Fatal Fortunes CD - Kirsten Scott

[TheOne]

{NEHMIAH: Chapter 7}

... And it happened.  My parents and I, face to face, for the first time since I brought their entire world crashing down on them.  My father, the man who helped bring me into this world, being completely disingenuous to me, and I could see through it.  These were the people who were supposed to love me unconditionally, and one of them was there trying to simply get me back on their side, for their own personal gain.

My question is, why now?

Why, when I had been called out by Emma and Hailey, where they could see through my safeguards, see my vulnerabilities, and know that I have qualms about the fact I don't have the perfect relationship with my family, like others do?  That is the question that I ponder and I wonder if time and if everything truly falls into the trope of "everything happens for a reason?"

Does it?

Did I encounter them for a reason?

I don't know... And not knowing is something that doesn't sit well because that has only been my position when I was told to go to my room, not come out, and my parents would engage in activities I still hate to think about.  I feel like not knowing is putting me back in my room, and putting me back in a position where there is something happening in my blind spot and it's my job to just act like nothing is wrong.  And all I ask is one simple question...

Why?

Why would the people who brought me into this world put me in a position where they realized the damage they did in making me "look the other way," and then just immediately think they could impose their will again?  Why would they want that for their daughter?  Why would they want to hurt me for their own satisfaction?

This is the turmoil that boils inside me.  This is what I live with.  This is how I feel day-in and day-out.  Hailey and Emma were able to push through my barriers and now the floodgates of emotion are spilling into my blood and making me ill just feeling everything that I feel.  I am "The One," and my job isn't to "feel" anything, but here I am, worried about people who don't give a damn about me.  They look upon me as a pawn in a game and it's pushing me to the brink of wanting to do the one thing, the one thing...

THE... ONE... THING...

... That I never thought I would ever do, once I took the role of "The One," and that's... Run...

In the duplex being lived in by the group of Emma, Ethan, Hailey, and Kirsten, everyone but Kirsten sits inside in various rooms, watching television, napping, or just enjoying the quiet.  Kirsten, however, is atop the balcony, once again outside, overlooking the "wildlife" that their current home backs up to.  She listens to the cows mooing, the frogs in the creek ribbiting, trying to clear her mind of the event that had happened days prior.

Since the encounter at the grocery store, where she, effectively, confronted her parents, not being prepared or ready, she has had her mind racing.  She has felt a sense of anger, a sense of pain, a sense of every negative emotion imaginable, and done everything she could to hide it from the rest.  Her self-expulsion from the group, on the balcony, though, has told them all that something is wrong and not sitting well with her.  It's this uncomfortable situation that leads Emma, the leading empath to the group, to approach the surrogate to Kirsten, in Hailey, and see what the next steps should be, even though she is in her room, alone, reading a book.

Emma Taylor: Hailey...?

Hailey looks up, toward her doorway, to see Emma.

Hailey Brooks: What's up?  Everything ok?

Emma Taylor: I... I don't know... Something is wrong with Kirsten, and I feel it.  I feel it deep inside my heart, and I don't know what to do.  I don't want another situation where she yells.  It hurts me more than she recognizes...

Hailey Brooks: I can promise you, she feels bad anytime she yells at you... Me, she knows I'll get over and she'll get over... You... You're different.  And that's not something I'm mad about.  We all handle confrontation differently.  She and I handle it more aggressively than you and her.  Trust me when I say, she still feels bad about how she confronted you...

Emma looks down, feeling a sense of relief, knowing her "one person" wasn't harboring anger toward her.  She looks back up at Hailey and continues.

Emma Taylor: ... That... Helps... But the fact is, I still feel this about her NOW.  I feel something isn't "OK" with her, right now, and she's in a bad place...

Hailey realizes Emma doesn't know what happened.

Hailey Brooks: Let me say this... She came face to face with her parents, and I don't think she was ready for it.  It wasn't pretty to say the least.  She's been quiet with me, too, since then.  She's been a bit distant.  I've let her be...

Emma quickly jumps in.

Emma Taylor: But that's not how she is with me, and I can't let her be... I can't let her suffer... Especially when I feel it, too...

Hailey Brooks: I get that, and I wish I knew how we could snap her out of it, but I don't know what the magic words are.  There is no "alakazam" for this situation.  Life doesn't have fixes like a simple computer program with a bug, that you can just insert a comma in, and everything work.  Life sucks.  Sometimes, we suffer...

Emma shakes her head.

Emma Taylor: NO!  No we don't!  I'm not saying everything can be fixed, but she can quit being so distant.  She can quit pushing us away.  And it's time we do something, and try and get through to her... Together...

Hailey Brooks: Emma... I get it... You want her to be more emotional and trust us.  I was in her shoes.  It doesn't happen overnight...

Emma Taylor: But it HAPPENS!  And WE can be the ones who begin that change...

Hailey takes a sigh and puts her book down.

Hailey Brooks: ... And I'm guessing you want us to go talk to her and get it out of her?

Emma Taylor: ... I mean, don't you think so?

Hailey Brooks: I'd personally hate you for it, but she wouldn't hate you for any reason, so I guess it's worth a shot...

Hailey gets up from her bed and follows Emma toward the balcony of their duplex.  Emma reaches the door far quicker than Hailey, who is much less "gung ho" than her counterpart.  From the outside, Kirsten sees the blinds move, on the door to their balcony, and realizes shes is about to have company, and takes a deep breath.  From the inside, once Hailey and Emma are together, they emerge and take positions at both corners of the balcony, flanking Kirsten on both sides.

