Breathless: Emily's Story

Chapter 15

September 25- 5:30 pm- Emily

Somewhere in the middle of my sleep, I hear the doorbell, and of fear of thinking it was the police come to take me away for failing to save Bruno, I wake up.

Slowly, I wake up and get dressed, walking to the balcony to look over the living room to find Emory talking to the Byrne moms.

"Emory?" I call, and they stop talking, looking at me. I break down as soon as I see his face. "Emory" I say again, wrapping my arms around myself. Emory quickly moves to the steps and meets me where I stand. He hugs me, knowing that was just what I needed. I burst out crying harder, wrapping my arms around him so tightly, I'm sure it hurt.

Alix

Seeing her like this, broke my heart. She'd lost so much in the last day and a half. Watching her hug her cousin like he was the only life line she had left, made me think about how I wish I could help more than I was. But I wasn't who she wanted help from. I clench my jaw, looking at Asher as he just watches his phone. I force myself to look back at the screen where Avalon had left it paused.

Emily- 8:30 pm

After Emory left and I had cried everything I could out, I sit in Asher's room, arms crossed, in his arms, with Avalon and Alix sitting on the end of the bed, cross-legged.

"All this talk about my family history made me wonder something..." I begin and they look confused.

"What's that?" he asks, sitting forward to grab a handful of popcorn from a large bowl that sits in the middle of us.

"What are your grandparents like?" I ask, remembering my grandma from my dad's side, she was as sweet and funny as he was, but she had a hot temper. I never knew my grandfather. And I didn't mean the grandparents from my mom's side. I never thought about asking my dad about them. Once I was old enough to ask, I knew better than to, because anything that reminded my dad of her was a terrible idea.

"They're pretty intense" Alix laughs, grabbing popcorn herself. It was hard not to look at her legs with the shorts she wore. I swallow, forcing myself to look up at her eyes. "Grandma is a pretty open and caring woman. She's a bit of a puzzle other than that"

"While grandpa took a while to accept Mom and Momma being together" Avalon answers now.

"He didn't like Clarita?" I ask and Alix's eyebrows scrunch.

"Mom's his daughter, and not it's not because of Momma's personality, it was because she's a girl. He was raised a certain way it was hard for him to look past that and at Mom's happiness but he did eventually" I smile. That sounded like a pretty amazing story in and of itself.

"And what's the other set of grandparents like?" I ask and Avalon scrunches her eyebrows, while Asher laughs.

"You'd have to ask Momma" He answers, with a smirk, while Alix gives him a look.

"But they won't answer" Alix states, looking at me now. I scrunch my eyebrows.

"Are they dead...?" I ask and both Avalon and Alix shake their heads.

"No, the most I know is that there's only Momma's mom"

"You've never met them?" I ask and they shake their heads again. "So, she just doesn't see her mom anymore?"

"No, she sees her every now and then..."

"But you've never met her?" I look of, thinking. "That's odd..." I say, and I guess I hadn't met a set of mine either, but that parent wasn't in the picture and as far as I knew, they were dead or didn't wanna meet me. "I wonder what happened"

"If I were you, I wouldn't ask, Momma gets cold when she hears about it and every time she comes back, she's closed off for a couple hours" Avalon warns.

"Hmm" I say, looking away from them.

"On other news," Alix begins, but I don't listen. I'm too deep in thought. It all made me wonder what my mom's parents were like. I couldn't even remember what my mom was like that well. I couldn't remember what her voice sounded like, or if she'd sang to me when I couldn't sleep, or if she had a quick temper or even a good patience. I could only remember random nonsense things.