Girl That You Love

*Warning Strong Language and Some Violence Ahead*

CHIRP. CHIRP. CHIRP. CHIRP.

Emma groaned and rolled over to her nightstand. She stared at the time blinking on her phone screen. 7:30. She sighed and shut her alarm off, lazily rolling out of her bed and stretching to rid herself of the aches and pains from a restlessly night. She yawned loudly and then stopped, remembering the night before. She quickly tiptoed to her bedroom door and pressed her ear to the door. She was listening to see if Robbie was up yet. She fell asleep before she could hear if he had returned from his night out.
She took a deep breath when all she heard was silence.

Okay, Emma, just get dressed to see Patrick and then go ahead and head out without Robbie. He doesn’t need to come, she told herself.

She took off her pajamas and climbed into the shower. She tried everything she could to stay as quiet as possible in order to not wake him up. Once she was dried and dressed in a pair of skinny jeans and one of Patrick’s flannel shirts, she grabbed her phone, and sent a quick text to Patrick to let him know she was on her way soon. Then she slipped it in her back pocket and slowly opened the door to her bedroom. She waited to see if she could hear movement. Silence responded, so she made her way down the stairs. She glanced at Robbie’s room, which was right at the bottom. His door was shut, so she guessed he was still asleep.

Thank god, she thought, straightening up and making her way to the kitchen to grab her purse. As she did, she passed through the living room, nearly completely oblivious to the figure sitting on the couch.

“Don’t have to be quiet on my account,”

Emma froze. His voice was low and menacing, but his words were slurred a bit, she guess because he was still slightly drunk from the events of last night. She turned around and saw Robbie sitting on the couch, hunched over, hands together as if he was praying, but his eyes were set on her. His lips were curled into a scowl.

“Robbie, I thought you’d still be asleep,” she said with as much flippancy as possible to hide her fear of him.

“Nope, just got home a couple of hours ago,” he said. “Been up all night, couldn’t sleep.”

“Well, that’s okay, I was thinking I’d just catch a cab to the airport. I know Marcus would have gotten some cars for the guys anyway.” She started for the kitchen.

“Did you make that decision before or after you decided to invade my personal space?” he murmured, standing up and taking a step toward her.

Emma’s heart beat quickened, her palms started to sweat. “What? I don’t know what you’re talking about, Robbie,” she lied. She tried to make for the kitchen, but Robbie only needed to quick steps to reach her.

When he did, he grabbed her wrist and twirled her around to face him. “Why do you always lie to everyone, Emma? Everyone that you care about you lie to… me, Patrick…” She looked up into his eyes, which looked vacant and confused. “You left some file folders up when you were looking through my computer,” he added, narrowing his eyes.

Emma twisted and pulled. “Robbie, I’m sorry I went through your stuff. Please,” she said, ending her apology in a whisper. His grip tightened, and she could feel him cutting the circulation off from her hand.

“Did you like what you found? Guess my secret is out isn’t it?” he murmured, pulling her toward him.

Emma turned her head away as he tried to kiss her, his lips glancing her neck. “Robbie, stop, you’re drunk, you don’t know what you’re doing,” she pleaded, and she continued to try and pull away from him.

“Emma, I know exactly what I’m doing,” he sneered. “I’ve wanted this for a long time.” He tried again to kiss her, but Emma retaliated by shoving her palm of her free hand into his nose. The pain that shot through him triggered him to release her hand and Emma made a dash for the front door.

“Oh god, oh god,” she gasped through the tears that started to fall down her face and the breaths she struggled to take. She glanced at her wrist, which had started to turn blue.

Just as she reached the door, she felt his arms wrap around her waist and pulled her back, swinging her back up against the wall, her head knocking back. A shot of pain raced down her spine. “Robbie, stop,” she cried out as he pressed his body weight against her.

“Emma, Emma, don’t you see?” he whispered, his hands reaching up underneath her shirt, fingers pressing against her bare skin. “I’ve been in love with you this whole time. It’s been killing me to see you degrade yourself for that fucking weirdo. I mean, I tried to play it cool, I thought, ‘she’d see it in time right?’ We are made for each other Emma. We get along so well…”

“Robbie, we do, we’re great friends,”

“Friends!” he shouted. “I don’t want to be your friend! Don’t you see that?” He slammed a fist into the wall beside her head, the sound of his fist crashing through the wall making her ears ring. “I thought that maybe if you could see how shitty his life is for you, you’d leave him,” he said.

“That’s why you sent the death threats and put all the stories and those crazy fans out there,” Emma said through gritted teeth.

“Yes, it was all for us, baby, don’t you see?”

Emma slowly reached into her back pocket to try and reach her phone. She just had to slide it and somehow press the emergency button….

“What are you doing?” Robbie reached around her and grabbed her phone from her.

“No, Robbie please!”

