Chapter 10: 1986 - Rome, Italy
A Sense of Self, Chapter 10: 1986 - Rome, Italy
Author: Dr. B
Fandom: Criminal Minds
Pairing: Emily/JJ
Rating: FRT
Summary: Being an undercover agent seemed like the obvious choice; Emily had spent her childhood pretending to be someone she wasn’t in order to please her politician parents or to survive always being the new kid at school. After her last undercover assignment, Emily was transferred to the BAU - no cover necessary. As she tries to adjust and simply be herself she realizes that she’s no longer sure who Emily Prentiss really is.
Thanks to nikonic for the beta.
“May I speak with Matthew, please?” Emily had been watching the clock and it was finally 4:30, which was the time Matthew got home from school.
“Hey, Goods,” Matthew said cheerfully. “Missed you today. And man, Suzanne was pissed. We had a pop quiz in Chemistry.”
“Can you come over tonight?” Emily’s voice wavered despite her best efforts.
“I’ll ask my mom,” he said. “Is everything ok?”
“No,” she whispered.
“Hold on.” There was silence on the other end for a few moments.
“My mom just has to run a quick errand and she wants me to watch Julie. I’ll probably be there in an hour. Is that ok?”
She’d been waiting weeks to tell someone; surely another hour wouldn’t make much difference.
“Of course,” she assured him, her voice more steady. “I already told Paola to make some extra dinner for you.”
.oOo.
“All right, Goods, what’s going on?”
They were sitting in Emily’s bedroom, and Emily had barely been paying attention to Matthew telling her about school because she’d been running the words over and over in her head.
I’m pregnant. I’m pregnant. I’m pregnant.
“I’m…” Emily paused and took a deep breath. “Pregnant.”
Matthew’s surprised expression was cartoon-character-like with his wide eyes and dropped jaw. He must have realized how he looked because he quickly rearranged his facial features into a more neutral expression.
“Oh.”
“Yeah,” Emily said, trying to keep herself from panicking. Of course he’s surprised. It’s not a bad thing that he’s surprised.
“Were you raped?” he asked after a few moments of silence.
Emily was stunned by his question. She shook her head vehemently.
“No, not at all,” she said. “It was entirely my own stupidity.”
“Well, obviously there was someone else’s stupidity involved. Do you want to talk about it?” Matthew asked.
“It was with John. I thought he liked me,” Emily said in a flat voice.
Emily had arrived in Italy with the expectation that it was going to be like every other starting-over that she had done. She’d arrive at school, everyone would already have formed their cliques, and there would be no room for Emily to fit into any of them. Much to her surprise, Italy was different; for the first time she had moved to a country before the school year started, and one of the other American diplomats had a son her age.
Mrs. Thompson was the one responsible for getting Emily and John to meet. She managed to get them both at the Embassy at the same time under the guise of trying to get things organized for the upcoming school year. Why don’t you show Emily around a bit, Mrs. Thompson had suggested. At that moment Emily wanted the carpet to swallow her whole. It was like she was some pathetic loser who needed her mother’s secretary to arrange for her to have friends.
Oh wait. She was that pathetic loser. And now John knew that, too.
But his smile seemed genuine enough when he agreed. Emily smiled back, and her embarrassment dropped down a few notches.
John introduced her to Matthew, and for the few weeks before school started, the three of them hung out almost every day. Before the first day of school, Emily would never have guessed that she had managed to befriend two of the most popular boys in the sophomore class. It was clear that the girls in Matthew and John’s group of friends viewed her as a threat.
Emily looked at herself in the mirror and shook her head, trying to understand why anyone would view a gangly fourteen-year-old whose nose was too big and whose hair, refusing to choose between curly or straight, merely stuck out in every direction. A group of Bulgarian kindergarteners can be mean, but they don’t come close to level of torment high school girls can achieve. Fortunately, Emily had spent almost a decade protecting herself against others, and when she refused to give the girls the satisfaction of seeing her get upset, they moved on to ignoring her.
It was a few weeks before her birthday when John suggested that they go see Teen Wolf in the theater. But Matthew’s going to the States for a week, she responded. I know. The look on John’s face left no question as to what his intentions were. He leaned in and kissed her on the cheek. It’ll be like a date.
