Chapter 17 #3
Emma shook her head lightly. “I’ll tell them the meeting won’t be necessary.
It’s quite clear that you’re not on board with this, and I don’t want it to affect Freya in any way at all.
If she senses that you don’t want me around, it’s only going to make things difficult for her.
” Emma got to her feet and shoved her hands in the middle pocket of her hoodie. “But would you do something for me?”
Carmen frowned. “What?”
“Would you please tell her I’m sorry.” Emma had so many apologies to make when it came to Freya, but it seemed she wouldn’t get that chance. “For not being there and for not helping her when she needed it. But mostly for being just another disappointment in her life.”
Carmen turned away from Emma and left the house without another word.
She stood frozen in place, her heart hammering in her chest, tears brimming in her eyes. When the lock on the door clicked and the silence settled over her, Emma felt her knees giving out. Whatever had been holding her up, whatever hope she’d clung onto…it had just been obliterated.
Vanessa stepped into the living room with tears in her eyes, rushing to Emma before she fell to the floor. She held her up, guided her to the couch, and carefully lowered Emma into a seat. “Baby, I’m sorry.”
“I just…” Tears streamed down Emma’s face. “I just wanted to be her sister.”
“No matter what,” Vanessa whispered against Emma’s temple, one hand cradling her cheek. “You’ll always be her sister.”
“But it’s not enough, is it? Unless I’m there and present, she’ll forget I exist.” Emma scoffed as she squeezed her eyes shut.
“But I was always invisible to my family, so I don’t know why I care.
I don’t know why I even bothered to try and reason with Carmen.
They see me…they know I’m here…but I’m never good enough. I don’t know how to change that.”
“You’re perfect the way you are, Emma. You’ll always be perfect.”
“I’m useless…and I always will be.”
The house was dark except for the faint glow from the lamp in the corner of the living room.
Emma sat curled up on the couch, her knees drawn to her chest, wrapped in one of Vanessa’s oversized jumpers.
The sleeves swallowed her hands, which was just as well since she was tired of seeing them shaking in her lap.
Her phone was beside her, silenced and face down.
She hadn’t touched it since Carmen had walked out the door some two hours ago.
The air still felt thick with Carmen’s presence, almost as though she’d left something behind.
Because she had. She’d left behind a heaviness and a rejection that Emma hadn’t prepared for, not really.
Not in the way it had hit her from the moment Carmen had left, or how it felt as she sat alone with her thoughts and the ache in her chest.
She rose to her feet and stared out of the window onto the dark street, but the view blurred through her tears. Her reflection stared back at her faintly in the glass, her eyes swollen and her mouth trembling, a grief she couldn’t seem to contain visible on her face.
Why wasn’t it enough?
All she’d done was tell the truth. All she wanted was a chance to know her sister.
She hadn’t asked to be let in without question.
She hadn’t claimed any rights. She hadn’t tried to take Freya away or make things messy.
But none of that mattered. Carmen hadn’t looked at her like a sister trying to reach out. She’d looked at her like a threat.
Emma wiped at her face, the sting in her eyes nothing compared to the pain in her gut.
“I should have known,” she whispered into the silence.
“I should have known it would end like this.” She’d offered her heart, and she’d offered to be someone to Freya, but Carmen had taken one look at Emma and decided that it wasn’t going to happen.
Tell her I’m sorry.
That was the last thing she’d said, and even that felt pathetic now. Would Carmen pass it on? Would Freya even care? Or would she feel abandoned all over again?
Emma returned to her seat and pressed her forehead to her knees, squeezing her eyes shut against the tears still slipping out.
Everything hurt.
Her chest.
Her throat.
Her entire body.
That day in the office when Freya had looked up at her and said, “It makes us sisters.” That had been the most powerful moment of Emma’s life.
The pure certainty in Freya’s voice. The way Emma had felt something click into place inside her, as though her heart had finally remembered what it was missing.
Now it all felt like a lie or a cruel joke.
“I’m not enough,” Emma whispered. “Not for her. Not for anyone.”
She didn’t hear Vanessa enter the room, but she felt her presence when the cushion beside her dipped. Her wife didn’t speak, just pulled Emma against her and held her. In that moment, it was all Emma needed. The one woman who would always have her back. The only woman to ever really love her.
Emma buried her face in Vanessa’s hoodie as she said, “I can’t stop thinking about her.”
“I know.”
“I keep wondering what must be going through her mind. Does she think I don’t want her in my life? Does she wonder if I wanted to give her away when she was smaller, too? Does she wish someone would just show up and stay?”
“Oh, Emma.” Vanessa held Emma tighter as her own voice broke. “We’ll work through this. You know we will. We’re best when we’re a team…and tomorrow is a new day. Who knows where it’ll lead.”
Emma lifted her head. “Do you think she’ll forget me?”
Vanessa cupped Emma’s face. “No. She won’t.”
“But what if Carmen never tells her what I said? What if she paints me as something I’m not?”
Vanessa didn’t answer, but Emma knew why.
Because she couldn’t promise otherwise.
“I want to send her something,” Emma whispered. “Even if she never sees it. I want her to know I was here. That I wanted her. That I didn’t walk away because I didn’t care. I walked away because I had no choice.”
“Then write it down,” Vanessa said gently. “Everything you’d say to her if you could. All of it.”
Emma let out another sob, nodding as she melted into Vanessa’s arms again. She cried for the moments and the memories she’d lost, she cried for the sister she’d only just found but would never truly know, and for the future she’d allowed herself to imagine…and now had to let go.
But if that one day came in the future, the day when Freya was old enough to make her own decisions, Emma would be waiting.
She would always wait for a chance to be the person Freya deserved in her life.