GUILTY  by Jayne Leitch
   C. 2000

     I shouldn't have blown up like that.  Not at Emily's father.

     I couldn't help it; he was just so high-and-mighty, so quick to judge--so totally incapable of understanding what his daughter's been going through these past months.  And there he was, sitting across from me, telling me what I'd done.  Telling me I should feel bad about it, sounding completely unsurprised when I told him I don't.

     I know what I've done, and I'm not proud of most of it.  I'm even sorry for a lot of it...but I could never, *never* be sorry for bringing Emily into my life.

     He wanted me to be, that was the problem.  He wanted me to break down and sob about how pathetically sorry I was that I had ever dared to glance in his precious daughter's direction; he wanted to see me tortured by remorse, he wanted to know that my conscience was eating me alive.  He wanted to look down at me from his moral high ground and *know* that Emily was wrong for finding something to like about me.

     I wasn't going to do that for him.  I couldn't; Emily's the one good thing in my life right now--the one good thing that's been in my life in a long time--and there's no way in hell I'm going to be made to feel ashamed for causing that to happen.

     He just made me angry, sitting across the table in that expensive suit, looking down his nose at me...he wouldn't even go to the visiting room to see me.  No, the visiting room was too far beneath his sense of dignity; he waited upstairs for me to be dragged up to the interrogation room, because he *could*.  Alan Quartermaine has enough influence behind him that he can even boss the police around--I wasn't about to let
him control me, too.

     But I shouldn't have gotten so obviously angry, I know, because that gave him too much.  Too much on me, too much on Emily.  And with all the power he has, he could keep her from coming to see me; I should've remembered that, and held my tongue.  It never used to be hard for me to do that...

     It did feel good to see the expression on his face, though, when I told him about Emily and me.  He wasn't expecting 'the deviant' to be so close to his daughter; he wasn't expecting me to contradict his preconceptions so strongly.  He probably pictured some junkie, some loser with a third grade education and track marks--it was satisfying just to know that every time I strung together a complete sentence, I was betraying his idea of who I am.  He's exactly the kind of guy who judges people he's never even talked to; he judged me long before today, I could tell.  Took it upon himself to be judge, jury, and if necessary, executioner, and he doesn't know a thing about me.  He has no idea who I am.

     He has no idea who his daughter is, that's for damn sure.  Christ, he lives in the same house with her, and he still thinks she's a child.  He must be blind; how can anybody look at Emily *once* and not see that she's all grown up?  Maybe not by outside standards, maybe not at a casual glance--but inside, where it counts, she's as much of an adult as I am.  Hell, more.  She's done things, known things that some people never can.
She's been through hell, but all it's done is make her smile more easily at the good stuff--because now she knows the difference.

     I've put her through hell...but she still carries a little piece of
heaven everywhere she goes.  Emily--in some ways, she's still innocent.  But where her father's concerned, that's *all* she is.

     I shook that idea, though.  I could, because I *know* her; I know her in ways her father can't, because he isn't capable of seeing beyond the little girl he watched grow up.

     What made me angry was the fact that his view is the one Emily sees herself through.  When we--when we kissed, I didn't feel guilty.  I didn't feel like I was taking advantage of some little girl who didn't know what she was doing; I felt like I was kissing a girl who wanted me to kiss her, who wanted to kiss me.  But when it was over...

     She said it was wrong, and she said it like she felt dirty.  She said that she's just a high school kid, as if that means something important.  I've met fourteen-year-olds who could've passed for forty in every respect except appearance; you can't tell me that Emily isn't older than her years.  It's just that she's managed to keep some measure of effortless innocence despite everything she's been through--and that's what her parents can't see beyond, that's what she can't seem to break free from in her own mind.

     Age means nothing.  It's the connection, the bond between two people that matters; that's what I wanted to make her father understand, but...he won't hear it from me.  He refuses to, because he doesn't want to admit that his daughter has been growing away from him all the time he's been keeping her age eleven in his head.  He can't stand the thought that she's
become someone who doesn't need Daddy to take care of her anymore, and he hates that I know that.  He *hates* that I've recognized her as an equal.

     And because of him--him and her mother and the old man and her brothers and hell, even her friends--Emily isn't letting herself realize just how much she's ready for.  The thought that she could stand up and admit that she has grown-up feelings and ideas and relationships scares the hell out of her, and that fear is keeping her from acknowledging those things.  And she won't let anyone else acknowledge them, either...

     I dreamt about making love to her.  I could feel her against me, in my arms, her skin and her hair and her breath...I could feel how we understood each other, and it felt so good, so *right*.  I made her gasp my name, and she made me quiver...

     I woke up, and was almost sick to my stomach.  Not because it seemed wrong outside of my dreams--no, because it still seemed so goddamn *right*.

     And a few hours later, her father told me I should be sorry.  I shouldn't have blown up at him like that...but I refuse to be sorry.

End.

Go back to General Hospital Fic.