The Rock Failure ( Justin Timberlake Fanfiction)

Chapter 18- "My mother,"

Chapter 18- “My mother,”

“What is it, Kayleigh?” Emmy asked innocently, though she was shivering delicately.

Kayleigh stared back at her blankly. How could she not notice? Those shivers, that blankness, the colourless skin that grew all over the body… All belonged to one bitch. Anorexia.

Strips of Kayleigh’s heart sheared themselves off and reattached them with gummy kid’s glue as she stared at her daughter. Emmy’s shoulder blades were prominent in her back. As Emmy stared at her, those bright electric blue that matched Kayleigh’s so well were large in Emmy’s face.

“My Emmy…” murmured Kayleigh dazedly, opening her arms, “My darling Jessica.”

“Jessica?” Emmy blinked nervously.

Kayleigh grew alert, her pulse quickened, “What do you know about that name?”

“I don’t know…” Emmy scrunched her eyes up in thought, “It just… I just… it reminds me of one day when I was little.”

“What happened then?” Kayleigh kissed Emmy’s forehead.

Emmy smiled as the memory returned, “I was very little. Maybe four years old. Well, dad called me Jessica, then said it was a mistake, and now you did the same thing,” Emmy giggled.

Kayleigh smiled faintly, but when Emmy held her hand the bones of Emmy’s fingers reminded her of why Emmy was in front of her.

“Emmy, sweetie,” began Kayleigh, “Are you not eating?” she asked, awkward.

Emmy’s smile faded, and she replied without conviction, “Of course I eat,” she said, though the laugh she ended her sentence with shook dangerously.

“It doesn’t look like it,”

Emmy began to cry, “I just want to be a famous singer like you. Daddy has albums of yours when you were littler, and you were skinnier than a twig.  He listened to those for hours and hours and hours and ignored me. Sometimes he would cry. He wouldn’t talk to me for days. So I thought maybe if I was skinnier like you, he’d love me.”

“Emmy, I was ill. My mind wasn’t working properly. I’ve put the pounds back on, and yet I’m more famous than I was then,” Kayleigh pulled Emmy after her and opened the full length mirror. “Emmy, you are literally a stick. There is nothing of you. I can literally see through your skin!”

“I’m naturally thin,” Emmy protested, breaking Kayleigh’s heart as she remembered that same sentence, many years ago.

“Kayleigh… you’ve lost weight. Why, have you been dieting?” Britney had asked, frowning at Kayleigh’s waist as they lay in Britney’s hotel in Malibu.

“Dieting?” Kayleigh laughed, though she fizzed with excitement at Britney’s words ‘you’ve lost weight’, “I’m just….” Kayleigh searched for an excuse, “Naturally thin,” she finished.

The memory ached Kayleigh as she heard Emmy utter those same words.

“You’re naturally thin, are you?” Kayleigh asked, crying now.

A knock sounded against the door and Kayleigh dabbed her face ineffectually before answering it.