Teen Trials

Talking Trauma

Two weeks later.

"They aren't going to let you out kid until you talk." Amy told Emma, that afternoon after reading to her.

Exactly, Emma thought. If she didn't get let out, then she wouldn't have to go live in some facility. At least here her parents were here. Twice a day a psychologist came in, and she stared at them blankly for the twenty minutes they were in the room.

"Your neck got really hurt, love, we need to know that you can talk." Amy urged. She reached out to brush the girls bangs out of her eyes. A lot of the face swelling had gone down, but it was still pretty bruised and cut up. Her wrist and forearms were still tightly wrapped and Amy had to constantly keep her from trying to scratch the healing skin. Amy couldn't see it now, but she knew that if she lifted the blanket, she would see the wrapped and braced knee of the teenager. Further up on the teens side and chest would be three incisions from her lung surgery. She shook her head to clear her thought of that.

Emma remained silent, her face the passive mask it had been in the last week she had been awake. Three days after surgeries the teen hasn't woken up, and they had pulled her off the pain meds, causing her to not just jar awake, but panic from the pain, after many tears from Amy and Emma, they had put her back under and gradually pulled up until she was awake and coherent a good chunk of the day.

"Maybe when you've talked to someone, we can go check out getting you some new shoes. You and Daddy never made it out this way to the mall, maybe we could go to the mall."

Anger flashed across the girl's face. Liar, they were going to ship her away. She had heard her parents fighting with them, demanding to take her back. Hunter had said they would take them to court for custody and the school would agree she should stay with them. Emma was glad Hunter had won that fight. It should make her sad that her parents didn't put up a real fight for her, but she REALLY liked living with Hunter and Amy. She felt guilty that anyone wouldn't think that she was happier with them.

Hunter walked into the room then, and Emma felt another stab of guilt with how tired he looked. She wasn't supposed to be around to feel guilty, she thought annoyed. "Alright, Ems. What's it gonna take for you to talk?" He asked, leaning against the sink in the room.

"She hurt her throat really badly, H. Maybe she can't talk." Amy scolded. They had had this fight about 500 times in the last week it felt like.

"The doctors said she should be fine to talk."

"They said she was PROBABLY fine to talk, but she might not be." Amy countered.

"What assurance are you looking for, Emma?" He asked again.

Emma shifted in her bed, and she felt her neutral façade fall for a second.

"Well? What can we do that will make you talk to us again? You aren't going to be able to leave this place until you talk."

Emma wished she could walk away from this conversation, but between recovering from the knee and lung surgery, she really couldn't move too much. She had heard the doctor say it was going to take up to six months to dance again. She couldn't imagine the amount of weight she was going to put on in that time.