Willow's Beginning

QUICK NOTE: Anything in just BOLD and ITALIC is everyone but Emilie. Hers is BOLD, ITACLIC and UNDERLINED!!!

You'd think my heart would be pounding in my ears as I watch my death approaching. But you would be wrong. I've know it was a long time coming. But maybe I should start over. Start from the beginning of this. The beginning of my end so to speak. Well, my first end anyway.

My name is Emilie Willows and I am about to become one of few.

Willows Beginning

Rain pounds upon my pullover as I sprint across the busy intersection. Stepping onto the curb and into the corner store I lower my soaked hood and head to the back. Halfway there I almost collide with my best friend/sister Amelia. Shocked but happy, I hug her as she speaks.

"Emilie, hey. I was just about to come over and request you join me and the boys for dinner. Arson and Jake are cooking. Homemade burgers and fries. Whatcha say?" She asks rather cheerfully. I'm grinning as I nod and she takes my phone to set a reminder. We smirk as we both know I would forget without it.

I skirt around her in the small aisle, turn and wave at her, and as I do, so begins our decent into truth's both of us wanted to keep hidden for a while longer. My pullover sleeve, which I admit is way to baggy on me so it's mostly my fault, slips back up my arm and showcases just how damaged I am. All I feel is the cold air of the store on bare arm, and my heart drop into my stomach as I watch Amelia's face twist in worry.

Without thinking, I jerk my arm and hand back, pull the offending sleeve back down and race back out of the store into the downpour, ignoring my friend calling my name. Thirty minutes later as I run straight into my house, I remember I locked my door before I left. Gulping, I turn and see Amelia's twin brother Arson, standing between me and my living room with a look on his face that could make anyone cringe. My heart drops lower.

Arson's green eyes stare into my violet ones, and I just know this isn't going to be a pleasant conversation. It's a look I'm all to familiar with from before I moved here a year and a half ago, but memories die hard, and ingrained survival dies harder. Involuntarily, my back straightens and my posture goes stiff. I can feel the color drain from my face as it blanks itself out and Arson take's a step towards me.

As he walks closer my head is whirling trying to figure out a way to get me out of this disaster. Before I can register that I blinked, he's in front of me and grabbing my arm lifting the cuffed betrayer. I flinch as he takes in a loud hiss like gasp. A loud rushing noise greets my ears as I try and except the fact that two of the three people who mean the most to me have now found out what I have hidden for the last five years. Although, not even most of the scars trailing along all parts of my body are from me, no one needs to know that. Ever. But I have a gut feeling today is going to be a day of shared secrets.

As the blood rushing behind my ears quiets, I hear him talking. To me or himself I don't know, so I look at him and raise my eyebrows. The answering gaze is one I don't know how to interpret. His eye's are hard, and his mouth is this grimace/frown like twisted mess. I feel my arm being dropped, rather harshly and I flinch again. Arson grabs for my other arm but somehow I manage to make my legs listen and I step back bringing it behind me. The answering growl scares me just a little.

"Let me see Emilie, I'm not asking." his voice sounds like a cross between demanding and pleading, but I just shake my head. "Emilie Willows let me see your damn arm!" I shrink back at the harshness of his tone and how very angry he must be, but I still refuse. They already saw one, and I'm sure some people would be all for it since it's out in the open anyway, and that denying it usually just confirms suspicions, but I grew up not giving anything away. It's the one thing from my past I can live with easily.

Scowling now, he reaches for my left arm again and starts lightly pulling me to my own living room. Sighing silently I know this is going to be a very long day.

Rather gently, he pushes me onto my loveseat as he takes up pacing in front of my coffee table muttering under his breath. All I catch is something about rightfully worried over-protective sisters and what sounds like stupid girls not knowing how to talk to anyone when something's bothering them. My back has loosened up and I'm slightly slouching into my couch with my arms over my legs when he strikes. Before I can react he has my right arm in his hands repeating his actions of less then ten minutes ago.

This time a strangled noise escapes his throat as I try and jerk my hand away. Key word is try. It's doesn't work, all he does is tighten his hold. But sitting as compared to standing must be different because instead of dropping it, he runs his fingers along the faded scars and slightly less than a week old new additions. Internally I cringe and freeze again. No one, who has ever seen any of the injury's on any part of me has even remotely acted the way Arson and Amelia have today, and I find it kind of disturbing.

I try and take my arm back and this time he lets me, though a bit reluctantly. I pull my sleeve back down and just hunch my shoulders. My stomach is in knots telling me that the friendship I've had with the twins and their younger brother for the last several years is over, but my heart and head disagree. Nausea sets in and I rush for my downstairs bathroom.

Footsteps alert me to the fact he's followed behind, but since all I'm doing is unloading my already empty stomach contents I try not to let it bother me. As I'm retching into the porcelain god, my hair is lifted out of direct fire, and I feel a large hand on my back. Trembling, I fling myself away from the contact and cover my mouth. Violet meets green as both sets of eyes widen and stare at the other. Backed against the tub, my anxiety skyrockets as he slowly approaches me, hands held in the universal sign of surrender.

