Against All Discouragement That Could Be

Chapter Four

They woke in each other’s arms. That morning, everything just seemed brighter, happier; they felt particularly closer than before. Emma had her arms wrapped around Kate from behind, they both knew that the other was awake but they just lay there content. After a while, Kate rolled over to face Emma. “Hi,” she said. Emma smiled back at her, but before she could respond, Kate leant in and kissed her. She sprung out of bed, but Kate held onto her hand. “Woah… did I do something wrong?” Emma shook her head, and then headed into the bathroom. From there, she called out, “I have to brush my teeth.” Kate laughed, then said, “You really don’t have to do that just for one kiss, you smell fine.”

“I know, but I feel less self conscious if I do. At least let me just use mouthwash?”

Kate called out “Fine.”

 A brief moment later, Emma came in and crawled back into bed. She gave Kate a kiss, and just as she was about to pull away again, Kate pulled her closer and soon she was on top of her, kissing along her neck and collarbone. Kate lay there, smiling, when all of a sudden; they heard footsteps close to the door and her mum call out, “Girls!” They flew apart from each other, and Emma fell out of the bed just as Sarah walked in. “Emma, are you okay?”

“Yep. Fine thanks. Sorry you startled me a little.” Sarah apologised, and then offered to give the girls a lift to school, on the proviso that they could get dressed in five minutes. They hurriedly got dressed, occasionally sneaking a kiss, and ran downstairs to grab a croissant that was left on the kitchen counter for them and then run out to the car.

 It was third lesson, and Emma was sitting in her English class listen to the teacher drone on. “So, in the book ‘Captain Corelli’s Mandolin’, one man expresses homosexual love for another man. In your opinion, what does this do in terms of the quality of the book? Does it make it more modern, ahead of it’s time? Or maybe something else. What do you all think?” That caught Emma’s attention. One girl on the opposite side of the room put her hand up, and said, “Personally I think that it degrades the book. It would be a perfectly good enough plot if it just showed the two men as good friends, but by including the sin of him being gay it ruins it.” Emma couldn’t help but sit there with her mouth dropped open. Most of her classmates were nodding in agreement with this statement. “So do I take it that the whole class is in agreement with Natalie?” The teacher asked. Apart from one other girl sitting at the back of the class silently, Emma was the only person who did not nod her head. She raised her hand, feeling the need to express her views. The teacher selected her, and so she began, “I think that it is so wrong to say that it degrades the book. If it was a man and a woman in love, you would have no problem with it. In fact if it was a man and a woman in the story, you may enjoy it as a romance. But how can you point out the difference as a disgrace? It’s almost as bad as racial discrimination, and it sounds so old fashioned. Just like humanity isn’t separated by different races, why should love be separated by different genders?”

The whole class was silent, when all of a sudden the girl who spoke first called out, “Oh my gosh… Emma’s a dyke!!” Everyone burst into fits of laughter, pointing at Emma, laughing. “No, I… I… No that’s not…” She tried to protest, but it felt like everyone’s eyes were staring right through her and could already tell. Eventually she gave up fighting back; she knew that her secret was out already. “Alright, alright. Quieten down!!” The teacher shouted. For the rest of the lesson Emma sat with her head in her hands, wondering what the hell she was going to do. By the end of lunch, everyone had heard about it. Megan and Tora, as usual, spent lunch with Emma and were so kind to her. “If you like girls then you like girls. You’re still Emma, and we love you all the same.” What was shocking though, was when Kate and Emma arrived home, even Sarah had heard about it. Her straight brown hair fell onto her shoulders, she already looked young for her age, and her kind features complimented this. She saw the awkward look on Emma’s face; even Kate was holding her breath anxious to see what her mother’s response would be.

“Don’t look so uncomfortable Emma, like I said I want you to feel at home here. More importantly I want you to feel that you can be yourself. And don’t ever feel awkward about bringing girls back her, but the same rule applies to you as it does to Kate, no boyfriends in the bedroom. Well, no girlfriends, just girl-friends… Wait how will I know the difference??”

Emma smiled and said, “I’ll let you know.” Sarah smiled back and nodded, then gave both girls a peck on the cheek before heading off to work. They went into the dining room and put their books out on the table and began their homework. A couple of minutes in Kate said, “Well that was good.”

“I like your mum. She’s so unbelievably lovely.”

“I know.”

“She seemed really accepting; do you think you could maybe come out to her soon?”

“Maybe… It still scares me though.”

“What about your dad? I know he’s still in the army but what do you think he’ll be like?”

“I don’t even want to go there.”

For the next couple of hours they sat there in silence, and then both of them shut their books at the exact same time. From the hallway came the message ringtone from Emma’s phone, and then it went off again, and again. They walked out to get it then head upstairs, but as she stared at her phone Kate noticed Emma’s expression. “What?” She peered over Emma’s shoulder to see the screen and gasped at what she saw: ’52 new messages’ She laughed then said, “Wow, you’re popular.” As they entered Kate’s bedroom, Emma’s expression changed drastically: 52 messages from the same number, saying pretty much the same thing over and over again. ‘Dyke’, ‘freak’, ‘go kill yourself’. Kate then grabbed the phone and read the messages for herself. “Emma,” she began. Emma just brushed her off and got ready for bed. It had been a long day, and she just wanted to go to bed and ignore the shit, she explained to Kate. They got into bed, and Kate wrapped her arm around Emma, which was gratefully received.

At two in the morning, Kate was woken abruptly by Emma shaking her back and forth. “Piss off,” was all she managed to say as she rolled back over and tried to go back to sleep. But still Emma persisted in shaking her. Kate began to wake up, sensing that there must be something urgent for her friend to want to disturb her so badly. She turned to face Emma and turned the bedside lamp on. All she saw was blood. Blood on her own clothes, from where Emma had been touching her, blood dripped on the floor leading from the en suite, but mostly, blood all over a pale faced Emma. In an instant she was fully awake, alert, and scared for her girlfriend’s life.

“I didn’t mean to. I… I caught a vein.” Emma managed to say before passing out onto the floor. She must have only just that second done it, Kate thought. Looking desperately around for a cloth or anything to put onto the cut and stop the bleeding, she found nothing. As a last resort, she tore off her pyjama top and sat there in her bra which she forgot to take off last night and her shorts. She pressed the top onto Emma’s arm harshly and prayed for the blood to stop. There was a hospital at the top of her road, and she didn’t hesitate in picking Emma up and heading for there. Thankfully, she was quite strong from sports training, and wrestling with her older brother who was now in university all those years. Tears were streaming down her eyes as she opened the front door, and was both shocked and grateful that her mum was pulling into the driveway. All Kate thought was that it was fate her mum was on the early finishing shift that night. Through her tears Kate managed to just say, “Help.” Sarah took Emma from Kate and hastily put her on the backseat. They both then got in the car and Sarah sped to the hospital. For the short journey Kate kept putting pressure on the cut. They were there in less than a minute, and before Sarah even turned the engine off Kate jumped out, still in her bra and shorts and picked up Emma from the backseat. She ran in to the A & E department, drained of her energy but nevertheless she kept going.  “Help!” she screamed, and within seconds a doctor ran over with a wheelchair. “Please help!” Kate continued to scream. Sarah then came in through the doors as Kate shouted, “Please, help my girlfriend. She’s hurt herself.”

It took her a while for it to sink in what her daughter had just said, but then it hit her. Her girlfriend. As the doctors crashed Emma through the doors to save her Sarah came back down to reality and put that issue aside for the moment and ran in following her daughter. Her gay daughter.