Raising Isla | ENGLOT AU

Chapter 4: Shit Happens

"What made you want to be a lawyer?" Emery asked one evening a few weeks later, before stuffing a twirled forkful of noodles into her mouth, takeout boxes strewn over Calypso's living room table.

Calypso paused from picking at her own dinner. The question felt like pressing down on a yellowing bruise, but she was aware that hadn't been Emery's intention, and, after all, she'd been honest enough to share her less than comfortable childhood secret with her after she'd asked.

"You remember me saying how I started in family law?" Emery didn't seem to notice the caution in Calypso's tone.

"Mmmhmm." Perhaps it was helping that her attention seemed to be stuck on devouring the Chinese food piled onto her plate

"I was, uh -" Calypso took a breath. "I was in foster care from the age of four. Grew up under the stress of custody battles with a mother that seemed to try to get me back every time she got so much as slightly sober."

Emery was paying careful attention to her now.

"I moved around homes a lot, mostly my own fault - I wasn't an easy kid. But honestly I spent so much time in the wooden seats of courtrooms that it started to feel like the one unchanging, certain, thing in my life. Somewhere I felt unfairly comfortable. And then, after too many years, I was lucky enough to find Mae and the ranch." Emery paused for a moment, her hands shuffling in her lap. "And as I grew older, the concept of being able to help other kids find somewhere they could learn to call home too just seemed to make sense. So I decided to specialize in cases of guardianship and adoption."

Emery' eyes were held on Calypso with such a gentle curiosity that Calypso wished Twig had been there for her to busy her attention with her fingers under her chin.

"You're full of surprises, Calypso," Emery smiled faintly, kindly, the expression turning near cheeky a second later. "Who would've known that such a softy would be underneath all that brooding charm."

...

Emery climbed into Calypso's lap later, blood lulled by wine and their plates now empty as her arms found home around the back of Calypso's neck, the palm of Calypso's hands settling over the dip above Emery's hip bones before ghosting round to her back. Pulling her flush against her chest as she kissed her, lips warm and wanting.

Calypso whispered it against Emery's mouth as she pulled away to breathe a while later, and for the first time in her life, she was entirely sure she meant it. "I love you."

And Calypso felt within her arms, Emery's heart freezing, as every muscle in her body tensed at once, her eyes flashing open to reveal something turned cold and empty.

Shit.

"What?" She asked, more from disbelief than any desire to hear Calypso say it again, before she stood suddenly, awkwardly stumbling out of Calypso's lap. "I should go. Twig... Twiglet needs feeding."

And then she was gone. Doing nothing to prevent the door slamming shut behind her as Calypso watched the last traces of her disappearing down the hallway. Astounded.

What had she done wrong this time?

...

It was not - Calypso hoped, and was only half certain - for once, her fault that her phone had gone unusually silent. Empty from the name she'd spent the last few months smiling at every single time it flashed up on her home screen. Habit was still making her check. And breaking a part of her heart each time there was nothing.

It was a first, that in all her shamefully short relationships, it was a confession of love rather than its absence that had made everything fall apart like pulling out a cornerstone Jenga block the moment you got too cocky.