What's This Life For // Creed

"Say that again?" I ask, looking up at her from my seat on the end of her bed. There's no way I heard her right. "Your son?"

She nods, spinning around and giving me her back, once more cutting me off.

"No. Look at me, Emily. Don't hide from me. Don't push me away or shut me out. Not now."

"I can't look at you when I say this."

I take a deep breath, understanding filling my lungs with the oxygen.

"I'm listening." My heart might be shattered for her. My stomach might be twisted in knots. My brain might be screaming it's confusion and fear. But I'll hear every word she says without passing judgment like her mother.

Emily fiddles with something on her makeup table I can't see. Her shoulders hunch, telling me with her body that she's broken by what she's about to tell me. I brace myself for the truth, hoping I don't end up committing a homicide after she tells me.

"You know how I was after the Mulroony's," she says. And I do. Everyone does. We had a front row seat thanks to sites like Star Tracker posting every dirty detail of Emily's downfall from grace after the show that launched her career shut down.

"I didn't know who I was after the show ended. No one picked me up for a new series. I was too old to be the cute daughter and too young to play the sexpot everyone wanted me to play."

I nod even though she isn't looking my way.

"I rode the fame wave as long as I could, showing up to premiers and parties, getting my picture online whenever possible. Everything Mother Dearest demanded, I did. Willingly. I didn't want to be forgotten."

The subtext is clear. Her mother forgot her. She didn't want the rest of the world to as well.

"I remember," I say, wanting her to know I never forgot about her. It's why that poster is still in my closet.

"Yeah, I guess so. I made sure every salacious detail was documented, though. Didn't I? Who could forget me?"

I shake my head. "We can get into what I do and don't remember about you later." After she explains about her son.

I swallow. Even simply thinking the word has me tensing up. Not because I'm upset at the prospect she's a mom. But when the hell has she ever been seen with a little kid? Or a baby.

Where's her son?

I glance back at her bed, disheveled from sleep and all in disarray. But I spy the edge of the mangled blue blanket I'd seen before peeking out from under her covers. I have a horrible feeling about that blanket...

Emily steps away from the table and over to her window, looking through the opening in her curtains at the sand and sea below.

"I kept waiting for things to change. I turned 18, thinking I'd be seen as an adult finally, get offered adult roles. But nothing came. Then I was 20 and I felt like a washed up 'has been.' At twenty years old. I thought my life was over. I figured I'd lost everything so why not give it all away."

I swallow, realizing where the story was headed.

"I remember seeing you paraded around with some real users." I can still picture the drugged out look in her eyes whenever she'd be on the town with those guys.

"True. I hung out with guys who were loaded, and I don't mean their wallets. They shared their party favors and I liked the way I forgot about everything. The crazy thing is, I'd managed to stay away from that shit the entire time I was on the show. It's offered, believe me. But I stood my ground and stayed away. Until I ran out of reasons not to. And there they were, offering an escape, so I took it. I let them use me."

I stand, wanting to go to her but holding my place. I shove my hands in my pockets in a lame attempt to keep from clenching my fists and fueling my ire.

"I partied all the time. Almost daily. I was out of control and I knew it but I didn't care. Until the night I completely blacked out and to this day have no memory of. A party like any other, a drug cocktail I'd had before so I didn't think anything of it. Maybe it was stronger than usual. Maybe my body was trying to tell me something. I don't know."

"What happened?" I don't think I want to know, but I have to ask.

"The same, sad story. I woke up the next day in a strange bed. My clothes flung all over the room. No guy next to me, but I could tell we'd done things. Without protection."

Shit. I don't say it outloud but I think it, real hard. I rub my jaw, holding back my fury at the asshole who used her and left her.

"Did you ever find out who it was?" I ask cautiously.

Emily nods, a nearly imperceptible movement. But I'm watching her closely so I see it.

"He came out of the bathroom, looking fresh as a daisy. Nothing like I felt. He smirked at me, made some comment like 'thanks for the lay' and then told me I should go before his dad caught me there."

"His dad?"

"John."

"Shit." This time I can't hold it in. I want to know about the baby. I'm desperate to ask. But I can't bring myself to do it. I wait for her to continue. To tell me everything else. But she remains silent for a while, staring out the window into the wide blue beyond.

"Can we go somewhere?" she asks, finally turning to look at me. Her eyes are rimmed with red, shiny with held back tears. I wish she would let them fall. I'm not afraid of a crying woman.

"Where do you want to go?"

"The end of the story."

"That's a place?"

