Underneath The Perfection

Chapter 8

A/N: Hey guys, sorry for the long wait, but school's been crazy and then my grandparents came and blahblah. Anywhoooo I finished the 8th chapter :D And it's quite long, well longer than the other chapters - I think. :S I hope you like it!!!

Also it'd be really, really, really awesome if you'd vote/comment. I've noticed that most people don't :-( I'm not asking for a loong comment or anything, but a vote is just one click away. Not hard work at all ;-)

Alsooooo I've reached over 1300 reads!!!! Thanks so much. You guys ROCK!!!!  Now, enjoy the chapter :D Hope you like it!! :-)

- Meg xoxo

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Emma's POV:

"There you go girls, four chocolate waffles with strawberries, blueberries, smarties, chocolate sprinkles and whipped cream. Anything else I can get you?"  Maggs, the old waitress from Mamas Little Bakery asks me and Chloe.

"No thanks, I think we're settled." Chloe answers, smiling sweetly as I dig in, they seriously sell the best waffles here. I close my eyes and devour the sweet taste of chocolate and strawberries in my mouth.

"Okay then, just give me a shout if you think of anything." She sticks her pencil into the bun of greying hair before scurrying back into the kitchen.As soon as the door closes behind her Chloe turns to me, her face covered in a concerned expression.

"Tell me everything from the beginning!" she demands.

I take a big gulp of my soda, trying to figure out how exactly I should tell her this.

"There isn't much to tell really." I decide on.

Chloe huffs and rolls her eyes, "Oh please, don't give me that bullshit. I'm your best friend. I care about you, I want to know what the heck happened. I thought you were at Riley's to do that proj-” Chloe tried to put two and two together but didn’t end up with four, “OH HELL NO! Don't tell me he did that to you!"  Her eyes are now filled with rage as she throws down her napkin and gets up from the table. She starts a to rant a mixture of swearing and some kind of religious stuff. Uh oh, this can't be good. If she starts swearing it's bad - but if she mutters religious stuff it is really bad.

"CHLOE!" I shout, "Riley didn't do anything. I actually had fun at his place." She sits back down and I tell her about the old lady hitting Riley at walmart, the food fight and lastly the near kiss. She chokes on her waffle at the last part.

"Oh god. This is bad," She mutters. I ignore her and continue my story.

"It was my dad who called. Boy was he pissed. When I got home he really had a go at me. I'll leave out the details, they're not nice. But he was wasted and high. He was shouting at me, you know the usual 'it's all your fault he left, you're worthless, whore..' you get the picture right?"

I bite back the tears at the memory. I try to be strong, but damn, it's hard. How can my parents think  I am responsible for their mistakes? I love Alex, more than anything! I can't believe he did this to us. To me. The worst part is, Grace never got to know him. Mum was pregnant when he left, he probably doesn't know about her.

Grace used to ask me loads of questions about her brother, she couldn't understand why he left. She still doesn't. But the questioning died down after noticing that it's a very sore subject.

I push away these thoughts and continue, "Yeah well then he started hitting me. At first it wasn't that harsh, but I could see him getting more and more into it. He was screaming and punching me. He even threw stuff at me. I shielded myself pretty good, that's why I'm not too badly bruised, but it kinda messes with your head you know?"