Page 40 of Emma
Vanessa offered a small smile. “No. Not really.”
Emma stared down at their hands for a moment. “I just keep going over everything in my mind.” She shook her head, determined to keep her emotions at bay during this conversation. “Then I start thinking about Mum. The fact she’s been sober for so long but hasn’t reached out to me. And I know, I know she knows I don’t want a relationship with her, but surely if she cared about me, she would have tried to contact me. To…ask me to forgive her or whatever.”
“I think that sometimes people know how others feel about them, and they choose to protect themselves instead.”
Emma turned towards Vanessa. “For so many years, I wondered if it was just the alcohol, you know? Was she just so deep into that life that she couldn’t see what was in front of her? That being me.” Emma’s brows drew together. “But nowthat I know she’s sober, it just confirms everything I’ve always thought.”
“And what is that?”
“That she never loved me. That she never wanted any kids. I just used to get in the way of her life all the time, and the sooner I was gone, the better for her.” Emma almost lost it when Vanessa held tightly onto her hand. “And that’s okay…that she didn’t love me. I just wish it had been different. I wish I’d had parents who wanted to see me thrive and be the very best I could be.”
“Oh, Emma.”
“I’m not looking for sympathy. I just have so much going through my mind, and talking about it is the only way to deal with it for me.” Emma’s thumb moved in slow circles across the back of Vanessa’s hand. “I’m just hoping that I can put my point across when the time comes. That I can show anyone who needs to see it that I can bring good things to Freya’s life. That…I only want the best for her.”
Vanessa’s eyes held a sadness that Emma didn’t need right now. She wanted to turn away, to ignore whatever other people thought, but this was her wife, and Vanessa’s input was important to her.
“Emma, whatisthe perfect outcome for you here?”
“To have my sister in my life.” Those words hit Emma hard. Saying them out loud made everything feel more real. And that made it worse. Because as she took a breath, it brought the truth crashing down on her. “It’s not going to work out, is it?” Her voice broke as tears slid down her cheeks. “Once this is out in the open, I’m never going to see her again, let alone have the chance to fight for her.”
Vanessa reached out a hand and brushed a thumb beneath Emma’s eye. The look on her face said everything Emma already knew. “I don’t know, baby.”
“You do. I can see it in your eyes.”
“I just…I’m worried about you. I’m worried about the outcome of this and the toll it’ll take on you.”
Emma scoffed and shook her head. She knew what was coming. It was inevitable. “I think I’ve already come to terms with the fact that none of my family will ever want me, and neither will the kid who doesn’t even know me yet.”
“You can’t think like that, Emma.”
But she already was thinking like that. It was hard not to. “Trust me, I’m not wrong. Those parents are going to take one look at me and remove Freya from this school. Which is really shit because she’s going to thrive here. I’m already seeing a huge change in her since she became friends with Alice. Knowing that she’s making connections here, only for them to be taken away because of me…it doesn’t seem right.”
“That’s not something any of us can control.”
Emma leaned back against the bench, her gaze fixed on the sports field ahead. For a moment, she let herself feel the weight of what was coming. “This is going to be painful. I know it is.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Keep pushing.Keep going.
Emma’s trainers hit the grass with a steady rhythm as she rounded the curve of the sports field for the fifteenth time. Her lungs burned, her thighs ached, and her vision blurred slightly from the wind and the sting of unshed tears. But she didn’t stop. She couldn’t stop.
Running was the only thing that dulled the noise in her head. Running was the only thing that stopped her from drowning in the chaos of her thoughts. Because this last week had truly stripped her raw. She’d done what she told herself she must do. She’d shown up, taught Freya, and kept her distance. Professional and controlled.
She didn’t go out of her way to speak to Freya outside of lessons, and every time she saw her in the corridor or heading her way, Emma did anything she could to make herself invisible. A conversation with another teacher. A stack of exercise books that suddenly needed sorting. Anything to stop the ache in her chest from pulling her under.
Because she was terrified.
Terrified of what it meant if she let herself lean into her emotions and her feelings on it all, and terrified of what it meant if she didn’t.
How can you lose someone you don’t even know?
Emma’s breath caught in her throat at that thought. She’d asked herself that question a hundred times, but tonight, it hit differently. It seemed…heavier.
The more she saw Freya, the more impossible it became to ignore the resemblance. It was in the shape of her face. The tilt of her chin. Her hair. Her eyes. God, those eyes. They were the same shade Emma saw in the mirror every morning. And her mannerisms…the subtle quirks that should have been meaningless. The way Freya tucked her hair behind her ear when she was nervous, or the way she chewed her thumbnail when she was lost in thought. It was like looking at a younger, slightly altered version of herself, and it made Emma’s skin prickle every single time.
Surely that had to mean something?