When Matthew returned from his trip to Boston, he seemed unperturbed about the fact that Emily and John were now dating. He joked about going from an equilateral triangle to an isosceles one. Matthew had this thing for geometry and was constantly comparing the world to shapes and angles.
Over the next two months, John and Emily’s dates had changed from going to the movies to making out in her bedroom. With her parents hardly ever around, Emily figure she could get away with just about anything. She had never had any reason to test that theory before, but laying on her bed with John’s hand up her shirt seemed to prove it right.
Following John’s lead, their make-out sessions quickly progressed from hands up shirts to hands down pants. That was when he started pressuring Emily to have sex. While he never explicitly said it, Emily was certain that if she refused, it would mean the end of their relationship. And if she weren’t dating John, she’d have no one. She figured Matthew would choose John; after all, they’d been friends for years before Emily showed up. Once Matthew chose John, all of the other guys in their circle of friends would follow. And since most of the girls at school continued to ignore her, she’d be left with no one. Again.
When it came down it, Emily decided she would rather just have sex with John than lose her friends. So the night before her family left to spend the holiday in Belgium, she gave John his Christmas gift a few days early. It was awkward and painful, but John seemed satisfied.
Emily should have known something was wrong when John never returned her calls. When she returned to school and John refused to look her in the eye or talk to her, her suspicions were confirmed. He didn’t even have the decency to break up with her; he just acted as though she was never even his girlfriend. Most of the time he acted as though she didn’t even exist.
Emily would have probably just retreated entirely into herself if it weren’t for Matthew. He continued to hang out with her and never asked about what happened between her and John. He was just there. As though he would always be there. She should have had more trust in him when she decided that having sex with John was the only way to preserve her relationship with John and therefore her friendship with Matthew.
Matthew was sweet, kind, and a more loyal friend than Emily had ever had. She could count on two fingers the friends she trusted, Matthew and Alice. She should have had faith in Matthew’s friendship.
She hoped she hadn’t misplaced her trust now.
Matthew’s voice cut through Emily’s thoughts.
“Well, what are we going to do?” Matthew asked after a few moments of silence had passed.
With that simple question, Emily knew that things were going to be ok. She wasn’t alone in this anymore; Matthew was there with her.
“I don’t think I can keep it,” Emily said softly. “But I don’t know what to do.”
Matthew nodded. “You should talk with Father Gamino; he’s really good at listening and helping you find the answers you need.”
“I think I already know his answer,” Emily told him, her eyebrows furrowed. “I mean the Church seems pretty unambiguous on the issue.”
Matthew shrugged. “Times are changing. After all, abortion was just legalized here three years ago. Things are different now. And besides, you’re going to need support no matter what you do.”
He had a point. Emily nodded.
“So you’re sure that’s what you want to do?” Matthew asked.
“Yes. No. Yes,” Emily stammered. “I can’t have a baby. What would I do with a baby? I can’t be a mom. My parents will kill me. Can you imagine the press? Wayward Ambassador’s daughter gets knocked up.”
“You could always put the baby up for adoption,” he suggested.
Emily paused. She had considered this option many times. She knew for certain that she did not want to raise the baby. But as Emily looked ahead at the next eight months she couldn’t help but think about how horrible it would be to actually be pregnant. Right now only two people knew. If she actually carried the baby to term everyone would know and that thought was unbearable.
“That still wouldn’t eliminate the headlines and my parents would still find out. Everyone will find out.”
“You could hide it,” Matthew suggested.
“So, I just go around for the next eight months wearing baggy clothes and telling people I’m getting fat on pasta and then I go away for a week and shazam! I’m skinny again,” Emily said, smiling a little at the mental image of that scenario.
“I hear it takes a while to lose pregnancy weight. I overheard my cousin telling my mom that after six months she’d only lost half the weight,” Matthew told her. “So it wouldn’t be all, shazam! Maybe more like shaaaaaaaazaaaaaaaammmmmmmm.”
Emily laughed at Matthew’s long, drawn out shazam. But then she looked down at her stomach and stopped laughing. Tears filled her eyes as the reality of the situation came crashing down on her.
