Disclaimer: I own nothing :'( if I did Tanya Gabriel would not exist since her only purpose in the show is too drive me insane! Hahahaha
Author's Note: Sorry for the delay! I know….I'm lazy. Reviews are great motivation thought! *hint hint* It's hard to believe I'm actually almost finished uploading the whole story :/ every chapter is closer to being the last one :'(
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If she kept crying into the batter her cookies would turn out way too salty and she knew that. So why couldn't she stop?
The Holden kitchen was so white it looked almost like a 'winter wonderland' scene straight out of a Christmas movie. Except it wasn't Christmas and the white powder that was dusted over every surface wasn't snow. It was April and the kitchen was decked in powder.
Emmalin Holden had a problem, baking binges were not healthy. She couldn't bake a baker's dozen every time something wasn't right in her life. But her she was. And just like before she didn't know why she couldn't stop.
"Emmalin…it's been three days, honey, put the batter down." Claudia Joy Holden said, watching from the doorway. Cool, calm, collected. Three words that defined Claudia Joy Holden, and God, sometimes she hated her mother for it.
Sometimes she hated her mother for a lot of reasons. Right now it was for the way she was cool, calm and collected even when her daughter was having a breakdown. Sometimes it was because the Army Wife couldn't handle anything less than perfection, even when perfection was completely unobtainable. But the reason she hated her mother the most was because she was so much stronger than her.
Her father had been gone for three days and her mother carried on like nothing had changed…and here she was baking up a tear filled storm because Jeremy had been gone three days.
Why baking? She always went crazy in the kitchen when she was emotional, a side effect from moving so much and having no friends to talk to. Lots of Army Brats had strange little quirks as a result from being moved so much.
Why was she baking like a banshee now though? Because it didn't make her think of him. Or most importantly how he wasn't here. Specialist Jeremy Sherwood had left for Afghanistan three days ago, and Emmalin couldn't stop crying, couldn't stop baking, and couldn't stop wishing he'd never left.
It hurt, a lot. She didn't know how addicted she was until her drug was fourteen hours away, that is fourteen hours if she took a speeding Air Force Jet.
"Sweetheart, did you hear me? I said maybe we should get you cleaned up and go to a movie or something?" Claudia Joy suggested.
Emmalin flinched when she felt her mother's hand on her shoulder. The eighteen year old looked like she had been hit by a speeding Mack truck and she knew it. She hadn't changed in days, wearing one of Jeremy's shirts and a pair of sweats since she came home after seeing him off. The shirt still smelled like him and she wasn't peeling it off until she sucked away every last whiff of his sandalwood scent from it, and that was final.
"I don't want to go to a movie." The Army Brat said tiredly. She sounded exhausted, even to herself.
When was the last time she had slept? The hell if she knew. She didn't want to go to her bed without him; it wasn't as warm and comfy without his body next to her's.
"Emmalin, you can't stay here baking the whole time Jeremy's gone." Claudia Joy said gently. Her foot skidded on some flour on the floor but the Army Wife caught herself just in time.
"Why not? …You wanna know the strangest thing? This is the first time I've baked since Jeremy became my boyfriend." And just like that the flood of tears began to pour into the brownie batter…again, "Isn't that weird? When he was around I didn't need to bake, I'd tell him anything and he'd listen to everything…and now he's going to be thousands of miles away for months." Emmalin sobbed, scooping the batter into a pan and shoving it into an oven.
"Hmm, you really haven't baked since Jeremy came along? What if you talk to me while he's gone?" Claudia Joy strained her memory trying to think of when her daughter last had a baking meltdown. She was right, it was right before Jeremy became her boyfriend, "I understand more than you think, your Dad's been gone and I've got no one to talk to either, you know."
"I can't talk to you the way I can Jeremy, it's not the same." The Hockey Player pouted, sitting down at the kitchen bar. Her legs felt like they were about to give out. God, when was the last time she slept. The Army Brat had never felt this emotionally or physically drained.
"Honey, if he knew you were so upset right now he wouldn't be very happy." Claudia Joy said, taking a seat next to her eighteen year old.
"…It is all his fault." Emmalin pouted. As much as she was worried and scarred, and lonely, and desperate to see him, she couldn't help but feel the tiniest bit angry. Angry at Jeremy for leaving, angry at whoever signed the paper to send him overseas, angry at the U.S. Army for sending soldier away from home, angry at the God damn freaking terrorists for being terrorists, and she was even angry at the new anchor man for reminding her every time she watched the fucking news that people died over there. As if she didn't fucking know that already, thanks!
"It's not his fault you have a psychotic baking issue, Emmalin." The forty year old teased.