"This one is."

I nod, reaching for her hand. She gives it, allowing me to hold her. I'd pull her close, into my arms, if I thought she'd let me. Maybe when we get where we're going.

"Lead the way."

"You need to pack a bag, first."

I shoot her a look. "What?"

"We have to fly there. I already have a plane waiting for me, thanks to Mother Dearest's personal pilot. We can fly back in the morning and still make tomorrow night's rehearsal."

I almost forgot she's working with the stunt team on a few scenes over the next couple of weeks.

"How long have you had this planned? I wasn't aware of a flight for an overnight outing."

"Um," Emily looks away sheepishly. "Since this morning."

"And you didn't mention it?"

"Obviously."

"When were you going to tell me?"

"I just did."

"Because I broke down your bedroom door and forced you to."

"Which you'll have to repair, now. You know that right?"

I roll my eyes. "Not the first time I've had to fix a door jam. You met my sister."

Emily smiles. "I like her."

"Yeah, she likes you, too."

Emily smiles bigger. Which helps settle my frustration. But only a little.

"Fine. Pack your bag. I'll fly with you, but you've got to stop dropping these outings on me."

"One, my bag is packed. Two, it was necessary before because I couldn't tell you."

"You can tell me anything, Emily."

She nods, leaning her head against my chest. That simple motion burns away the rest of my irritation. I wrap my arms around her, pulling her in.

"I'll throw some things in a bag and we can leave. Text me the location of the airport."

"Okay."

***

The plane lands two hours after takeoff. I have no idea where we are until we walk into the airport.

Texas.

"What's in Texas?" I ask her, finally, once we're in the car taking us wherever it is we're going.

"Home."

"I thought Hollywood was home."

"Sometimes home isn't a place. Sometimes home is a feeling."

I take her hand, the two of us in the back of the tinted out car riding through the open road. There isn't much in whatever part of Texas we're in. Mostly green fields as far as the eye can see. Houses and barns dot the expanse of land here and there. It's peaceful as the sun sets, but I still don't know why we're here.

Unless this is where her son lives. Maybe she had an open adoption and she's able to be in his life. Or maybe she has a full time nanny caring for him while she's in Hollywood.

I hope not. I'd hate for the kid to be raised by an employee, no matter how loving the person might be. It's not the kids' mom or dad.

Although in this case, I'm positive he's better off without his dad in his life, based on the way the kid was conceived.

Another more distressing thought occurs to me. Maybe the dad has custody. I could see Emily's mom pulling strings to take custody away from her. And this has to be the reason for the veiled insinuations the woman makes constantly about building Emily's career back up and paying for people's silence.

Emily stares out the window, her hand gripping mine, as we ride through the dusky evening. The peaceful scene outside the car is a sharp contrast to the stress inside. I feel Emily's anxiety and I wish I knew what to expect.

"Am I going to have to restrain myself?" I ask. Emily turns to look at me.

"What do you mean?"

"Are we knocking on someone's door? Will there be some asshole on the other side of the door that I'll want to take down?" Breathing through my nostrils, I wait for her answer.

The soft smile that spreads across her face is unexpected.

"No. There's no monster waiting in the dark. No one you'll have to beat down."

I nod, my shoulders relaxing as the tension leaves my body.

"Not tonight, anyway."

"Shit." I hiss.

"We're almost there." Emily looks out the front windshield. I follow her gaze only to be confronted with a possibility I hadn't imagined.

The entrance to a cemetery.

I glance over at the woman by my side, a woman I realize I don't know at all. As I watch her, sensing the mask slide into place–the mask of indifference I've witnessed on her more times than I can count—I realize I do know her. I know the Emily she keeps away from the world because she's allowed me to see her.

I'm about to find out why that Emily stays hidden. I've seen a ton of shit in my life, from the torment my siblings experienced before coming to live with us to the drama stirred up by the elite of the film industry. But I don't think I've ever felt so pissed about any of it as I do right now.

As we enter through the cemetery gates, winding deeper along the grass strewn with headstones and plots, I hate everything in Emily's life that made this the place she thinks of as home.

And I know this is what she was referring to when we arrived. Because when the car comes to a stop, she looks at me and says the worst four words I could imagine saying in a cemetery.

"Come meet my son."

There it is...

What next, right? Javi is about to have a hard time holding back, but we love a protective man! This entire chapter is the "who hurt you" trope and I love it! More to come *wink*

What's this life for is a hard hitter from Creed. Some of their lyrics from this era are next level.

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