“Ah!” At Emma’s sharp scream, I laughed loudly, my voice booming across the night. We were walking from the cinema to the bus stop. I’d hung back a little then pretended to grab her and fresh out of the scary movie, her adrenaline was still kicking.
“You jerk!” she exclaimed and pushed me a little. I was taken aback by her getting physical and took it lightly at first before she flounced off towards the bus stop. I stopped laughing instantly and hurried after her. I was used to melodrama from Marilyn but Emma didn’t seem to be fussing just for fussing sake. Her usual perky, smiling voice had disappeared.
“Emma, I’m sorry,” I apologized, hurrying to catch up with her. She started to run and I chased her because it was night and I was responsible for her, having decided to take her out tonight. Plus, I wanted to apologize for scaring her. I had no idea she would have been that sensitive about the movie. Split had been good but it wasn’t the kind of scary that I had been going for.
“Emma, wait up,” I overtook her and when she wouldn’t stop, placed an arm around her waist to halt her. “Seriously, Em,” I said, noticing her head hung and partially hidden by her curls. “I didn’t mean to frighten you like that. I never knew you’d react that way.”
She just nodded and tried to continue to the bus stop but I wasn’t satisfied leaving it at this. Without thinking, I pushed back her hair from her face and sucked in a deep breath. The wet trails on her cheeks were illuminated by the street light. She wouldn’t look at me and she swallowed hard while her bottom lip trembled.
“Emma?” I asked softly.
“I’ll get over it,” she remarked and I had a feeling this was more than just about the movie.
“I don’t want you to get over it,” I told her. “I want you to talk to me. What’s wrong?”
She shook her head and I couldn’t force her to talk so I allowed her to wipe her cheeks and this time, I took her hand in mine. We continued to the bus stop in silence and her mood weighed heavily on me. When the bus arrived, we climbed aboard and sat beside each other. She stared through the window of the vehicle, still silent.
“Emma, will you talk to me?” I asked her. “Please.”
She shrugged and leaned her head against the window pane, still not paying me any mind.
“Please,” I urged her. “I don’t like seeing you all sad like this,” I commented. “What I did was stupid. I am stupid. Sorry.”
“You’re not stupid,” she remarked. “It’s not your fault I scare so easily sometimes.”
“Want to talk about it?”
She didn’t respond so we rode the bus in silence. I stared over into the Seattle night, feeling disappointed that she wouldn’t confide in me. I was surprised at this because all I wanted from Emma was her friendship. I stole a glance at her and decided she was a lovely girl, not classically beautiful but she had an interesting face.
We came off at Pine Street and walked together to twelfth avenue where the university was located. I kept her hand in mind, wondering what I could do to make up this night. I was always messing up these meetings with her. I wouldn’t blame her if she didn’t want to speak to me after this. But, the thought of never seeing her again was disturbing.
“I’m always messing up it seems,” I murmured as we walked onto the campus, displaying our IDs to the security guard. “Yesterday, now tonight. I didn’t mean to ruin your night.”
“You didn’t ruin my night,” she denied, her head bowed again. I didn’t like this side of her one bit.
When we would have taken the walkway leading to her dorm, she paused and I along with her.
“Can we go to your dorm and talk?” she asked, surprising me. I wasn’t sure what to make of the request. The time was late and I didn’t know how to decide if it was an innocent request. “Unless you’ve a roommate,” she added in afterthought. “It’s okay. I’m not sure I want to talk about it anyway.”
She tried to let go of my hand and head for her dorm, but I tightened my fingers on hers.
“Come, we’ll talk,” I told her. “My roommate is almost never around. I’ve no doubt he would be at his girlfriend’s for the night.”
“Maybe it’s not such a good idea,” she said hesitantly. “I just want to talk a little.”
I nodded my understanding, remembering how I’d wanted someone to talk to when my relationship ended.
“Then let’s go talk.”
I led the way to my dorm since I wouldn’t be permitted on her dorm at this time of the night. My dorm was however open to both sexes to come and go as they pleased. There were a few guys in the lounge who gave us a curious look and passed a suggestive remark that had Emma blushing.
“Not cool, dude,” I remarked on a frown, my hand on Emma’s lower back as I guided her down the corridor. “Ignore them,” I told her. “Guys can be such assholes.”