"Yeah, well it might as well be." The amber-eyed girl grumbled, if he weren't deployed she wouldn't be going crazy right now. See, totally his fault. Make sense?
"I know you miss him, he'll call in a few days. I'm sure of it." Her voice was reassuring, but it didn't seem to soothe Emmalin in the least. Claudia Joy stroked her daughter's long dark hair.
"But a few days isn't right now. Right now I don't know where he is. I don't know if he's just touched down in Afghanistan and is being mortared at the airport." Crack. Looking down, she broke the plastic whisk she was holding in half. Emmalin couldn't remember being this high strung before.
"That's the worst part, isn't it? The not knowing." She could relate.
"Yeah, it is…does it ever get better?" Was there hope?
"No, it never does but after a few deployment you learn to block it out." Nope, so much for hope.
"Block it out?" Emmalin raised an eyebrow confused. The last thing she wanted to do was forget Jeremy.
His smile, his laugh, his smell, the way she felt when he held her. No, those she'd keep until the day she died..
"Yeah, block out the little voice that is worried he might be getting mortared at an airport in Afghanistan, or being shot out of a helicopter in Vietnam, or being ransomed in a shack somewhere in Bosnia." Claudia Joy frowned, talking about her fears for her own husband. Some of which had happened.
"…When was Dad ever held for random in Bosnia?" Emmalin questioned?
"Oh, never, it's just that voice in my head gets a little crazy with the 'what if's'. That's why you learn to block it out." Claudia Joy laughed.
Okay, did her mother, THE Claudia Joy Holden just admit to hearing voices in her head? That's it, she must be exhausted. Or at least tired enough to be hallucinating.
"I can't block him out, I love Jeremy too much…and it doesn't help that he practically proposed at the airport five minutes before he left." Emmalin bit her lip, whipping tears from her almond shaped eyes with a semi- flour free hand.
"…he pr…he proposed?" Surprise struck the Army Wife. No her daughter was much to young to be married. Emmalin had only turned eighteen two weeks ago. "But you're not even done with high school…. Ohhh my God, Emmalin Jane Holden are you pregnant?" Ohh my God, her daughter was pregnant and now she thought she had to marry her baby daddy! Claudia Joy could feel her throat tightening; she was going to be a grandma maybe!
"He didn't propose, just sort of, kind of. And God, Mom I'm not pregnant... weren't you just saying a second ago that I could talk to you." Emmalin rolled her eye. Leave it to her mother to accuse her of being pregnant. If Emmalin and Jeremy walked to the mailbox together Claudia Joy got paranoid and accused them of pregnancy…yeah, literally.
"I'm sorry…it's just why would you want to be married? Honey, you're both so young."
"I love him you know. And if you loved somebody wouldn't you want to spend forever together?" Emmalin smiled.
"Emmalin love isn't enough to marry someone, marriage is so much more than that." Claudia Joy rubbed her daughter's back.
"Mom, if you were my age when you met Dad would you still have married him?" She asked.
"…I don't know." Claudia Joy paused.
"Think about it."
"Yes, I would still have married your father." The Army Wife said confidently.
"Why?" Emmalin pushed.
"Because he's the only man for me." Claudia Joy said matter-of-factly.
"And why would Jeremy be any different for me?" Emmalin smiled.
"…You're still to young."
"We're not even engaged, and even if we were we'd wait awhile before jumping the broom." Emmalin assured her still nervous mother.
"If Jeremy proposed would you have said yes?" Curiosity killed the cat.
"Without a doubt." Emmalin laughed. In a heartbeat, to the moon and back, for every thing: yes. If he asked she would answer yes.
"…These cookies are salty." Claudia Joy spit out the bite of white chocolate macadamia nut cookie she'd taken. Damn, these where awful.
"Sorry…I was crying when I made them." Emmalin grimaced. Darn it, she knew she should've stopped crying in the batter.
"Well if I promise to be your temporary confidante while Jeremy's gone, will you promise to stop baking?" Claudia Joy asked after gargling with water to clean her mouth of the salty cookie.
"…Will you help me mail the cookies I've made to Jeremy and Dad?" Emmalin raised a brow.
"Sweetheart if you mail these to Jeremy, you'll never get that proposal." Claudia Joy burst out laughing. If he got a care package filled with these cookies, the man would never buy a ring!
And that's how Emmalin learned to cope. With her mother rolling on the floor laughing, with flour in her dark hair, and with her brownies catching on fire in the over.
Sure, Emmalin still missed Jeremy more than anything but like the Army and the Army Wives; the girlfriends have their own code too.