The Iceberg Tipping

It still wasn’t snowing and December was nearing, it was like the whole universe was pitted against Emma. She tiptoed around the house, not wanting to disturb her mother who had been rather temperamental lately because she was nearing the end of her pregnancy. Emma thought about listening to music, something she used to enjoy, but there was that word. Enjoy; she wasn’t allowed to enjoy anything. She was too stupid to deserve that welling of happiness in her heart.
indent James wouldn’t leave her alone, constantly tapping on her shoulder and even nagging at the back of her mind at home. The nightmares started to return, though, and that drove Emma half mad. Merely knowing he was around was enough to disrupt the natural order of her life now. She was the only one who was supposed to control her life.
indent Emma forgot about music as she stumbled towards the bathroom attached to her room, half in tears. “I am in control,” she whispered, sliding a sharp blade across her arm in a panicked motion. It left a thin and crooked red mark against her ivory skin, ruining it. “I am in control,” she repeated, wishing more than anything that she could believe the words that continued to leave her lips.
indent “I am not in control,” she murmured, falling to her knees and stuck in her own mind. She dropped the blade to the ground, not exactly caring when it broke through her jeans and the skin of her knee. Why can’t I be in control? she asked herself, pressing her fingertips into her hair line and tugging. Emma blamed James, everything was okay until he came strolling back into town like he owned it.
indent He even might have at one point, back when he owned Emma. He thought she was just being difficult but to her it might as well have been abuse. Thinking back there was never a time she did what she wanted to do without it being what he wanted. For a while he’d had her at the point where she actually believed it was what she wanted to do and that she loved him. Eventually, timed washed away her naivety and she found herself hating him instead of loving him. He began to hit her, letting her go home with large bruises that she struggled to cover up.
indent What a stupid charade it all felt like now, though. Why couldn’t she have gained control sooner? Why did she have to wait until it got to an all time low. She started to cry, trying to forget the past and lock it up in a silver box in the back of her mind. She didn’t want to feel this, she didn’t want to feel anything at all. James had been pretty patient in his own mind. He didn’t cheat on her, he didn’t lie to her, he only hit her when she frustrated him and jumped over the line of what was right and wrong. The only thin wrong with their relationship was the lack of anything physical.
indent Emma had never had the urge like he did to have sex and she flat out refused to do something that life changing when she didn’t feel it was right. Only, after one night too many, James wasn’t as patient and did it anyway. Screaming and fighting back did nothing against James, he’d waited too long for something that simple. It was when she started to hate him and herself and nearly everything around her.
indent It was a gradual change at first, Emma remembered. She’d be walking down the street and see something that reminded herself of him or what he’d done and she’d run to the bathroom with sickness spreading throughout her limbs. She slowly started to wish she could just die, what’s the point of living with something like that haunting your thoughts; what was the point of living when you refused to live anymore? Soon it became apparent that the vomiting and the mood swings weren’t just hate or depression, they were something much deeper.
indent Beneath her skin more than contempt was growing and she quickly got rid of it. She felt like a murderer, but it was better than living with the regret, pain, and constant reminder of what he’d done. With her luck at this point, the baby would have come out looking just like James. Emma had cried for weeks on end, hiding out in her room and not telling a soul of what she’d done.
indent Memories burned holes into her mind as she crouched against the bathroom floor, fingers in her hair and tears welded to her cheeks. All she wanted was control; all she needed was to control her own life. Her lungs gasped for breath as she sobbed heavily, a river forming beneath her now bleeding knees. How could she live with herself after all of that?