Supposedly, Emma and Danny were fine after that. They even went out on their first date.
"I am literally a nervous wreck" Emma said, rummaging hopelessly through her closest of whatever she wore.
But Emma didn't have to do much to impress Danny. She could go naked for all he cared. Actually, he would've preferred it. But I didn't say that to her.
Whatever they did, they did it well. Things were looking up for them and almost seemed normal. In fact, they were better than normal. Normal as atrociously problematic compared to what it had become. They almost seemed like a normal couple. Almost.
I mean, Emma's a bald gun reform activist and Danny's a mental, psychotic wreckage but they were as close to normal as they'd ever come.
And Emma thought everything was fine. Better than fine. Things seemed to be easier for her. Danny wasn't being so demanding and she could appropriately focus on everything else that was blowing up around her.
I don't know what my problem was.
Looking back, I was incredibly demanding. Probably worse than Danny. Nothing was enough for me, I could never find the reassurance I needed in any conversation, not even my ones with Chase.
It was a cycle. He'd come to me, we'd talk about whatever it is we needed to talk about (practically everything), and he'd think everything is fine until my paranoia took me over and I created problems that didn't exist. I just thought they did, so why not invent them so they do exist, am I right??
Anyway. It was a vicious cycle. It repeated and repeated, and it wouldn't stop. Eventually, everyone was on board and I somehow convinced every one of my friends that there was this huge problem that was up to Chase to fix.
He was used to cleaning up Danny's messes. It kinda shocks me that he couldn't clean up his own. Maybe it was me all along. He hadn't done anything seriously wrong. It was me and my paranoia spinning out, craving and legitimately needing reassurance. Without it, I was a ticking time bomb just waiting to explode.
Any second now.
Emily Grusky, queen of trying to get the fuck away from Chase and all his friends, thought shipping off to camp for the entire summer as initially planned was the solution we'd been waiting for.
So we threatened it. If things didn't get better, we'd all leave. We'd leave them alone with nothing to do but text and think about their sorry lives. At times, I was genuinely considering the idea. We even filled out applications to spend the entire summer. They just didn't go through on time.
The threat to leave was our weapon. It was the only upper hand we had. Chase had all the power over me, and little did I know that this threat we posed only made things worse. They added to the pressure. They screwed me over like everything else had already.
On the night of July 6th, Emma and Danny took my bedroom. Yay.
Danny told her that he fucked up someway, somehow and his parents were sending him back to the mental institution he spent four years in. Panicking and not understanding what the fresh hell was going on, Emma lost herself again. She didn't know what that meant for her and Danny, but also for everyone else. We were all on thin ice. Danny and Emma were the one good thing we had going, and what did that mean if we lost him?
Emma spent days on end worrying, crying, begging Danny to do something about it. She didn't know what to say or do. She felt like she was supposed to something. But this wasn't about her. She felt helpless, like that patch of light in the darkness had just been filled, clouded by the pressing dark.
Days later, Chase and I were in another rut. Emily and I were hanging out, doing nothing but watching Netflix (shocker) when he knocked on the door and asked me to go with him to talk.
It was almost late, going on 10 at night, but I hesitantly agreed.
Talking about Chase made my heart skip a thousand beats, and not in a good way. It scared me. The topic had become so sacred, so touchy, I could hardly speak of it. Talking to Chase was another fucking story.
But somehow the talk was productive. He apologized (for what? I can't remember) and we agreed to try and let things fall back to normal, without anyone forcing anything this time. It was supposed to work. It should've worked. We thought it'd work.
He also told me that Danny had some big thing he needed to tell Emma, and apparently it was laughable. I tried to get it out of him, but Chase insisted that it needed to come from Danny himself.
Later on, after a well needed discussion with Danny, Emma told me that Danny staged the entire situation with him going back to the institution. He not only made it up, but got everyone else on board with it. His friends were writing emotional paragraphs about how much they were gonna miss him and they'll 'pick up again when they're sixteen' all in the name of getting to Emma's head.
"That is so fucking messed up" Cameron said.
"We all knew he was messed up, but for everyone else to go with it?? That makes me question their sanity, too" I chimed in, watching as Cameron squeezed Emma's hand.
"It's just not okay" Emma sighed.
"When was the last time it was okay?" I thought to myself.
Cameron and Emma's eyes were both locked on me, concerned looks captured both their faces.
So I guess I didn't think it, I said it.
"I can't remember" Cam finally answered.
Emma nodded.
I stopped holding my breath.
Emma and Danny's relationship didn't recover after that. Although, Emma moved passed the whole fake going away story and she thought they were fine. But apparently Danny didn't.
"I feel like you don't like me anymore" he said out of absolutely nowhere.
Emma, appalled and confused, told him she thought things hadn't been better between them. Danny said that he always felt it but just never said it. Emma didn't know what to do, she said she'd try harder and wanted to make him feel better. But Danny claimed it wasn't her job, that his insecurity was his problem, not hers. He regretted saying anything at all. He expected her to just forget that he said anything. But of course Emma wasn't going to. Was he testing her? Who knew.
They couldn't come back from it. Danny became worse and worse. He became more demanding and difficult to deal with. He wouldn't talk to Emma, no matter how hard she begged. And when she finally gave up, he got pissed at her for it. And Emma's exhaustion was increasing as well. She was snapping more quickly, slowly draining in single drops.
At 2am on the early morning of July 10th, they both lost it. They lost their ability to control themselves. They'd both become exhausted and reached their breaking points. Neither could handle the relationship anymore.
It was over. Really over. Danny stormed out on Emma because she was snapping when he wouldn't tell her why he was being so closed off to her. When I got the chance to talk to her, she told me that it was done for. For real this time. She'd said it a million times before. And never meant it. For three months straight. But something about my cold yet sweaty bedroom at two in the morning told me that she meant it this time. There was nothing nobody could do to restore Danny and Emma to what they once had been.
"It's the end of an era" Emma told me. "I don't think there's anything anyone can do anymore. Danny and I... it was great while it lasted. But it didn't last."
