EMBRACE winrina

CHAPTER SIX

The mornings that Leo and Emma were home seemed to alternate, Leo being home one day and Emma the next. When I woke up on Thursday, I desperately hoped Leo wouldn't be home because I was feeling particularly weak towards him and though I was good at concealing my fear, it was getting increasingly difficult.

So when I silently padded down the steps and saw Emma in the kitchen making coffee, I had to breathe a breath of relief. I headed toward the kitchen much less terrified, only instead it was replaced by anger. I hadn't seen her since Monday night, but then I remembered Leo saying that she was the reason he followed me to work on Tuesday, and I couldn't help but give her a piece of my mind.

She turned around and saw me, giving me a soft, sad smile. "Morning, Win."

I ignored her briefly, allowing myself to walk toward the refrigerator to grab a bottle of water per-usual. I tried to bite back my annoyance before talking, because I knew Emma only had good intentions, like for example how she thought adopting me would have been better and safer for me. She knew there was at least the possibility of Leo going back to alcohol and becoming dangerous, but she of course figured adopting me was well worth the risk considering I was in much worse conditions in the group home at the time. I had agreed with her on that, but at the same time, I still might've had another shot at being adopted into a real family. Now I was with Leo, and by the time I turned eighteen and could safely report his fucking abuse to the police, I'd have aged out of the system. Not that I ever wanted to go back, but I always held out hope on maybe having a family again someday.

I lowered the water from my lips, turning to meet Emma's pale blue eyes. "So let me just get this straight, Emma, because I'm having a really hard time understanding something. Tuesday you were worried about me, for whatever reason, so you figured that the best bet for making sure I was safe was to send Leo to pick me up? In what fucking universe does that make any sense?"

She shook her head, "You and I both know that Leo is harmless when he's sober, he's... normal when he's not drunk. It was the middle of the afternoon, Win, and he wasn't drinking so I.. I didn't think there would be a problem. He hurt you... while... sober?"

"You should really know by now that it doesn't take much to get him to drink. I had to go to work and he apparently was so dead set on making you happy that he waited for me, which obviously gave him the time to get wasted. Why the hell did you send him after me in the first place?"

Running her small, fragile hand through her black hair, she poured her coffee out of the pot and sighed, looking extremely regretful. "You went to school with a black eye without glasses and you could hardly walk during the weekend Win.. I didn't want you walking home like that."

I couldn't help but roll my eyes and let the sarcasm drip through my teeth. "Well gee, I really appreciate your concern. It makes me feel so god damn special."

"God Win, what do you me to do? I'm trying my best, I..." she sighed, shaking her head. "You don't want me to tell your social worker, and I respect that, but you get pissed at me every time he hurts you. What can I possibly do?"

What could she do? She must've weighed a little over one-hundred pounds so up against Leo's one-eighty, she couldn't do much to defend me, and I didn't want her to tell anybody about the abuse. Still, it was entirely her fault that I was having to deal with this. "I don't know, you could fucking divorce his sorry ass. Why the hell are you still with him anyway? It's not like you have any reason to be scared of him, he hasn't laid a hand on you in his lifetime. He has me for that."

Though her eyes held remorse before, something seemed to shift. "I can't do that Winter."

"And why the hell not?"