“I can’t. I just…” she paused and took a deep breath. “…can’t do it. I can’t be pregnant.”
Matthew opened his mouth as though he were going to say something when Paola knocked on Emily’s bedroom door.
“La cena è pronta,” she announced.
Emily still had almost no appetite, but she appreciated the interruption. When they sat down at the dining room table, Paola raised her eyebrows at Emily, who nodded slightly. Now Paola knew that Matthew knew. Emily could only hope there would be a different topic of conversation during dinner.
“So, Paola, how are your nieces and nephews doing?” Matthew asked. “Lorena must be what, six, by now? And is Frederico still playing football?”
Emily was content to push her dinner around her plate while Matthew and Paola talked about various things. After dinner was over, Paola noticed that Emily’s plate had the same amount of food as it had at the beginning of the meal.
“Emily, che si sta mangiando per due ora,” Paola scolded. Emily’s cheeks burned. Even though everyone in the room knew that Emily was eating for two, she couldn’t stand the idea that the topic had suddenly become one that would be discussed in the open.
“We’re going to talk with Father Gamino tomorrow,” Matthew announced to Paola. Emily knew that he was trying to be helpful, but again, just hearing it discussed out loud made her want to cry.
“That’s great,” Paola said, putting her hand on Emily’s shoulder. “I’m sure Father will be able to help. He must know of some young couples looking to adopt.”
Emily felt Matthew looking at her, but refused to meet his gaze. Emily had expected Paola’s response. She knew that Paola would never agree with her decision. She just hoped that she would understand it.
There was an awkward silence before Matthew cleared his throat and announced that he would call his dad to have him pick him up. After making the call, he followed Emily up to her room to get his things.
“Will you be at school tomorrow?” he asked.
Emily shook her head. “I don’t think so.”
If Emily never went back to school, it would be too soon.
“Then I’ll just come over after school and we can walk over to the church,” Matthew told her.
Emily just shrugged. She was torn between wanting to get this whole process over and not wanting to deal with it at all. However, since the latter had made it quite clear that doing nothing was not a viable option, Emily figured the sooner the better.
“Don’t worry, Goods, I’m sure Father Gamino will have all the answers.”
Emily nodded though she did not share Matthew’s opinion.
.oOo.
Matthew had agreed to wait at a nearby park while Emily was in with Father Gamino. She emerged from the church with her eyes rimmed in red and she was sniffling.
“What happened?” he asked, jumping off the swing and rushing over to her.
“Nothing much,” she told him. “We just talked about my options.”
“And?”
“And nothing.”
“I can’t believe you’re trying to pull another version of the everything’s fine game with me,” Matthew said, the frustration evident in his voice.
“Can we not do this here?” Emily pleaded, her voice wavering as though she were on the verge of tears.
“No. Tell me what he said,” Matthew demanded.
“What do you think he said?” Emily hissed. “Did you really think he would lay out multiple options? Did you really think he was going to support me if I wanted to end it?”
“Well, what did he say were your options?”
“I don’t have any that don’t involve hell,” Emily said in a low angry voice. “I can be trapped in my own personal hell for the next eight months or I can end up in the real one.”
The bile rose in her throat as she thought about what the future held for her, and she ran over to one of the garbage cans and emptied what little was in her stomach. Matthew came over and rubbed her back. When she finished, she stood up and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand.
“Let’s just go,” she said, humiliated that she had just thrown up in the park. In front of Matthew. Humiliated that she got into this situation in the first place. Humiliated that she must be so ugly or bad at sex that John won’t even look at her anymore. Humiliated that Father Gamino knew she was just a stupid slut.
She hated Matthew for suggesting they come. But mostly she hated herself. She wasn’t a slut. She was insecure and ugly and had no friends because she didn’t deserve them. Even her own parents couldn’t stand being with her.
“No.” Matthew’s eyes were burning with anger. He turned around and started walking toward the church.
“Matthew!” Emily called. “Don’t!”
Her words hung uselessly in the air as Matthew continued his determined walk.
Emily ran after him and grabbed his arm. “What are you going to do?”
