Emilia

42: Emilia

-Emilia-

I stared at the clock that was ticking on the wall as the faint sound of my name being called echoed in my ears. The ticking sound seemed to grow louder the more that I stared as everything around me grew muffled. I watched the seconds turn into minutes as my eyes couldn't peel themselves away from the clock.

"Emilia?" Ms. Hart called out, pulling me back into reality as I shifted my gaze down to her. I blinked a few times as I looked around the room, realizing that I was still sitting on the couch.

"Hm?" I hummed in response, watching her as she wrote down a few things in her notebook that held all of the details from our therapy sessions. I bit my bottom lip nervously before she looked up at me with a small smile.

"I asked about the nightmares." She reminded me and I took in a deep breath as I fixed my posture, my body slightly tensing.

"Oh uh, y-yes, I still get them sometimes. Um, the medication has been helping out a lot recently, and Vincent, he also helps me get through my panic attacks." I answered quietly, tucking my hair behind my ear as I fidgeted with my fingers nervously.

The nightmares used to come more frequently until I started taking the medication. I didn't have enough guts to take the pills before because it would only be a reminder of what I tried to do at the apartment. It would pull me back into a dark place that I didn't want to be in anymore. I just wanted to move on.

"That's good. I'm glad that you have someone there to be with you and help you through this." She said with a smile, tapping her pen onto her clipboard as I nodded my head in agreement.

"Do you mind telling me what these nightmares are about?" She asked, flashbacks from the apartment starting to run throughout my mind.

"Um," I swallowed hard, closing my eyes as I tried to calm myself down by taking slow, deep breaths in and out just like Vincent and I practice every so often.

"Some-sometimes they're of Ryan of when he used to um, hit me. The dreams feel a little too real as if I'm still in that moment or-or if I'm just reliving my memories." I said, squeezing my hands into fists as my nails dug into the skin of my palms.

"But other times, they will be about what happened in the apart-" I cleared my throat, finding it hard to speak all of a sudden. "about what happened in the apartment." I whispered, images of all of the blood and bodies coming to mind as I screwed my eyes shut.

"Do you mind telling me about what happened in the apartment?" She asked, her eyes focused on me as I felt my eyes start to sting with tears. I sat there in a small amount of silence, staring down at my hands as I messed with my fingers.

"It was my birthday. The day felt like the rest of the days after I had first been sent back there. I dreaded waking up...sometimes I would wake up wishing that I hadn't at all." I whispered, bringing my hand up as I quickly wiped away my tears. I took in a slow deep breath before shakily releasing it.

"Um, Ryan," I swallowed hard, fighting back my tears. "He made me my favorite breakfast. It isn't anything special. It's just chocolate chip pancakes with a little smiley face from the whipped cream and a side of fruit." I laughed while tears left my eyes and she gave me a soft smile, mostly out of pity.

"He gave me a bracelet with my name spelled out on it," I said, reaching for my wrist to touch it, only to realize that it wasn't there because I put it away. Every time I would look at it, it would just remind me of him; of what happened.