6:14:19 → j. hale, a. cullen

11.

6:04:15

Pausing at the sound of quiet murmurs and gently patted footsteps, Emery pauses twisting her hair into a design, and faces her bedroom door as the footsteps stop in front of it.

Placing down her bobby pins, she pauses as she hears the barely there whisper of her father speaking to Bella.

"Bells, listen, I know that this move has been hard on the both of you, but what's really been going on?" Her father Charlie softly grounds out, catching Emery's full attention, her body twisting around tightly as her ears chase after the sound.

The pittering sound of a socked foot haphazardly tapping on the floor anxiously from her younger sister makes her want to go to the door to intervene, but the words that come out of her pause her.

"She's really sick, you know? Back in Arizona, me and mom weren't ever there for her. And now she's really dying, and I'm guilty because I was the one that decided to never show up to one of her appointments. I was the one who stopped being a sister, she never stopped. She never stopped trying to get me and mom to come, but we never tried. And now she's accepting that she's going to die, and I just don't know if I can accept it now."

Silence pierced the air as Emery gripped onto the makeshift tabled mirror in front of her, as her sister's voice wavered in and out in a flurry of emotions. Wanting to comfort her sister, Emery shakily goes to stand up, her foot knocking into the chair behind her, causing a loud screech to echo through the small home. Cursing quietly to herself, Emery sighed out as the sound of her sister walking away reached her ears.

Pursing her lips, Emery sits back down in defeat and turns back to her desk, pinching open a bobby pin to place it into her hair.

"Hey, bug." Charlie calls out, causing her to pause once again and look at her father through the mirror, the elder grinning back at her reflection with a sheepish smile.

"Sorry I didn't stay up long enough to finish my interrogation, work has been pretty rough around the edges and hectic since all of these animal attacks started happening."

Placing the pin in her hair, Emery looks back at her father with wary eyes, raising an eyebrow in question. "What animal attacks?" She asks, causing her father's shoulders to deflate and sit on the edge of her bed.

"Nothing for you to worry about, for sure. Just some animals coming over from other towns is our only guess at the moment. The funny thing is, all of them are getting mauled, but all of them have the same marks on their necks." Her father hummed out tiredly, clutching onto his hot coffee mug as he took in his daughter's appearance, grinning as he noticed the necklace she wore.

"You still wear that rusty thing?" Charlie asked in a playful tone, nodding down to her neck as she looked at him confused. Emery smiled as her fingers curled around the designed gold crest, nodding.

"Haven't taken it off since Billy gave it to me." Emery replies halfheartedly as she notices the pills in her fathers other hand.

As if remembering what he came in for, Charlie hands her the pills and the mug, sending her a comforting smile as his daughter grimaces, her palm filling with the medications.

"I know you have them at school and in your bag, but I'm sure the round-way trips to the nurses office and the sounds of pills rattling in your bag as you walk to class bother you enough as is." Smiling down to herself at her father's consideration, Emery places her palm in front of her mouth and swallows them down with a hearty mouthful of coffee.

Taking the mug out of her hands carefully, her father sighs as he realizes it's time to get ready to leave for work, and murmurs a goodbye and places a gentle kiss on her forehead as a sentiment.