Chapter 37


    Emma is still soothing, while I just stare numbly at the floor. Suddenly nothing but emotional exhaustion


    consumes me, making me too tired to sit back up as numbness overtakes, and yet I know I cannot stay


    face down on her kitchen floor like this. I move to try weakly as she helps me slowly and surely and


    nestles my head against the curve of her breast, against her throat. Arms around me tight and stroking


    my hair back off my face, the tears still running down my cheeks as heat floods my skin.


    “Emma?” I cry brokenly.


    “You’re okay. I got you, Sophs … I got you. We’re okay.” Emma soothes while rocking me back and


    forth in her arms, like she would Mia, with gentle soothing words and I have no energy to do anything


    but cry. Lost in this maternal embrace, I start to sob, hopeless silent tears.


    “You don’t get it … it’s him … it’s Arry.” I whisper brokenly, burying my face in her neck not wanting to


    go anywhere else but right here, right now. I cling to her desperately. Like my world has juste


    crashing down.


    “I do get it. I’ve been there. I know what this is like.” She still rocks me to and fro, a soothing motion of a


    momma rocking her child, and it’s lulling me into submission, despite the torrent of chaos inside my


    head.


    “Jake was crazy in love with you too when you figured it out. He was all for being ‘the One’. Arrick


    walked away from me this morning. He left me again. He’s in love with someone else and I’m supposed


    to do what?” I burst into heartfelt sobs, pain overtaking where panic was and I wrap my arms around


    her bump securely, inhaling the perfume andforting smell that is uniquely Emma. My second mom,


    my savior, my hero.


    “It’s okay, we’ll get you through this, and we’ll find a way. You’re strong and you are surrounded by love.


    We will find a way, my precious girl.” Emma’s trying to keep me here, console me, but I’m already


    unraveling. That inner wall that protected me from years of pain is slowly growing inside and the urge toExclusive ? material by N?(/v)elDrama.Org.


    push her away is starting to expand. I hate that I am this way, but I can’t help it. The inner me is taking


    control, and even wing onto her with my fingertips cannot stop that younger me from pulling out of


    her arms and scooting away towards the kitchen unit on my butt backwards, to be alone with myself


    and my raw pain. It’s a defensive instinct to be solitary, to protect myself this way and not share my


    anguish. Emma lets me go, knowing me, knowing my needs, and stays seated in her own slumped


    position on the floor, watching me with genuine heartbreak in her eyes.


    “How can it be okay?” I ask her pleadingly. “How can it ever be okay again? You don’t get it … If I am,


    then what chance do I have of ever getting over him? Arrick isn’t some stupid teen crush, or a boy I


    dated who hurt me. He’s been my everything, my world, and my support. He’s my best friend, and he


    would never do anything to make me want to stop loving him. He isn’t capable of doing anything to me


    that would make me do anything but love him! I’m doomed. There’s no way out of this and I can’t see


    how I’ll be able to get past this.” I cry out, in both rage and sadness, a crazy mix of desperation.


    I am in love with Arrick Carrero.


    Not a childish, teen crush that involves butterflies and flowers and silly girl fantasies, but the real,


    complete dependency and inability to exist without the other half of me kind of love. The kind that’s


    been ripping me apart into tiny pieces and sending me down a long, dark tunnel of hopeless oblivion


    with the absence of him. This isn’t some empty hole of nothing that has been eating me away, it’s the


    all-consuming ache of knowing the one I want to be with is never going to be within my grasp, even if I


    have only just realized it.


    Emma slides across the floor towards me awkwardly, considering her bump, as I crumble once more.


    Tears and overwhelming pain hitting me from every direction, and I cannot fight it. I don’t stop her from


    tugging me into her arms again. I don’t fight when she pulls my head into herp and strokes my hair


    soothingly. She sits silently and lets me sob out every single piece of heartbreak I have been carrying


    around for as long as I can remember, now that I can put abel on exactly what this is.


    Maybe it was better when I didn’t know.