"Em, it's ok, I'm not going to hurt you. Really, I just want to help. Okay?" the voice and words seem to match his face, but I know you can fake anything and everything if you're good enough. I just don't know if he's that good, and it terrifies me. My heart feels as though it's got NOS pumping through it as I watch him stop and crouch in front of me.

"Emilie, it's Arson. You know I wouldn't hurt you. Please look at me. Amelia's on her way, she had to check on Jake, but she'll be here in a few minutes. Can you let me help until she gets here?" The concern I detect from him seems genuine, so slowly I nod. As soon as I do my head has to go back over the toilet as another wave of sick comes forth. Again my hair is lifted and the hand is back, and I feel rather proud of myself because all I do is tighten my muscles only slightly.

"Emilie, you know we care about you right? You know you don't have to hide anything from us, especially Amelia. You're family, and families help each other when they need it." I uncurl from the mess in the bowl and peer up at Arson through my bangs. "We both know you haven't told us even a third of what happened before we got you moved here, and we accept that. But Em, you need to let us in and help you. Please, we don't want to lose you, and seeing the state of your arms, it feels like we just might." I shift so my back is against the tub again and look up at him. Biting my lower lip, I just kind of shrug, because honestly, I don't know what else to do except make the well known by now gesture of pen on paper.

He offers me his hand and I take it carefully. Slowly, I stand and make a follow me gesture as I head for the door. Silently we make our way back to the living room and I point to the couch for him to take a seat. Luckily I always keep one of my 'communication' notebooks on the coffee table. I don't talk, and I haven't since I was ten. For nine and a half years I've been silent, though I have been practicing so I can hold a true conversation with the three people I know wouldn't condemn me for it, and care for me the most.

Grabbing the notebook and the pen attached to it, I quickly write out 'I'll try and explain everything to you and Amelia when she gets here. Okay?' I feel my anxiety sky rocket as Arson reads and nods looking at me expectantly. I try and calm myself before Amelia gets here, knowing I'm going to get worked up again when I start telling them things in greater detail.

Just as I get my heartbeat back to normal and my breathing even, I hear my front door open and the rushing of feet across my hardwood. Instantly it's all out of rhythm again as I see Amelia enter my living room and stop in front of me. Again, I feel tears gather in my eyes as she gently grabs my hands and carefully lifts one sleeve than the other.

The gasp I hear is enough for the traitorous tears to fall and for me to lunge into Amelia's waiting arms. I know this is a conversation I really don't want to have, but I know they need the truth. I can feel it in my heart that no matter what I tell them they will remain by my side.

Before Amelia can ask why, like I know she wants to, I stop her and reach for the notebook I had placed back on the coffee table. Taking a deep breath I go to a clean page and begin writing. Time stretches as I write, and I can feel the siblings getting tense from how long it's taking me to get everything down and how many pages it's filling up in the book. By the time I've finished and get ready to hand them the notebook, I see just how long it took me. Forty-five minutes. Three quarters of an hour to get down eighteen years worth of hurt and anguish. Half of a hundred page spiral notebook. Fifty pages front and back. Hesitantly I hand it to Amelia and watch as they both begin to read it.

It only takes reading the first two paragraphs for Amelia to begin sobbing and it only gets worse the longer they read. By the time they are both finished, Amelia is clinging to me and Arson is pacing mumbling under his breath. I feel tears well in my eyes again as my best friend begins telling me it isn't my fault. All I can do is shrug with her arms around me. I know in my head it's not my fault, but one or two people telling me what I should already know in my heart isn't going to erase eighteen years of ingrained blame from someone who is supposed to love you.

"Emilie, you do know it isn't your fault... Right? Not any of it. They had no right to do anything that they did. Blame like that does NOT belong on the shoulders of a child, let a lone a newborn that has to carry that blame the rest of their life." Arson says kneeling beside me and Amelia. I nod and shrug at the same time. I grab the notebook again, than stop before I have it fully in my lap. Gently, I set it back onto the coffee table and sigh.

Quietly, I speak for the first time in almost ten years. "In my head I know it's not my fault... It's my heart that doesn't seem to understand that... I've known for a long time that what they were doing was wrong, but I felt I deserved it... Until I started talking to you guys... The three of you are the best thing to ever happen to me... I... I honestly never planned on telling any of you anything that happened except when I was told to leave and never come back on my eighteenth birthday... Not even why... Which now I realize I forgot to include..." I feel my throat tighten and start to swell.

Slowly, I stand and head for my kitchen to make us something to drink, when the alarm Amelia set goes off startling me. I jump and squeak so loud they can hear me in the living room and can hear them stifle small laughs. Shrugging again I just head back to them.

"Are we going to keep your little brother waiting? I can't imagine that would make him all that happy... But than again he's turning fifteen so I might be wrong..." I ask lightly smiling, now pretending we didn't just have a semi-major conversation. One I know will be continued either later tonight or sometime tomorrow, and will be more detail oriented.