Worth falling for

Bigger talks

Alison:
Emily and I sat on the bed together after we had eaten breakfast.

"You should talk to your mom today." She said suddenly, tracing designs up and down my arm.

"On my day with you? No way." I shook my head.

"If you keep pushing it off, it's never going to get better." She kissed my shoulder and I sighed, knowing she was right.

"I don't know how to get into contact with her..." I trailed off.

"Oh yeah, it's not like you know where they live or anything." She smirked and I punched her playfully in the arm.

"Fine, I guess I should try to go fix things." I mumbled and slipped off the bed.

"I'll be here, waiting for you to tell me how happy you finally are." She smiled and I just took a deep breath.

I was going to go have one of the biggest talks of my life.
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I walked up to the steps of my house, trying to calm the nerves that were radiating through my body. I almost high-tailed it out of there when I heard a rustling in the bushes.

"Alison, you didn't think you were actually going to do this alone, did you?" Emily said as she came around the corner.

"Well...a little bit." I admitted and she pulled me into a hug. I accepted it gratefully and I went to knock on the door.

"Alison! Emily!" My mother said in a fake-cheery voice. Emily took control and smiled back.

"We're here for your guy's big apology to Alison. I'll be here as a witness." She pushed her way through the door and i followed, wincing at my mom as a sort-of-apology.

As soon as we walked into the living room, my father sighed and motioned for us to sit down.

"Don't act like thi-" I touched Emily's arm to tell her to stop. I knew that if we were going to get anywhere with my parents, criticizing them was not an option. She quieted down and took a seat next to me. I instinctively grabbed her hand for support and she laced our fingers together.

My father narrowed his eyes at us, but took a seat anyways, "first off, your mother and I just want to talk to you about the whole situation and you can comment after." I nodded as they told me the story of how they thought I was just faking it, Emily didn't seem phased by the story at all. I figured that they had already told her that. Instead, she just squeezed my hand for support.

"So why didn't you guys try to look for me after you found out about Jason? And why didn't you do anything about it?" I questioned.

"We figured you would come back eventually, but you didn't for a while. We thought that if we went to search for you, you might push us farther away. We didn't do anything about Jason, because-" my mom stopped to wipe her eyes as she started crying a little harder, "because we failed you, we failed him. We didn't see the signs. We failed as parents."

My heart softened towards my mom and I felt my hand reaching out to touch hers. She smiled warmly into my eyes and the shell that I had worked so hard to build up, cracked.

"Now what?" My dad asked, he was never one for deep mushy moments.

"Can you move back in?" My mom looked at me hopefully.

"If you get Jason some help, I'll think about it. This house has bad memories for me..." I stopped talking as my eyes filled with tears.

"I know, we're so sorry for everything." My mom replied, choked up.

"It's going to take a while for me to get over everything, but I'll work on it if you guys do." I looked at both of my parents face. They both nodded and then stood up. I was confused as to what they were doing until my dad pulled me into an embrace. I hugged him awkwardly back and Emily stifled a giggle. He then went to hug her and it was my turn to laugh at her.

"Now that we've got that settled, I'd like to have Alison back so we can finish our day." Emily took my arm.

"You guys are really close...friends, right?" My mom emphasized and we both nodded.

"Best friends." I smiled and gave her hand a subtle squeeze and we headed out the door. I finally felt like I could breathe and I was so grateful that Emily had come into my life.

Literally and figuratively.