“Talk with Father Gamino,” he answered. “You can come or not, but I’m going.”
Emily briefly thought that maybe Matthew could change the Father’s mind. After all, Matthew was far more diligent than she was and knew the bible inside and out. If Matthew was convinced that there was some sort of spiritual loophole, who was she to argue?
As they entered the church, Matthew held up his hand to stop Emily from following him into Father Gamino’s office. Emily stood in the hallway as Matthew and Father Gamino talked behind the closed door. Emily couldn’t tell if ten minutes or two hours had passed when Father Gamino’s door opened.
“Emily,” Father Gamino said, motioning her to come into his office.
“I don’t know what it is that you two are expecting. But there are some crimes for which there is no absolution,” he told her in a stern voice.
“Se si interrompere questa gravidanza, non sarà consentito nella mia chiesa,” Father Gamino said, his tone of voice indicating that the conversation was over.
Emily nodded and looked down at the floor. While she wasn’t completely sold on all of the tenets of Catholicism, she had always found comfort in the church; the rituals were the same no matter where she was. It was the one constant in her life. And Father Gamino was threatening to disallow her in his church.
How had things gone so wrong so quickly? How was this situation ever going to get better? There had been a brief moment, right after she told Matthew, that she actually felt hopeful. That moment was over and hope felt like something she would never feel again. Each choice continued to have more negatives stacked against it, and she had no idea what she was going to do.
Emily felt Matthew’s hand grab hers as he walked out of the office.
“Vedremo di che,” he said over his shoulder, challenging Father Gamino’s assertion that Emily would no longer be welcome at his church if she went through with the abortion.
.oOo.
“He’s right, you know,” Emily said quietly once they got back to her house. “There are some things that cannot be changed. There are some sins that can never be forgiven.”
Tears rolled down her cheeks as the gravity of her own words sank in. “This is one of those times. I was stupid. I made a mistake, and I have to live with those consequences.”
“I can do that,” she whispered, more to herself than to Matthew.
“But you don’t…” Matthew said.
“Stop. Just stop,” Emily pleaded hearing the anger in his voice. “We both knew what Father Gamino was going to say. And honestly, I think you were hoping that would be what he would tell me.”
“Because you know it’s true. You were just trying to protect me from making this mistake even worse.”
Emily saw Matthew’s sheepish expression and knew she had figured him out.
“You’re right,” he conceded. “I was hoping that he would be able to convince you to not get an abortion.”
He paused, but Emily could tell that he had more to say. “But I was wrong. I see that now. Nothing can be that black or white. And God, who is all-loving, all-seeing, and all-knowing, has to be more forgiving than this.”
“What did you and Father Gamino talk about?” Emily asked, wondering what had prompted this shift in Matthew’s worldview. Something went on in that office that had Matthew fired up.
“Never mind that.” His voice was curt and laced with malice, which startled Emily.
When they had left Emily’s house that afternoon, Matthew had been a sweet boy, who believed that the church had all the answers to any problem. Now he was full of rage, and even if it wasn’t directed at Emily, there was no denying that she was the root cause.
“You should probably go home. It’ll look suspicious if you eat here two nights in a row.” It wouldn’t really, but Emily needed to be alone. Paola had the night off and Emily would be shocked if her mother got home before she went to bed.
“Are you going to be ok?” Matthew asked.
Emily nodded. “Paola left some soup in the fridge, and I know there’s bread.”
“That’s not what I meant,” he said.
“I know,” Emily said softly. “But can we just pretend that it was?”
Matthew sighed. “It’s still light out, I’m going to just walk home.”
Emily nodded. “That seems like a good idea.”
She walked Matthew downstairs and as he was leaving they just sort of looked at each other, and Matthew shrugged his shoulders and took off. When had things gotten so awkward between them? Emily sighed. She tainted everything, everyone she touched.
_______________________________________
La cena è pronta. Dinner is ready
Emily, dovreste mangiare più. Ora state mangiando per due. Emily, you should eat more. Now you’re eating for two.
Se avete un aborto, non sarete permesso nella mia chiesa. If you have an abortion, you will not be allowed in my church.
Vederemo a tale proposito. We’ll see about that.
