The Devil - Rewritten

Chapter Six

CHAPTER SIX: NOOSES

It is wonderful how much time good people spend fighting the devil. If they would only expend the same amount of energy loving their fellow men, the devil would die in his own tracks of ennui.
-Helen Keller

Emma's mother once told her she was the type of girl only a monster could love.

She meant that as an insult. And Emma understands, she does, and when Grace Carter first told her that it knocked the air out of her lungs. Any defense lay awkwardly on her tongue and eventually, it died away so silence could take it's place.

Stephen Carter must have been a monster then.

Him with the gentle smile and made up songs he'd sing when she couldn't get to sleep when she was little. With the soft, caring words and mischievous grey eyes as loud, annoying laughter after messing up his only daughter's hair right before a picture.

A monster maybe, because he fell in love with one.

Jessamine and her cousin, Cameron, must be monsters. Actions of monsters, when they loved someone, Emma found comforting. It looks like weekend check ins that flooded her phone with voicemails that said, "I love you." and "Are you all right?"

I'm here, is a text regularly sent by monsters.

Proof of empathy, human connection, love and friendship shared between such monstrous beings must have been unimaginable to her mother. Emma Carter wasn't afraid of monsters.

She was however, terrified of the perfectly human woman in front of her.

Grace's hands shook as she lit a cigarette in the middle of the living room, and Emma didn't know if her mom knew how disgustingly fragile she looked. Either way, it was worrying. It was because her diet consisted of cocaine, Xanax tabs and vodka tonic instead of anything remotely nutritious. 

In her mom's eyes, Emma looks like how she always has.

Fake smiles, dead eyes were all normal, as was her constant wincing in pain when she lifts anything with cut wrists and her daughter being oh so sad about something she will never figure out.

Her father died two years ago.

That's more than enough time to get over it, to stop grieving. As a mother it's Grace's job to tell Emma she's beautiful and worthy. So she does. And for some reason, she thinks her daughter listens.

Grace sometimes shares a cigarette with Emma and Emma doesn't know if she's allowed to say no to it. The only time she did, she got lectured for an hour about how hard her mom works—how she just wants to spend time with her daughter.

She knew Emma smoked before.

Emma just guessed she was too fucked up to realize how wrong that was. So when she did smoke, Emma learned how to blow smoke rings all while wishing they were nooses.

Everything inside her told her she wasn't beautiful.

"Mom?" Emma asks, smoke staining her tongue. "When's my birthday?"

"Shit girl," Her mom laughs. "If you can't remember, how the fuck do you expect me to?" She shrugs, eyes pinned to the ground. Grace continues, "Sometime in February, why?"

That was wrong, but it was close enough to her birthday that was late enough in January to count so Emma stayed silent. She didn't want to have to tell her mother that.

Having been raised in a household where she's had to anticipate the emotions of her mother to protect herself, Emma can now sense even the oncoming of a bad mood just by eye contact or the slight intake of breath.