“Were you going to try to call him? Were you going to call Patrick!” He shouted, and then turned and whipped her phone across the room. She saw it crash and splattered into pieced against the far wall of the living room. He then turned back to her, eyes wide and full of rage and he brought his hand across her cheek hard. She swore she heard something crack and could feel blood welling up on her skin. “This is our time!” he shouted.

He placed his hands on her shoulders. “I am the only person who can be there for you. I am the person who can take care of you. I have been this whole time!”

Emma looked him in the eyes. “That’s what you are paid to do,” she said trying to cut him down, and then with all the force she could muster, she swiftly brought her knee up to his groin. She felt it connect and he stumbled back, losing his grip on her once more.

“Fuck!” he exclaimed, and she loosed herself and made for the kitchen.

She swung around the island and grabbed the butcher knife in the knife block by the stove. She held it before her, ready to attack. She understood exactly why Joel warned her about not confronting Robbie.
She only wished she had left and went to Marie’s the night before instead of waiting for the morning.

Robbie stumbled into the kitchen, his eyes blazing. “Emma don’t you dare talk to me like that ever again.”

“Robbie just stop this, please. I promise I won’t tell Marcus or Patrick about anything, just please stop,” she begged him, holding the shaking knife in front of her.

He staggered around the island moving stealthily toward her. “I don’t give a shit about them. All I want is you, and I’m tired of not taking what is supposed to be mine.”

“I’m not yours,” she said as firmly as she could. She swung the knife for emphasis.

He smirked. “What are you going to do with that Emma? Come on, be a good girl and put the knife down.” He rested his hand on the island, and Emma used that as her moment, baring the knife down.
She heard it cut through skin and muscle as it went straight through his hand.

The sound that emitted from his mouth was unlike anything she had ever heard. His face turned red and he grabbed the knife handle.

Emma ran around the other side and hurried up the stairs to her bedroom, as Robbie cursed her below.

Shaky fingers reached up and turned the lock on the door. Every muscle in her body was screaming in pain, but she ignored them all because the only thing her mind was focusing on was how to escape the unfortunate experience that she had found herself in.

How was I so stupid and blind? She berated herself, turning the light off and sinking to the floor of the bedroom.

She thought that she could wait it out, that perhaps the injury she gave him would slow him down. It seemed that only ten minutes had passed before she heard him bumbling up the stairs, groaning and griping the whole way.

“Emma! Open the damn door!” he shouted, his fists barreling into the wood.

Every time he hit the door, her body shook. She knew it was only a matter of time before he would break down the door and there was nowhere else to run after that. They were eleven stories up and she knew very well that there wasn’t any type of fire escape out of their bedroom window nor another person’s window that she could see into to flag someone down for help.

A drop of blood hit her bare knee and she reached up and felt the cut along her cheekbone where he had hit her.

“Emma, don’t you do this to me! Emma, be a good girl and open this door for me!” he cried out over and over again, simultaneously turning the door knob and punching at the door. She looked up and saw that the wood was starting to give. She wondered how long it would be until he figured out that it would be easier to use his shoulder to ram it open.

Her mind was spinning in all different directions, thinking about the fact that her life might actually end tonight. It wasn’t even fair, she didn’t get to…

CRACK

She jumped up and saw his elbow crash through the middle of the door. She scampered back behind the bed and grabbed the lamp that sat on the nightstand, holding it up in front of her in a defensive stance. She watched in horror as his hand, bloody from hitting the door with such force, reached through the hole he created and turned the lock on the door.

It swung open and he stood there, menacingly, his intense eyes gleaming in the dark room. “Don’t keep me out, baby, I’m the only person who really cares about you,” he chided in a low voice.

I am not your baby, she thought angrily, and took a deep breath, waiting to see what was going to happen next, knowing that she was not going to go down without a fight.

She held the lamp up, readying herself to attack. Robbie stumbled into the room, blood dripping from the wound in his hand that he hastily bandaged with the bottom of his shirt.

“That was a very bad thing you did, Emma,” he said angrily. “If you stop acting up, I may forgive you.”

Emma shook her head. “Robbie, I don’t know what’s wrong with you, but you need to stop this. There is nothing between us and you know it!” She wanted to wipe the tears out of her eyes so she could see, but to do so meant dropping her only weapon. She glanced down at her stomach and then back at
Robbie. “Robbie, please, my baby,” she said, hoping to drudge up some of his humanity.

“That abomination, you mean,” he growled. “How could you let him infect you like that!?”

Emma shook her head. “Robbie, stop it. Please.”

“When will you get it through your head, I can’t stop. You’re supposed to be mine!” He made for her and she swung the lamp. It hit Robbie on the side of the head and shattered apart. She leapt over the bed, but he was quicker, grabbing her ankle and pulling her down face first on the bed. “Oh this is nice,” he commented, as he made to climb on top of her.