Chapter 11
If you need to get caught up, Chapter 1
Author: Dr. B
Fandom: Criminal Minds
Pairing: Emily/JJ
Rating: FRT
Summary: Being an undercover agent seemed like the obvious choice; Emily had spent her childhood pretending to be someone she wasn’t in order to please her politician parents or to survive always being the new kid at school. After her last undercover assignment, Emily was transferred to the BAU - no cover necessary. As she tries to adjust and simply be herself she realizes that she’s no longer sure who Emily Prentiss really is.
Thanks to nikonic for the beta.
“May I speak with Matthew, please?” Emily had been watching the clock and it was finally 4:30, which was the time Matthew got home from school.
“Hey, Goods,” Matthew said cheerfully. “Missed you today. And man, Suzanne was pissed. We had a pop quiz in Chemistry.”
“Can you come over tonight?” Emily’s voice wavered despite her best efforts.
“I’ll ask my mom,” he said. “Is everything ok?”
“No,” she whispered.
“Hold on.” There was silence on the other end for a few moments.
“My mom just has to run a quick errand and she wants me to watch Julie. I’ll probably be there in an hour. Is that ok?”
She’d been waiting weeks to tell someone; surely another hour wouldn’t make much difference.
“Of course,” she assured him, her voice more steady. “I already told Paola to make some extra dinner for you.”
.oOo.
“All right, Goods, what’s going on?”
They were sitting in Emily’s bedroom, and Emily had barely been paying attention to Matthew telling her about school because she’d been running the words over and over in her head.
I’m pregnant. I’m pregnant. I’m pregnant.
“I’m…” Emily paused and took a deep breath. “Pregnant.”
Matthew’s surprised expression was cartoon-character-like with his wide eyes and dropped jaw. He must have realized how he looked because he quickly rearranged his facial features into a more neutral expression.
“Oh.”
“Yeah,” Emily said, trying to keep herself from panicking. Of course he’s surprised. It’s not a bad thing that he’s surprised.
“Were you raped?” he asked after a few moments of silence.
Emily was stunned by his question. She shook her head vehemently.
“No, not at all,” she said. “It was entirely my own stupidity.”
“Well, obviously there was someone else’s stupidity involved. Do you want to talk about it?” Matthew asked.
“It was with John. I thought he liked me,” Emily said in a flat voice.
Emily had arrived in Italy with the expectation that it was going to be like every other starting-over that she had done. She’d arrive at school, everyone would already have formed their cliques, and there would be no room for Emily to fit into any of them. Much to her surprise, Italy was different; for the first time she had moved to a country before the school year started, and one of the other American diplomats had a son her age.
Mrs. Thompson was the one responsible for getting Emily and John to meet. She managed to get them both at the Embassy at the same time under the guise of trying to get things organized for the upcoming school year. Why don’t you show Emily around a bit, Mrs. Thompson had suggested. At that moment Emily wanted the carpet to swallow her whole. It was like she was some pathetic loser who needed her mother’s secretary to arrange for her to have friends.
Oh wait. She was that pathetic loser. And now John knew that, too.
But his smile seemed genuine enough when he agreed. Emily smiled back, and her embarrassment dropped down a few notches.
John introduced her to Matthew, and for the few weeks before school started, the three of them hung out almost every day. Before the first day of school, Emily would never have guessed that she had managed to befriend two of the most popular boys in the sophomore class. It was clear that the girls in Matthew and John’s group of friends viewed her as a threat.
Emily looked at herself in the mirror and shook her head, trying to understand why anyone would view a gangly fourteen-year-old whose nose was too big and whose hair, refusing to choose between curly or straight, merely stuck out in every direction. A group of Bulgarian kindergarteners can be mean, but they don’t come close to level of torment high school girls can achieve. Fortunately, Emily had spent almost a decade protecting herself against others, and when she refused to give the girls the satisfaction of seeing her get upset, they moved on to ignoring her.
It was a few weeks before her birthday when John suggested that they go see Teen Wolf in the theater. But Matthew’s going to the States for a week, she responded. I know. The look on John’s face left no question as to what his intentions were. He leaned in and kissed her on the cheek. It’ll be like a date.
