reputation

The Case

June 17th, 2018.

Twenty-one - Emma

The days without Taylor had crept by at a snail's pace. She had spent a lot of time with Andrea doing nothing but talking. Emma had never realized just how similar Taylor and her future mother-in-law really were. The way they scrunched their nose when they talked about something they loved, hummed while they cooked, and buried their heads in their arms when they were frustrated or thinking were nearly identical.

Andrea was cooking some type of pasta for the three of them, and though Emma couldn't see her, she was sure she was humming one of Taylor's songs and dancing to it ever so slightly, just as Taylor herself did. Emma turned on the shower and set the water temperature to scolding. She braced herself against the wall and shimmied out of the sweatpants she had pulled on that morning, tugged her shirt and bra over her head, and held on to whatever she could to step inside.

She hadn't been using the walker at all that day, though she wasn't sure if it was because she was feeling better or because Amanda came over and took a picture to put on her birthday card for next year, claiming it was only fair because Emma's card contained a picture of a walker as well. As hard as it was to get places in their much too big apartment quickly, she was managing. The shower was a slightly different story; the slippery tiles were much more dangerous than the hardwood floor. Taylor wouldn't like the idea, but Taylor wasn't there.

She poured a generous amount of shampoo in her hands and lathered it into the roots of her hair before tilting her head back and rinsing. She ran conditioner through the ends of her hair and scrubbed over her body with a soapy loofah that smelled like lavender and vanilla. It was Taylor's soap. When the smell filled the whole shower, it was almost like Taylor was in there with her.

It wasn't until she picked up her razor and tried to hike her leg up on a little ledge that she regretted getting in the shower by herself. She wobbled on one foot and tried to maintain her balance, but it wasn't quite as good as it used to be. The razor fell from her grasp as her back leg slipped, and before she knew it she was falling head first into the wall. She screamed in pain as she landed on the floor with a thud.

Someone knocked on the bathroom door and she groaned, still trying to reorient herself. She tried to use the handle to the door to pull herself up, but her arms weren't quite strong enough and the wet tile wasn't giving her any sort of leverage. She sat on the ground, thinking about how she was going to get off the floor and regretting every decision that led up to this moment.

The knocking continued, growing increasingly louder until Freddy started talking from the other side. "Emma, I need you to answer me if you can, because if not then I'm going to assume you're unconscious and that you need help."

Emma groaned. "I'm fine. Just slipped."

"Do you need me to come in?"

"No!" She insisted quickly. The last thing she wanted was for Freddy to have to come help her out of the shower. She tried to pull herself up again with no success. She turned the shower off and weighed her options. Option A, Trying to crawl out of the shower and get up using something outside, seemed better than option B, letting Freddy help her. She dragged water across the floor as she crawled and tried to use the counter to pull herself up to no avail. Freddy knocked on the door again and Emma sighed, giving in. "Can you get Andrea?"

Seconds later, someone else knocked. "Honey, it's Andrea. Can I come in?"

Emma pressed her lips into a line and reached up to open the door a crack. "I just need help up."

Andrea pushed the door open just enough for her to go through before shutting it again. She didn't seem fazed at all to see Emma naked on the floor. She put a hand under each of Emma's arms and braced herself. "Alright. Three, two, one..."