he had to do it." She said through her sobs.

Her mother took her chin with her hand and looked into her eyes. "Nothing you did gives him the right to hurt you like this."

"I don't have to worry about that anymore." She said, "He left me."

"Well he's going to have to have a lawsuit on his hands. I'm going to call a lawyer."

"No, please don't." She grabbed her mother's hand. "You don't understand, he'll hate me more. You can't."

"Emma, he's not the one that should hate you. You should hate him. Why are you trying to defend him?"

"Because, I told you. This is my fault."

"Stop saying that. This isn't your fault. Go take a shower, I'm going to call a lawyer."

"If you do I'll never forgive you."

"I have a feeling that one day you will, but if you have to be mad at me instead of yourself, then I'll accept it."

She was still mad at herself, though, even though it was nice to have someone to share the blame. She stood up, her pain was turning to anger.

"You've completely ruined my life." Emma said, with the dramatic effect that most teenagers had. Her mother called the lawyer anyway, knowing that she knew what was best for her.

Her mother didn't understand that by sending her to take a shower was daring her to punish herself. She didn't even bother to turn the water on. She picked up the razor, and frantically cut her arm. Over and over until she couldn't see her skin anymore, just blood. She didn't care that it was dripping all over her mother's rug. She didn't care she was screaming and crying loud enough for the entire house to hear, all she cared about was that she got what she deserved. And this was what she deserved. Right?

Her mother knocked on the bathroom door. "Emma, are you okay?"

"No!" She screamed. "I'm not okay. Are you so blind that you can't see that?"

"Emma, can you unlock the door?"

"No!" She cried, slamming herself against the door. "Just go!"

Her mother didn't want to leave her, but she could tell that reason wouldn't work with Emma right now, so she left. Emma waited until she could no longer hear the clicker of her mother heels, until she turned the water on and got in the shower, washing blood off of her body was becoming her new favorite thing.

Emma didn't know this, but her mother locked herself in her own room after the confrontation and cried. She wanted to help her young daughter so much, and she wished that she would let her. She knew that she did the right thing by calling the lawyer. She just wished that her daughter thought so too.

She wondered if her daughter would ever forgive her.

-xxx-

Emma laid in her own bed for hours, crying. Her mother hadn't bothered her since she had screamed at her through the bathroom door, she knew that she was awful to her and that she was just trying to help.

Emma hurt one of the last person in her life that loved her. She couldn't take everything that she had done to everyone she loved. She wanted to be six again.

Her mother would read her a story and tuck her in at night. She would always tell her how much she loved her, even when she made mistakes. Her father would sit her on his lap and sneak her candy that her mother had told her she couldn't have.

Her older brother and her would build forts in her living room and pretend like they were pirates in their giant ship. They would giggle and in an instant become two noble townspeople on their way to slay the evil dragon.

She also had Will. It was something amazing to have a best friend when you're that young. Most people have friends, but few have best friends, the kind that you keep for life, or at least want to.

She wanted to be young again. That was when everything was so much easier. She wanted to be able to laugh again, but she was afraid that she had forgotten how. Even if she did remember, it wouldn't seem right. Nothing seemed right anymore. She wondered what her life would be like if she had never joined the Cheerios. She wondered how differently her life could be if she just would have done a few things differently.

She didn't like hating herself. She wished that she didn't have cuts all up and down her arms and legs. She wished that she could wear something other than what she had to in order to hide her scars.

She wanted to be able to call Will whenever she had a problem, now she had no one left. Not even her mother she figured, after the way that she treated her tonight. It wasn't getting better, it was getting worse.

She wished she had never grown up, because it hurt much more than she thought it would when she was younger. She wished that nothing had changed. She missed that little girl with the red pigtails and jean overalls. That little girl was so much stronger than Emma was.

Terri couldn't have hurt that little girl.

Gabe couldn't have hurt that little girl.

Will wouldn't have hurt that little girl.

She looked out her window and saw as the first snow began to fall over Ohio. She closed her eyes and decided then that it wasn't going to get better…

And that she wasn't strong enough to watch as it got worse