She gasped and shouted as she kicked her ankle, trying to loosen his grip. She felt his hands grasp the waist band of her jeans and pulled. She could hear the pain in his grunts as he worked with his left hand. “I’ll show you what a real man is made of,” he said, as he pulled her jeans off of her

“No, no,” she echoed through sobs. She felt him grab her thighs and try to prop her up.

“Come on, you spread your legs for that fucking asshole, you can spread ‘em for me,” he snarled.

Emma felt his hands leave her for a second, and she realized that he must be going after his own pants.
She took that opportunity to tuck and roll, her feet kicking him in the face as she went. She landed on her back on the floor of her bedroom, knocking the wind out of her briefly.

“EMMA!” he growled.

She could hear him getting up and she scurried to her feet and ran out of the room as fast as she could and down the stairs. She ran through the living room toward the hallway to the front door. She didn’t even care if she was half naked, the faster she got out of the house, the better.

CLICK.

She froze. She had heard that sound before, mostly in movies, but she knew what it meant. She turned around and saw Robbie pointing a small handgun at her.

“Maybe now you’ll do what I say,” he said.

“Robbie, put that gun down,” she said quietly.

“No!” he cried out. “Get over here.” He pointed the gun toward the back wall of the living room.

Emma slowly inched over to it.

“Get on your knees.” He ordered her.

Emma started sobbing. “Robbie don’t, you don’t want to do this.”

“If I can’t have you no one else can,” he said.

Emma lowered her head and started to sob into her hands.

“Robbie No!”

Emma’s head shot up and her eyes looked around Robbie’s figure. Behind him, Patrick was running into the living room, with his band mates, Marcus, Tracy and Marie behind him.

“Patrick,” she whispered, feeling a surge of relief sweep through her.

Robbie spun around and pointed the gun at him, and Patrick stopped short, holding up his hands.
“What are you doing here?” Robbie shouted.

“I live here man,” Patrick answered simply. His eyes met Emma’s and she could see the shock on his face. “Put the gun down, Robbie, you don’t want to kill Emma.”

“You don’t know what I want!”

“I know you want Emma,” he said. “And killing her won’t help you with that.”

“It’s all your fault,” Robbie cried out. “You were supposed to fucking break up with her! You don’t deserve her! You don’t fucking deserve her!”

Marcus broke through the guys and stepped in front of Patrick. “Robbie, man, what are you doing. Put the gun down. You ain’t gonna shoot anyone.”

As if to prove him wrong, Robbie fired the gun, hitting Marcus in the shoulder.

Tracy screamed as Marcus fell to the ground in front of them. Andy and Pete dropped down to sit
Marcus up. Andy took his shirt off and pressed it to the wound.

“Robbie, what have you done?” Emma exclaimed.

He turned the gun back on her. “You made me do it! If you had just broken up with him a long time ago, none of this would have happened!”

Emma slowly got to her feet. “Robbie,”

“And now you’re having his baby. You’re fucking ruined. But I can raise it. I can take you far away from this and we can be a family.” He looked at her with pleading eyes.

Emma felt her tears rolling off her cheeks. “No, Robbie, you can’t. Patrick and I are a family,” she said slowly. “This is our baby.”

Robbie wailed, and grabbed at his hair, pressing the gun to his head. “Why are you so stupid!?” he pointed the gun at Patrick. “I should just make this easy for you.”

“No!” Emma shouted. Patrick backed away slowly, his eyes intently staring at the gun. “Don’t kill Patrick, please,” Emma begged.

Robbie glowered at him and then turned the gun back on her. “Then I’ll just kill the baby and that way I can still have you,” he pointed the gun at her stomach and Emma reflexively shielded it with her hands.

“Robbie!” Patrick shouted, running toward him.

Emma gasped as Robbie turned around. She called out for Patrick, but his name didn’t even leave her lips when she heard a crash and a shot.

Emma saw Patrick stopped in his tracks. “No,” she whispered, thinking that Robbie had just shot him.

Then she heard “FREEZE!” and looked behind Patrick at the SWAT team that burst forward into the room, swallowing up her friends and racing toward Robbie. Robbie had fallen to the ground, clutching his arm. She looked back at Patrick who was patting himself all over.

She could hear the police officer grab Robbie and start to read him his Miranda rights, while another handcuffed him. Another officer called down for paramedics citing a gun shot victim and domestic violence.

Patrick’s eyes finally met hers and he looked shakened, but relieved. She gave him a smile, but her emotions took over and her body start to wrack with sobs and she fell to her knees. As she did, Patrick rushed over to her and wrapped his arms around her. “Shhh, it’s okay Emma. I’m here. I’m so sorry, baby, I’m so sorry.” He whispered it over and over again as she clutched onto him, curling into his body.