Don't Ever Meddle... With Emily's Heart.

I awoke to the next morning to the violent shaking of my arm. “What?” I muttered as I rubbed my eyes and began to open them slowly.

“Emily, wake up! Wake up!” my father kept saying as he continued to shake my arm. Being me, I ignored him and shut my eyes once again. I just so happened to be enjoying that sleep. “EMILY!” he finally yelled.

I stroked my eyes lazily once again with my hands. “What?” I stiffed a laugh at his serious face as he continued to shake me.

“It’s… it’s your mom.”

I stood up quickly, suddenly feeling awake. I grabbed my bag that sat beside the sofa and slung it over my arm. “She wants me to go home right away ‘cause she just can’t live without her precious daughter at home with her?”

“No, but I think you better sit back down,” he began. Confusion quickly began to run in my mind. You only ever get told to sit back down if there is bad news. I nodded shakily and done what I was told. “Your mom, she got hit.”

“Hit?” I asked, failing to understand what he was getting at here.

He nodded and looked down from my face to the floor and focused there. “By a drunk driver,” he finally announced.

Again, I failed to see what he was getting at. “She’s alright though, isn’t she?” I asked, sure that she would be okay. This is my mother we are talking about here. The tall, slender but perfectly curved, tattooed and pierced beast of a woman. Nothing got in her way of living her life. Nothing.

“No. No she’s not.” He glanced up at me again, a small glass-like tear on his cheek. “I’m sorry.” Then, he pulled me into the biggest bear hug I have ever been a part of.

I screamed inside, ‘she can’t be dead!’. I wanted to disappear right there and then. Sure, my mother and I have had our differences - many, at that - but she is my mother. I still loved her.

“H-how d-do you… know?” I finally managed to stutter as I pulled away from him and stared out of the window with a vacant look. Although I was extremely upset about the situation, I could not cry. There were no tears in my eyes at all. I was simply emotionless from the outside - but was having a war with each emotion on the inside.

He looked away from my face again. “The hospital. Her last words were telling them where you were and… well, they tracked me down.”

I tugged on my metallic lips rings with my teeth, it hurt but the pain was sort of enjoyable.

“Good news though, you can move here,” he said, looking at me and smiling.

I placed my head in my hands and thought of what to say to his statement. “That’s great,” I managed to whisper. I was not lying it was great. Wasn’t it?

The place grew quiet for what seemed forever until a burst of noise broke the silence when the other guys came into the room. “Hey, Johnny boy!” the shouted in unison, as they each placed themselves somewhere on the sofas that were arranged oddly around the living room.

“Hey, Lemon knee, what’s with the face?” Jimmy asked, demanding the answer it seemed.
Clearly, my dad had not yet told them. ‘Perhaps he didn’t have time,’ I thought.

A lump grew in my throat as I opened my mouth to speak. “My mom got hit but a fuckin’ drunk.”

They all stared at me as they did when I first came here. Like I was an alien from Jupiter and they had never seen me before. This time however, it hurt. I wanted them to say anything, anything at all. I did not care what it was or whom it was about. Just anything would have helped.

“Whoa, that is tough. Sorry kid,” Brian finally said which broke the silence again.

“Want me to kung-fu him?” Jimmy suggested. I noticed Johnny raise an eyebrow at him but I burst out laughing uncontrollably. I sat there for five minutes with non-stop laughter escaping my lungs. If I did not laugh, I would simply howl my heart out and I could not do that. I only cried alone.

So my mom’s dead.

Out of that, I got what I was hoping and wishing for. Right?