My father

OK, so i'm not sure about this. I found it very comforting to write and for that reasion i love it but i am worried that it just doesn't "fit" quite right but then i think it is about time Emmet expresses his feeling a bit more openly like Esmee does. Hmmmm..... what do you think. Do i need to re-do this and take it off in a whole new direction?

My father

 

“I'm gonna watch you shine
Gonna watch you grow
Gonna paint a sign
So you'll always know
As long as one and one is two
There could never be a father
Who loved his daughter more than I love you”

Father and Duaghter, by

Paul Simons

 

 I wept openly yet shamefully time I finished rubbing my skin off in the shower. I didn’t want comfort and I ignored any words of sympathy that Lee tried to offer as I climbed into the ECA suitable clothes that had been delivered around the edge of the door by Emmet’s hand. I only cried because I couldn’t stop the tears and was painfully aware of the involuntary sniffs and jerky breaths that escaped my chest as my shoulders shook.

“Come on sweet heart,” Lee said sympathetically lightly placing her hand to my back after I had got changed still wet. The bathroom door opened with a pop as she slid her knew key card gingerly through the gap and I slipped out into the now vomit and urine free ECA even if it did smell intoxicating full of cleaning chemicals.

“This place is lethal.” Emmet said from the open door of the ECA as he tried to waft the chemical smell out of the door. A few minutes in here and we will all be unconscious. We are going to have to make a short trip to ECA two. One of us will need to hold onto your arm Mi when we go across. I won’t lie to you it’s a semi restraint but once again it’s protocol. I have to keep you in an ECA for at least an hour once you are admitted to one and any movement between ECA’s has to be done under some form of moving restraint.”

I lifted out one of my arms in obedience for either Lee or Emmet to grab hold of even though I stayed with my eyes glued to the floor. I once again gave me best effort to control my shaking shoulders but couldn’t and as soon as I felt Emmet touch my arm it only made it harder for me not to break out in full sobbing.

“You’re going to be OK,” he said gently as my feet stumbled out of the ECA door, out of the nurses’ station across the corridor and into ECA 2 with what felt like a thousand eyes on me even though the corridor was empty. I knew that clients would be watching though. You learnt how to peep through cracks in the doors to see escorts like this with a mixture of relief and sympathy inside your heart. The relief was because it wasn’t you. The sympathy was because chances where, at least once, you had felt everything they were feeling. 

I let go of Emmet when the door closed behind me in ECA two like a good girl and looked around the room to make sure there wasn’t something different that I had missed. I hadn’t, it was exactly the same as ECA one minus the cleaner smell. This room had not aged at all in the whole seven months.

“I have got it from here Lee, if you want to go and meet some of the other clients or even get to grips with writing the day books that would be great,” Emmet instructed holding the ECA door open to let Lee out. She nodded once nervously before offering me a sad smile and leaving. From that moment on whenever she was on shift and she caught a glimpse of me she would first and for most remember me as the girl who wet herself and had to get naked in front of her. I sure new how to make a first impression.

“Do you need to chat?” Emmet asked after the door closed with a click behind Lee blocking out all of the natural light. “Or would you rather I left and tried to find a doctor who could give me the go ahead to lower your observations?” I couldn’t give him a proper answer so I shrugged my still shaking shoulders while I sniffed with the waves of tears. In my head I prayed that he wouldn’t leave me. I prayed that he had some comfort to give me so it could start to feel better again.

“I’ll stay then. I don’t really want to leave you on your own when you’re so very upset. I’m going to sit down here OK, if there is anything that I can do to help you let me know.”

“I can’t stop crying,” I complained smiling even though more tears fell from my eyes and my body shook.

“Then you’re not ready to honey and that’s OK, sometimes you just need to cry things out. I know you aren’t very uncomfortable with tears but I’m still OK with them and I’m still here for you.” I couldn’t argue with that. He had never turned his back on me. In the last seven months I had dealt out the shit and he had taken it before coming back and asking for more just so he could prove to me that there was some goodness still left in the world. He had slowly but surely proven to me that sometimes people didn’t leave if you said the wrong things or made mistakes but I was still scared of that more than anything else in the world.