When Matthew returned from his trip to Boston, he seemed unperturbed about the fact that Emily and John were now dating. He joked about going from an equilateral triangle to an isosceles one. Matthew had this thing for geometry and was constantly comparing the world to shapes and angles.
Over the next two months, John and Emily’s dates had changed from going to the movies to making out in her bedroom. With her parents hardly ever around, Emily figure she could get away with just about anything. She had never had any reason to test that theory before, but laying on her bed with John’s hand up her shirt seemed to prove it right.
Following John’s lead, their make-out sessions quickly progressed from hands up shirts to hands down pants. That was when he started pressuring Emily to have sex. While he never explicitly said it, Emily was certain that if she refused, it would mean the end of their relationship. And if she weren’t dating John, she’d have no one. She figured Matthew would choose John; after all, they’d been friends for years before Emily showed up. Once Matthew chose John, all of the other guys in their circle of friends would follow. And since most of the girls at school continued to ignore her, she’d be left with no one. Again.
When it came down it, Emily decided she would rather just have sex with John than lose her friends. So the night before her family left to spend the holiday in Belgium, she gave John his Christmas gift a few days early. It was awkward and painful, but John seemed satisfied.
Emily should have known something was wrong when John never returned her calls. When she returned to school and John refused to look her in the eye or talk to her, her suspicions were confirmed. He didn’t even have the decency to break up with her; he just acted as though she was never even his girlfriend. Most of the time he acted as though she didn’t even exist.
Emily would have probably just retreated entirely into herself if it weren’t for Matthew. He continued to hang out with her and never asked about what happened between her and John. He was just there. As though he would always be there. She should have had more trust in him when she decided that having sex with John was the only way to preserve her relationship with John and therefore her friendship with Matthew.
Matthew was sweet, kind, and a more loyal friend than Emily had ever had. She could count on two fingers the friends she trusted, Matthew and Alice. She should have had faith in Matthew’s friendship.
She hoped she hadn’t misplaced her trust now.
Matthew’s voice cut through Emily’s thoughts.
“Well, what are we going to do?” Matthew asked after a few moments of silence had passed.
With that simple question, Emily knew that things were going to be ok. She wasn’t alone in this anymore; Matthew was there with her.
“I don’t think I can keep it,” Emily said softly. “But I don’t know what to do.”
Matthew nodded. “You should talk with Father Gamino; he’s really good at listening and helping you find the answers you need.”
“I think I already know his answer,” Emily told him, her eyebrows furrowed. “I mean the Church seems pretty unambiguous on the issue.”
Matthew shrugged. “Times are changing. After all, abortion was just legalized here three years ago. Things are different now. And besides, you’re going to need support no matter what you do.”
He had a point. Emily nodded.
“So you’re sure that’s what you want to do?” Matthew asked.
“Yes. No. Yes,” Emily stammered. “I can’t have a baby. What would I do with a baby? I can’t be a mom. My parents will kill me. Can you imagine the press? Wayward Ambassador’s daughter gets knocked up.”
“You could always put the baby up for adoption,” he suggested.
Emily paused. She had considered this option many times. She knew for certain that she did not want to raise the baby. But as Emily looked ahead at the next eight months she couldn’t help but think about how horrible it would be to actually be pregnant. Right now only two people knew. If she actually carried the baby to term everyone would know and that thought was unbearable.
“That still wouldn’t eliminate the headlines and my parents would still find out. Everyone will find out.”
“You could hide it,” Matthew suggested.
“So, I just go around for the next eight months wearing baggy clothes and telling people I’m getting fat on pasta and then I go away for a week and shazam! I’m skinny again,” Emily said, smiling a little at the mental image of that scenario.
“I hear it takes a while to lose pregnancy weight. I overheard my cousin telling my mom that after six months she’d only lost half the weight,” Matthew told her. “So it wouldn’t be all, shazam! Maybe more like shaaaaaaaazaaaaaaaammmmmmmm.”
Emily laughed at Matthew’s long, drawn out shazam. But then she looked down at her stomach and stopped laughing. Tears filled her eyes as the reality of the situation came crashing down on her.