“I know,” she mentioned. “Maybe it wasn’t the best idea for me to be here so late. You know, others may get the wrong idea.”
“What happened to you not caring what other people think?’ I asked, raising my brow. “Or do you only say stuff like that when you’re trying to get me out of a funk?” I halted her in the corridor and turned her to face me. “You know you can trust me, right, Emma?”
She shifted from foot to foot. “I know it’s silly to,” she commented. “We haven’t known each other long but I do feel I can trust you.”
“Good,” I said with a nod, my expression serious. “Because I swear to you that you can. We’ll go to my room and talk, that’s all. When you get back to your usual cheerful self then I’ll walk you to your dorm.”
“I thought you didn’t like that cheerful person,” she said with a small smile.
“I was cranky,” I acknowledged, pulling her along with me down the hall. “What did I know? The truth is Emma, you’ve helped a lot to cope, sticking your nose where it doesn’t belong and now I’m offering myself to do the same for you.”
We came to my room and I unlocked the door and pushed it open for her to enter. Just as I had known before, my roommate was nowhere to be seen. Most times, I felt like I was rooming alone.
“Have a seat anywhere except my roommate’s bed,” I advised her. I kicked off my shoes and brought them to the closet and placed them inside. When I turned around, she was perched a little uncomfortably at my computer desk. Since there wasn’t a whole lot of options, I took the bed, sitting across it.
“So, why don’t you tell me why you got so somber tonight?” I asked her. “Is it something I said?”
“It’s the movie,” she answered, becoming occupied with her nails.
“You didn’t enjoy it?”
“It’s-it’s not that,” she murmured so softly it was hard to hear her. “The movie reminded me of things.”
“Such as?” I prodded.
“I’m adopted,” she said.
I tried not to show my surprise. “You are?”
She nodded. “Yes, I was already thirteen when I was adopted by my family. But-but before that Travis, things were bad. So bad.”
Suddenly I wasn’t sure I wanted to know. Her voice was shaky and full of raw emotions. At the same time, I didn’t want to hear, I wanted to be there for her.
“You always accuse me of being too happy,” she continued, “but that’s because I know what it’s like to be truly unhappy.” She took a deep breath and I could see she was having a difficult time talking about whatever she had bottled up inside.
“Emma, come here.” I patted the bed beside me and she didn’t even hesitate. She kicked off her shoes and sat on the bed beside me, pulling her knees up to her chin and wrapping her arms around them. I placed an arm supportively about her shoulders and rubbed. “It’s okay. You don’t have to talk about it if it’s too difficult.”
“I want to tell you,” she said on a sniff, “so you’ll understand. My real parents didn’t want me. My father left when I was too young to even know now what he looks like.” She paused and swallowed hard. “My mother-she wasn’t a hundred per cent in her right mind. Most of the times, she was depressed and when she was, she would take it out on me.”
I squeezed her arm. “Go ahead.”
“She did things like lock me up in the basement for a whole day without anything to eat,” she confessed. “She would lock me in the closet, even burn me once with cigarette end. One day she would be nice and then the other she would be this horrible monster who did horrible things to me. Re-real horrible things.”
“I can’t imagine, Em,” I said empathizing with her. “It must have been so difficult.”
“I was a depressed at the start of my teenage years,” she remarked. “I was dark, hardly laughed, distanced myself from people. It was during that time I met my boyfriend who wanted and craved that side of me, but I was adopted and being with my new family helped to let me see that happiness is also out there in the world.”
“You’re amazing,” I said to her. “You’ve been through so much and can still smile.”
“I met my wonderful family through the pain of my childhood,” she told me. “This is why I told you, sometimes we find something worthwhile when we are going through the pain.”
She said the latter while looking at me. I felt the sudden urge to kiss her but that was dangerous levels I didn’t know if she was ready to partake in. I was beginning to see exactly what she meant though. She had sneaked her way as a fixture in my life and now I couldn’t see myself not talking to her.
At the same time, it was scary. The last girl I had thought loved me had dumped me after three years. I was shying away from anything serious too soon. Instead of kissing her, I opted to talk to her about my own difficult childhood.