I chose the spot on the floor next to him and sat down. The truth was I wanted to crawl into his lap and curl into a ball and it was there that I wanted to stay. He could keep me safe from blades and pills and food. He could even get the confused feelings that came with Connor to leave me alone.

“I can’t remember,” I stuttered wrapping my arms around me in the absence of someone else to put them around. “I tried all night… but I just can’t remember,” I moaned pressing my hands into my eyes as the tears made me take in a sharp breath that hurt my ribs.

“What can’t you remember?”

“The exact colour of my new room - or the colour of Esmee’s and yours, I can’ remember the design on Mia’s cot or the tiles in your kitchen. I tried all night to remember but I just couldn’t.  What I do remember is what type of razor blade you use and exactly where it is on the bathroom wall. I know that Esmee’s is hot pink and it is on the side of the bath. I know that the medicine cabinet in the family bathroom isn’t looked and in there you have exactly 32 Paracetamol, 28 ibuprofen, 60 venlaflazin tablets and a bottle of folic acid. There is a bottle and a half of calpoe in there and a pair of nail scissors. You’re knife block is clear and has exactly 8 knives in it and two pairs of sharp scissors. You keep the bleach and cleaning things in the cupboard just above the sink to the right. In the living room there was a pair of hair straighteners on the side with candela lighter and a pencil sharpener.” The tears made me take in another sharp intake of breath but there were still more that I could say - So many ways to self-destruct where beckoning to me.   

“That’s some very scary thoughts you have going on there. I can understand why things have got on top of you but I think I should try and assure you that that apprehension about leaving a safe place and going back to something more main stream gets to everyone and you have been here for a really long time. It is also very normal that those are the things that you remember the most about our house. The good news is now that we have identified the problem we can make a plan on how mw can make this easier for you.”

“I don’t think you can,” I moaned trying desperately to remember the number of roses that where carved into the wood of my new bed that awaited me. It was nine or ten, or maybe even eleven or twelve. I should have known like I knew about the tablets, it felt unforgivable that I had learnt about all the ways I could check out of their home before I had even checked in. I would fail at their house. I would take those pills and use their razors to slit my wrists in a room that I didn’t even know the colour of and then they would hate me. They would feel rage towards my presence in there otherwise organized house. They would regret their decision to have me every time I entered in a room. They would loath every cell of me and all I would be able to remember was what they had in there medicine cabinet. I would lose them for the sake of tiny white pills.

“Mi we can do things…”

“I don’t want you to hate me!” I stuttered cutting Emmet off - the words that I feared exploding form my lips before there was a way to stop them. My whole body shuddered and shook harder to hold the sobs back now. The thought was too much inside my pounding head. “I want you to love me! I need you to love me, not just tolerate me! I need you to be proud of me but I am no good! I will fail! I will cut myself inside your house and I will bleed on your floors and then you will hate me but I need you to love me!” I shouted in full force now, as I got to my feet and scampered over to the other side of the room away from Emmet. I could hardly breathe as I let the terrifying thought consume me. They were in my life now. They were so intertwined with me that them leaving me was just an impossible hurt to bear. After A-bell had died I told myself that I would never feel anything like I had felt for her ever again. Then they came, and I lost my heart somewhere with there’s. There was nothing better in the world to break your heart then a pure all-consuming love.

 “Mi, Mi. Stop…stop.” Emmet comforted as I pushed at the walls. He got to his feet and came over to me wrapping one of his arms over my shoulder from behind and bringing it gently across my chest.

“No, don’t,” I moaned, it hurts, let me go” I whimpered my body sagging slightly, half of it in agony from his touch and the other half feeling sick with relief.

“I love you,” He whispered tightening his grip around me. “I will love you no matter what is in the future. You are good and I am proud of you and you will never change those feelings in me no matter how you harm yourself or push me away. I love you like a daughter,” Emmet whispered even more gently to fully make sure that the cameras could not pick up what he was saying. “You are loved and always will be. You belong in our home Mi and I will fight to make that happen. I know it is hard, but you will have to trust me that I will do anything I can to make it OK. I will protect you sweetheart… As if you where my own … … I promise.”