𝐖𝐇𝐄𝐍 𝐄𝐌𝐌𝐀 𝐅𝐀𝐋𝐋𝐒 𝐈𝐍 𝐋𝐎𝐕𝐄, charlie conway (✓)

01 | the paper bag princess

❛ ━━･❪ ❁ ❫ ･━━ ❜
chapter one: the paper bag princess

tw(s): crappy father

— ˗ˋ ୨୧ ˊ˗ —

EMMA MITCHELL-HART keeps having the same dream every night. This has been happening for a month now. She's in the park, laughing as her small fingers grip the metal chains of the playground swing. You know by the hopeful lilt of her voice that she's never been hurt before. She looks behind her, and her dad is watching her swing back and forth, higher and higher. His eyes crinkle at the sides, and his eyes are filled with so much love and care. 

Then, the scene morphs, and so do his eyes. They are in the kitchen, and her mother is there. Her father's eyes are vacant and tired. Emma is sitting on a wooden barstool at the marble counter, holding her little sister, Betty, in her lap. Betty is distracted, pretending to sip invisible liquid from a plastic pink teacup. Abigail Hart is hunched over the countertop, her elbows on the surface, and her face obscured by two shaking hands. She lowers her head. She won't let her children see her cry. 

Her father's fingers are woven together, and stares off into space, the kind of expression adults have when they contemplate how to deliver bad news. He looks mildly perturbed, but not upset the way Emma's mother is. Her father tells her and Betty, but mostly just her, since Betty wouldn't be able to grasp the situation even if she was paying attention, that he and her mother are filing for divorce. They loved each other at one point, but it is no longer meant to be. It does not change how much they love Emma, he assures her. Things just don't go as planned sometimes. Emma eyes allow themselves to drift towards her mother. Her mother looks sad, but there is a hardness to her face. Her lips are pressed tightly together, not just to keep a sob from breaking out, but as if opening her mouth would cause her to say things she would regret. Her mothers eyes are narrowed at the fruit bowl. She is angry. 

A few months later, Emma finds out why.

Suddenly, Emma is back on the swing, but she is silent, and does not know how to laugh. She swings higher than she ever has before, and it now seems as if she is parallel to the sky. Instead of blue, however, she is met with her father's face, just how it was at that kitchen counter. What happened to the crinkle of his eyes? What happened to the glisten of joy in his irises? Emma dares to look back down. A duplicate of her father is there, this time, the one with the crinkle and the joy. 

Emmy, come down, he says. Dinner is probably ready by now. 

Daddy! Emma yells. 

She kicks her legs desperately trying to come back down, but whatever she does, the figure from the kitchen advances towards her. She jumps from the swing, landing on her back on the tanbark below. No one comes to fetch her for dinner. No one comes to hoist her onto their shoulders and whisper to her about how her mother is going to be mad about them being late for dinner, like they are exchanging secrets just for them. She is just alone. 

Her vision goes black.

Beep, beep, beep, beep, bee-

Emma brings her palm down harshly against the top of her alarm clock, almost rolling out of bed onto the hardwood floor. 

She sits up with a reluctant grunt, rubbing grogginess from her eyes with the heels of her palms. She collects her equipment for hockey practice, tossing her chunky skates into her olive green duffel bag and stuffing her helmet in.