“I can’t. I just…” she paused and took a deep breath. “…can’t do it. I can’t be pregnant.”
Matthew opened his mouth as though he were going to say something when Paola knocked on Emily’s bedroom door.
“La cena è pronta,” she announced.
Emily still had almost no appetite, but she appreciated the interruption. When they sat down at the dining room table, Paola raised her eyebrows at Emily, who nodded slightly. Now Paola knew that Matthew knew. Emily could only hope there would be a different topic of conversation during dinner.
“So, Paola, how are your nieces and nephews doing?” Matthew asked. “Lorena must be what, six, by now? And is Frederico still playing football?”
Emily was content to push her dinner around her plate while Matthew and Paola talked about various things. After dinner was over, Paola noticed that Emily’s plate had the same amount of food as it had at the beginning of the meal.
“Emily, che si sta mangiando per due ora,” Paola scolded. Emily’s cheeks burned. Even though everyone in the room knew that Emily was eating for two, she couldn’t stand the idea that the topic had suddenly become one that would be discussed in the open.
“We’re going to talk with Father Gamino tomorrow,” Matthew announced to Paola. Emily knew that he was trying to be helpful, but again, just hearing it discussed out loud made her want to cry.
“That’s great,” Paola said, putting her hand on Emily’s shoulder. “I’m sure Father will be able to help. He must know of some young couples looking to adopt.”
Emily felt Matthew looking at her, but refused to meet his gaze. Emily had expected Paola’s response. She knew that Paola would never agree with her decision. She just hoped that she would understand it.
There was an awkward silence before Matthew cleared his throat and announced that he would call his dad to have him pick him up. After making the call, he followed Emily up to her room to get his things.
“Will you be at school tomorrow?” he asked.
Emily shook her head. “I don’t think so.”
If Emily never went back to school, it would be too soon.
“Then I’ll just come over after school and we can walk over to the church,” Matthew told her.
Emily just shrugged. She was torn between wanting to get this whole process over and not wanting to deal with it at all. However, since the latter had made it quite clear that doing nothing was not a viable option, Emily figured the sooner the better.
“Don’t worry, Goods, I’m sure Father Gamino will have all the answers.”
Emily nodded though she did not share Matthew’s opinion.
.oOo.
Matthew had agreed to wait at a nearby park while Emily was in with Father Gamino. She emerged from the church with her eyes rimmed in red and she was sniffling.
“What happened?” he asked, jumping off the swing and rushing over to her.
“Nothing much,” she told him. “We just talked about my options.”
“And?”
“And nothing.”
“I can’t believe you’re trying to pull another version of the everything’s fine game with me,” Matthew said, the frustration evident in his voice.
“Can we not do this here?” Emily pleaded, her voice wavering as though she were on the verge of tears.
“No. Tell me what he said,” Matthew demanded.
“What do you think he said?” Emily hissed. “Did you really think he would lay out multiple options? Did you really think he was going to support me if I wanted to end it?”
“Well, what did he say were your options?”
“I don’t have any that don’t involve hell,” Emily said in a low angry voice. “I can be trapped in my own personal hell for the next eight months or I can end up in the real one.”
The bile rose in her throat as she thought about what the future held for her, and she ran over to one of the garbage cans and emptied what little was in her stomach. Matthew came over and rubbed her back. When she finished, she stood up and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand.
“Let’s just go,” she said, humiliated that she had just thrown up in the park. In front of Matthew. Humiliated that she got into this situation in the first place. Humiliated that she must be so ugly or bad at sex that John won’t even look at her anymore. Humiliated that Father Gamino knew she was just a stupid slut.
She hated Matthew for suggesting they come. But mostly she hated herself. She wasn’t a slut. She was insecure and ugly and had no friends because she didn’t deserve them. Even her own parents couldn’t stand being with her.
“No.” Matthew’s eyes were burning with anger. He turned around and started walking toward the church.
“Matthew!” Emily called. “Don’t!”
Her words hung uselessly in the air as Matthew continued his determined walk.
Emily ran after him and grabbed his arm. “What are you going to do?”
“Talk with Father Gamino,” he answered. “You can come or not, but I’m going.”
