The Ragdoll

Cigarettes & Rock 'n Roll

Those events that took place on that Friday night, at David Benson's house, would forever change Emily. The fact that she stabbed a boy in the shoulder did put her in juvenile hall for a full month. As soon as she was released, her father immediately saw something was completely different about his daughter. She was angrier, tougher. She rarely ever spoke to him, and when she did, her words carried so much disrespect that it almost made him break down completely. What happened to his little girl? What happened to her corny jokes, her shyness? What happened to Emily?

Emily Thomas met Nick Tucker when she was 16 years old. He was sitting on the hood of his red Cadillac, smoking, and listening to Rock. He was wearing a jean jacket, a white tank top, black jeans, and sunglasses. Emily passed him in the parking lot of her high school when she saw him. She was wearing a white t-shirt, her father's black leather jacket, and an old pair of blue jeans. Nick said hello to her when she passed, and she stopped to say hello back.

"Can I bum one of those?" she asked, pointing to the cigarette lazily hanging from the corner of his mouth.

"Sure," he replied with a smirk. He handed her a cigarette, she popped it in her mouth, and she leaned forward so he could light it. "So, uh, you're that psycho chick, right? The one that stabbed Danny Cortez in the shoulder last year?"

It was now Emily's turn to smirk.

"You damn well better believe it, too." she replied. Emily inhaled, and took the cigarette out of her mouth with two fingers, heaving the smoke back out between her lips as she did so. Nick chuckled in response. Emily joined him on the hood of his car. The two sat side by side for hours, until the parking lot around them was entirely empty. Soon, there was nothing else to do. Emily gazed into Nick's eyes, leaned forward, and planted a kiss on his lips. Then another one. She pulled away and he looked at her with a devious and mischievous look. That took the breath straight out of Emily's body. Suddenly she felt weightless. Like the entire world around her was collapsing, leaving only her and the beautiful boy untouched. Perfect. Meant to be.
"I'm Nick," he said out of the blue, effectively snapping Emily out of her trance.

"I'm Emily."

Over the next year, Emily and Nick would be the most well known couple at their school. They always seemed to be doing something out of the ordinary, or better yet, something incredibly illegal. They stole from drug stores, jumped younger teenagers, stayed out late, and slept in Nick's bed all day. Emily absolutely loved her life. There was just something so good about being bad, something that was like a drug to her. She was certain that Nick would be the only thing she would ever need for the rest of her life.

 ***

Emily's father sat on the leather reclining chair in his room, staring at the blank wall in front of him. He had a half-empty bottle of scotch in one hand, and was scratching the grey scruff on his face with the other. Half awake, and almost completely oblivious to his own existence, he thought. He thought about how much he absolutely hated Nick Tucker. He hated absolutely everything about him. His mannerisms, the way he talked, the way he acted around Emily. He hated the effect he had on her, how she seemed to get worse and worse every time they were together. And they were together every day. It wouldn't be long, now, until she winded up in prison again. She had just gotten off with a warning for trying to sneak a pack of those god awful cigarettes from behind the front counter at a gas station while Nick distracted the clerk. That's the kind of behavior that would destroy the Emily that her father once knew, forever. It wasn't too late yet. He knew that. When he looked at his daughter, he could still see that glimmer of light in her grey eyes, the same glimmer he saw on the day she was born. Emily could still be saved.

Maybe the problem wasn't Nick Tucker, after all. Maybe it was him. He had sat back and let Emily handle her own life for so many years, she was losing sight of who she once was. Maybe now was her father's time to finally step in. What he had been doing wasn't parenting, it wasn't even supervising. It was pure, textbook laziness. He had let his daughter fall so far, but not anymore. He could still save her, he knew he could. He just had to try.