3. 3

3

Ember

F amily therapy was the worst day of the week, and not just because it was therapy, but because what did they really think it’d achieve? All we do is go and sit in a room with a therapist who tells us to talk about our feelings, and then it descends into anarchy. Except when it gets to the point where they expect me to speak up, and then I go silent and glare at everyone until they move on.

It was insanity, and tonight the doc, good old brown trousers man, had declared that he wanted to see just me and Ash with our parents. Blaze and Anneka were coming over to sit with Cole and Phoenix, not that they felt like they needed sitters, but we missed Blaze since he’d been so focused on Anneka, and the baby.

It was only when we were sitting in that horrible ‘cosy brown office’ that my anger reached a point where words actually came out for once.

“Ember, how about you? Last week you weren’t feeling particularly talkative, and I thought that having your younger siblings stay away this week would open up the floor for you to express yourself.” Pretentious asshole.

“You want me to express myself, doc?” He smiled, looking surprised that I’d even spoken to him, but whatever. I’d been seeing a therapist alone for several years now, but this family shit was insane, and pointless.

“Please do, Ember. This is your forum too.”

“Is it really… wow… thank you for making that clear for me. Aren’t doctors supposed to be smart, though?”

He frowned lightly, glancing down at the tablet screen he had on his lap. Probably playing Candy Crush or something to stop him from getting bored. Or watching porn. Would a doc watch porn with kids in the room? I was pretty sure every man was a sexual deviant, so probably.

“The only thing I’ve said in these ‘sessions’ is that I would prefer to be referred to as Em now.”

He nodded, lifting a hand up as he apologised.

“Of course, please do speak though, Em. Tell us how you’re feeling. What you’re thinking.”

I turned to look at my parents, mum sitting between my dads, who both looked serious and kinda exhausted. Five kids must be so draining for them. Maybe they should have stopped sooner, like before me.

“I’m feeling like this is a colossal waste of time, actually,” I said finally, looking away from my parents as mum sighed. Yeah mum, I get it. I’m a disappointment. Trust me, I know.

“Em, you close yourself off so much these days, I wish you’d talk to us,” dad Dory said, reaching out towards me. My eyes locked on his hand as it hovered between us, before he lowered it again. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to… uh…”

“Fine. You want me to talk? I blame you. I blame you and mum and my other dad. You know what? You had one job, yeah? Raise your kids, and protect them, as part of that process. Maybe if you’d done that job better, I wouldn’t be the fucked up mess I am, and Blaze wouldn’t be who he is. Ash wouldn’t be picking fights with anyone he can, because he likes pain, and Phoenix wouldn’t be expressing himself by drawing the wrong attention. You know who’s worse off than me though? Cole . He gets overlooked at every fucking point in his life, because one of us is taking all the attention.”

“Em-”

“ No . You wanted me to talk. You wanted to hear how I feel? This is how I feel. I feel like maybe if the three of you hadn’t spent so much time fucking, and creating baby after baby, you might have actually parented one of us properly! You think you did such a great job? You have one kid out of five who isn’t a fucking headcase, and that’s because of you! How’s that, doc? Did I express myself sufficiently, or do you want me to do a fucking interpretive dance now?”

Mum was starting to cry, and I felt awful for saying those things, but guess what? They’d been in my head for a while now. I knew Blaze was twisted, and a serial killer, and I knew that Ash got off on pain. I’d heard him in his room, getting off on every bruise and injury he picked up when he got into the many fights.

I’d heard Phoenix crying in his room when he thought nobody could hear him, because guess what? He’s confused as fuck about so much, mostly himself. And Cole? Cole is the one everyone forgets. The one who gets overlooked, because he’s not causing trouble.

“Would any of you like to address Em’s concerns?”

Dad Gray opened his mouth, and dad Dory held up a hand.

“Can I please? Em, I’m so sorry that you feel we’ve failed you so badly. I promise you that we’ve always tried to give you all equal attention, but most of all, I’m sorry that we weren’t able to protect you from what happened at that school.”

“This isn’t just about that; I mean, you do get that, right? It’s about so much more. It’s about the fact that you three should never have procreated at all, and here we are, five kids in, and you’ve messed up all of us!”

“Now hang on a minute-”

Again, dad Dory shushed dad Gray, who was looking more pissed off by the minute. I hear ya, dad, I’m pissed too.

“Please try to understand, Em, we have always tried to do the best we could. We wanted a big family. We wanted to do better than our own parents-”

“Talk about your epic fail, right?”

“Ember!” I shot dad Gray a glare as he snapped at me, hugging mum against him as she cried into his chest. I did this. Wow, aren’t I just a prize bitch? Why can’t I stop? Why can’t I hold back all of this anger now? That idiot doc just opened the floodgates, and I didn’t want them closed again.

“I think that we’ve covered-”

“Oh wow, doc, is that my time up already? You’ve been wanting me to talk for weeks, and suddenly it’s time to shut me up? You should talk to my brother Blaze. He knows how to shut people up for good.”

“EMBER!”

What the fuck ever. I slumped back in my chair. Deep down, I knew I was being an asshole, but they’d wanted to hear my thoughts, and finally I’d been able to voice them. Did I really think they were terrible parents? No, I’d had a lovely childhood, but you couldn’t escape the facts, could you?

Four out of five of their children had major issues, mentally or emotionally, and that had to count for something. You don’t mess up that many of your kids without doing something wrong somewhere along the line. Unless it was just messed up genes. I mean, we didn’t even know for sure which of us had which dad as our actual biological father, did we? We assumed Ash was dad Dory’s, because of his dark hair and eyes, but what if it didn’t exactly work like that?

“I think that’s a good place to wrap up for today,” the doc said, passing a box of tissues to Ash, who tossed it over his shoulder at our parents.

“Dammit, Ash!” It hit the floor in front of them, because he was sitting on the floor a few feet away. He didn’t look like he gave a shit though. He smirked instead.

“So, Ember cuts herself, and tries to kill herself, and yet somehow it’s everyone else’s fault? How’s that work exactly? You don’t think she’s somehow at fault at all? Maybe she was this much of an asshole in school and that’s why?”

“Ash,” dad Dory warned, but my brother just got up and paced in front of the doc’s chair.

“I mean, think about it. She’s gone from sweet innocent little blonde Ember, to the goth freak Em, and all I know for sure is… she was building a rep as a slut back at her old school. I mean, the talk was-”

“Ash, that’s enough!” Dad Gray snapped at Ash, standing up and glaring down at him. There wasn’t much between them in height, but dad Gray was more intimidating than dad Dory, so yeah, Ash quieted down for a moment.

“I… I didn’t…” I murmured, suddenly afraid that they all thought that. What if they all thought I’d asked for… for what he did… I didn’t do anything to encourage that. I really didn’t. I asked him to stop. I begged. I screamed, but he ignored me.

“Ash, go and wait outside a minute.”

“What? I get kicked out for pointing out that she did most of the fucking boys at our old school? I was barely in that school for five minutes and I heard it. Hell, I saw what they wrote on the toilet walls too. There was a blowjob count, for fuck’s sake! A tally with little lines for every time she blew one of-”

“I DIDN’T DO THAT!” I screamed at him, knocking my chair over as I leapt out of it. My god. They really did think I was a slut. The whore who did everyone! I was still a virgin, for god’s sake! I mean, only just, but still, it counted because I’d never willingly let him do those things to me. I never wanted that.

“Ember,” mum reached for me, but when I looked at her, I didn’t see the normal guilt or worry. I saw shame. She was ashamed. They all were. How had I missed the fact that they were all so ashamed of me, and what I’d become?