Emily briefly thought that maybe Matthew could change the Father’s mind. After all, Matthew was far more diligent than she was and knew the bible inside and out. If Matthew was convinced that there was some sort of spiritual loophole, who was she to argue?
As they entered the church, Matthew held up his hand to stop Emily from following him into Father Gamino’s office. Emily stood in the hallway as Matthew and Father Gamino talked behind the closed door. Emily couldn’t tell if ten minutes or two hours had passed when Father Gamino’s door opened.
“Emily,” Father Gamino said, motioning her to come into his office.
“I don’t know what it is that you two are expecting. But there are some crimes for which there is no absolution,” he told her in a stern voice.
“Se si interrompere questa gravidanza, non sarà consentito nella mia chiesa,” Father Gamino said, his tone of voice indicating that the conversation was over.
Emily nodded and looked down at the floor. While she wasn’t completely sold on all of the tenets of Catholicism, she had always found comfort in the church; the rituals were the same no matter where she was. It was the one constant in her life. And Father Gamino was threatening to disallow her in his church.
How had things gone so wrong so quickly? How was this situation ever going to get better? There had been a brief moment, right after she told Matthew, that she actually felt hopeful. That moment was over and hope felt like something she would never feel again. Each choice continued to have more negatives stacked against it, and she had no idea what she was going to do.
Emily felt Matthew’s hand grab hers as he walked out of the office.
“Vedremo di che,” he said over his shoulder, challenging Father Gamino’s assertion that Emily would no longer be welcome at his church if she went through with the abortion.
.oOo.
“He’s right, you know,” Emily said quietly once they got back to her house. “There are some things that cannot be changed. There are some sins that can never be forgiven.”
Tears rolled down her cheeks as the gravity of her own words sank in. “This is one of those times. I was stupid. I made a mistake, and I have to live with those consequences.”
“I can do that,” she whispered, more to herself than to Matthew.
“But you don’t…” Matthew said.
“Stop. Just stop,” Emily pleaded hearing the anger in his voice. “We both knew what Father Gamino was going to say. And honestly, I think you were hoping that would be what he would tell me.”
“Because you know it’s true. You were just trying to protect me from making this mistake even worse.”
Emily saw Matthew’s sheepish expression and knew she had figured him out.
“You’re right,” he conceded. “I was hoping that he would be able to convince you to not get an abortion.”
He paused, but Emily could tell that he had more to say. “But I was wrong. I see that now. Nothing can be that black or white. And God, who is all-loving, all-seeing, and all-knowing, has to be more forgiving than this.”
“What did you and Father Gamino talk about?” Emily asked, wondering what had prompted this shift in Matthew’s worldview. Something went on in that office that had Matthew fired up.
“Never mind that.” His voice was curt and laced with malice, which startled Emily.
When they had left Emily’s house that afternoon, Matthew had been a sweet boy, who believed that the church had all the answers to any problem. Now he was full of rage, and even if it wasn’t directed at Emily, there was no denying that she was the root cause.
“You should probably go home. It’ll look suspicious if you eat here two nights in a row.” It wouldn’t really, but Emily needed to be alone. Paola had the night off and Emily would be shocked if her mother got home before she went to bed.
“Are you going to be ok?” Matthew asked.
Emily nodded. “Paola left some soup in the fridge, and I know there’s bread.”
“That’s not what I meant,” he said.
“I know,” Emily said softly. “But can we just pretend that it was?”
Matthew sighed. “It’s still light out, I’m going to just walk home.”
Emily nodded. “That seems like a good idea.”
She walked Matthew downstairs and as he was leaving they just sort of looked at each other, and Matthew shrugged his shoulders and took off. When had things gotten so awkward between them? Emily sighed. She tainted everything, everyone she touched.
_______________________________________
La cena è pronta. Dinner is ready
Emily, dovreste mangiare più. Ora state mangiando per due. Emily, you should eat more. Now you’re eating for two.
Se avete un aborto, non sarete permesso nella mia chiesa. If you have an abortion, you will not be allowed in my church.
Vederemo a tale proposito. We’ll see about that.
Chapter 11
If you need to get caught up, Chapter 1