Fight

10

TW

It takes a few seconds for the sound of the door slamming to trigger a response in your brain. But that response is hopeless, futile, and ineffective. It involves you shifting back and forth between your two feet at your body tries to coordinate itself and do something actually productive. 

"Y/n?" Emily says. You want to shout at her. You want to scream that this is all her fault. But still, your body won't respond.

"Y/n," she repeats, shaking your arm, "Was that Demi leaving?"

Yes! Yes of course it was! Why would you even ask something so obvious? - I'm trying to figure out what to do now!! How to fix this!!

You don't say any of this. You don't have the mental capacity to berate the woman standing in front of you and also pray for the woman who just ran from behind you. So you can only nod, your mouth hanging open like a fish. 

"We need to find her," Emily announces.

Wait - what?

"What? Why are you--?"

"You obviously care about her, Y/n! More than I can understand but-...but I know it would hurt you if anything happened to her. And I don't want to see you get hurt...I don't want to see the love of my life get hurt..."

"Em, ...I..."

"Just leave it, Y/n. We can talk about this later. Now we need to find Demi, she can't have gotten far."

Emily was already pushing past you and making her way towards the back door. Following dumbstruck, you only just manage to reach the garden without tripping over your own feet. The two of you look out past the end gate and into the thick woods that line the back of your neighbourhood. 

"You go left..." Emily orders, and truthfully, you're grateful for it, "...and I'll go this way," she says pointing towards the dense foliage on the right. 

"O-okay...okay, call me if...if-"

"If I find anything," she continues, "Yes, I will. And you do the same. I'll hopefully see you soon," she smiles reassuringly before heading through the broken panel in the gate and jogging out of sight into the leaves. 

What - the fuck - was that? Is the only audible voice in your brain. Emily's going to help you find Demi? Since when--...since when has this ever been a possible scenario in this weird love triangle that has now formed?

Not wasting any more time, you use the countdown to Linda's evening visit to spur you into running into the woods as well. And you hope this particular 'episode' will not need to be marked down as unsatisfactory on her damn clipboard. 

***

It must have been almost six hours now. Maybe even more. You didn't think to check the time on your phone when Demi first ran but you know it was early morning. Now - it was late afternoon. And you realise you had no concept of how big these woods were until this moment. 

"Demi!... Demi!" you shout through silent tears. You had begun to lose hope within the first couple of hours. The longer the time she had, the more she could do to herself. You curse yourself for being so relieved that morning when you hugged her breathing body. You shouldn't have let your guard down so quickly. You shouldn't have turned your back on her. 

As the hours dragged on, you sometimes got sidetracked with thoughts of what Emily said. You're the love of her life? You are to her what Demi is to you? Your initial feelings of anger towards her have started to dissolve in the misty fog that has descended through the trees, and you hope that, after all of this, you won't have to erase her from your life completely.