Initially, Kirsten's first reaction is fight and then flight, but she realizes who the two are, and realizes Hailey is the one closest to the door, making an escape a little more turbulent than she would like.  She resigns herself back into her chair and just begins to look at each of them with a very stoic look on her face, trying to hide the emotion hiding behind it.

Hailey Brooks: So... You ok...?

Kirsten can't roll her eyes fast enough, knowing everyone knows where her emotions stand.

Kirsten Scott: Why no... No I am not!  I just fucking go to the store to get us groceries and have my parents staring me down on aisle 12.  Next thing I know my father is placating me, trying to make me be all happy-go-lucky, and my mother stands there like she's seen a ghost and just plays off of him.  And here I am, you two knowing that I don't like the fact that our relationship died on behalf of me, and then I'm being asked, "hey bruv, you doing alright," like magically that wouldn't fuck with my mind?

So... No!  I'm not OK!

I'm pretty fucking far from OK!

Emma takes a deep breath and Hailey leans back as if being blasted by the words of her friend.

Hailey Brooks: So, what you're saying is... You OK there, Marcellus?

Kirsten, not realizing what she said, lets out a snicker and droops her head down, then takes a breath and lets the seriousness of the situation take hold again.

Kirsten Scott: Shut up...

The fact is, if you want me to be blunt, is I didn't get m holy reunion, like you did.  I didn't get me and my family making up and hugging and planning the meal we all got to sit around and eat.  What did I get?  I got my parents staring me down in a fucking grocery store.  I got my father trying to play me like his little ape that he had run his whole life.  I got to have my mom stand there and do NOTHING while he tried to manipulate me.

I got to have the ultimate embarrassment, where all of us, are the ultimate embarrassment to the public, because of who we are, and what we did.  We aren't some heroes to many... We are the fucking villains and I felt that in that store while my own fucking father was trying to manipulate me.  He wasn't trying to love his daughter, no, he was trying to get himself in a blessing where he felt fucking SAFE!

Kirsten sits up from her chair.

Kirsten Scott: ... Nobody realizes what it is I'm going through.  Nobody understands what it is I'm facing every minute I sit down to think.  You all think it is some simple "forgive or forget" situation... Don't you?

Hailey smirks.

Hailey Brooks: I guess I ask you this... Do you want me to tell you how STUPID you are, or not?

Kirsten Scott: Fuck you...

Hailey smirks again.

Hailey Brooks: I'll take that as a yes...

You are the dumbass, right now... You think, after all this time, me and my family has been this picket fence type of relationship as we have grown back together.  You Have sat there and made it part of your mindset that we had no problems.  But the fact is we we have so much further to go than you'd even imagine.  Because our lives aren't all rainbows and unicorns, Kirsten.  We still have shit to figure out.  We have things I don't trust them on and vise versa.

But unfortunately you don't see that...

Emma wastes no time jumping into the discussion, and tries to redirect it away from the one V one situation being created.

Emma Taylor: What are you feeling, on the inside?

Kirsten's head slumps.  She takes a breath because she knows Emma sees through her and lying would show her weakness in admitting how she feels in front of Hailey.

Kirsten Scott: I feel anger... I feel pain...

Hailey's eyes widen, seeing her friend actually admit emotions in front of her.

Kirsten Scott: ... I feel like I'm alone in this world because I don't have what everyone else has.  I feel like I was a pawn in a game that was being played by those who are supposed to love me, and yet, only one is now seeing it.  Y'all didn't see the looks in their eyes, like I did.  My dad, he hasn't changed.  He was trying to play me for a fool again.  He wanted me to use me again, to protect himself, and probably get everything back he had lost.

But my mom...

Kirsten sighs.

Kirsten Scott: ... My mom, for the first time that I could remember, looked at me caring and happy to see me.  My mom saw her daughter for the first time, and she was silenced by the man who just wanted to find ways to get his rocks off and have fun again.  And then there was me... I couldn't trust, can't trust, either of them.  My mom, she may have seen me, but she doesn't have the backbone to stand up to my dad.  She doesn't have the strength inside.  So I can't even trust what I see with my own eyes...

Emma Taylor: You should trust YOUR instincts and perceptions.  Don't let someone else force you to believe what you don't believe yourself.

Hailey Brooks: And honestly, why can't you just reach out to your mom only?  Just reach out and say, "let's talk..."

Kirsten shakes her head.

Kirsten Scott: Because, like I said, I couldn't trust her not to be coerced into telling my father everything, and him then trying to use it against me.  Like I said, she has no backbone in this.  I don't even know if she "liked" their arrangements with others, or just went along because she was "supposed" to.

I just feel he would ultimately manipulate her into telling him whatever he wanted to hear, including anything "deep" I told her...

It's at this moment her phone chimes an alert with a text message, and the preview of it simply says "Mom."

Kirsten Scott: Irony at its finest I bet...

She turns the phone to show Emma and Hailey who it is from, then turns her phone back toward her.  She unlocks it to read the message, and it simply says, "We need to talk, just you and I, alone.  I promise, alone.  I'm sorry for everything.".  Kirsten freezes, and Emma and Hailey both are curious.  Kirsten just stares into the distance and hands her phone over to her friends to read, both of whom are shocked at the contents of the message.  They hand Kirsten her phone back as she looks straight ahead and one single tear slowly begins to drip down her face, and her mind races with emotions, confusion, and concern about what this means, and ultimately, if it is legitimate.  She tosses her phone on the outdoor table and just droops her head.  Hailey slowly walks inside to get Kirsten something to drink, as Emma walks over, and crouches down in front of the woman she sees as a heroine, and simply hugs her, having sensed the pain she is facing inside.  Kirsten leans her head into Emma's shoulder, knowing this is the one individual she can show pure vulnerability to, and allows another teardrop to fall.