[SE] Star-Crossed [Cont]

PHOEBE

Phoebe dared glance at Emmett after she gave her admission. She shouldn’t have felt guilty she thought; he was the first to know, she hadn’t hidden anything from him. Yet to see the shocked look on his face, the shocked, not-particularly-happy look no less made her stomach drop. Maybe she should have kept it to herself. Maybe she shouldn’t have said anything and just…pretended it had nothing to do with him. He had enough to deal with, things were difficult enough for him, and telling him about this, adding one more worry, had been selfish. She should have kept this burden to herself.

The tremble in his fingers as he took her hand, the almost monotone, dutiful tone to his voice…it made her nauseous. For the first time since she realized why her body had been acting so strangely she felt panicked. Pure, unadulterated panic. What was she going to do? Emmett was absolutely in no mental or emotional state to help her. She was basically entirely on her own. She couldn’t really ask Remi for help, he already had Aoife to worry about, Roana was off and away doing stupid hero nonsense barely keeping track of her own kids, and if she told Rexanna she would end up telling Bastien who would undoubtly do everything in his power to make her feel like human trash. Her breath felt short, the world spun even as she sat still, and stars appeared in front of her glassy eyes that stared off into a blurry distance. Phoebe had been tossed from one difficult situation to another like a rowboat on the open sea, and each time she managed to keep everything afloat; but she wasn’t sure she could stop this ship from sinking anymore.

She pressed her lips together and swallowed a lump that formed in her throat, shaking her head as she looked at the table in front of her. ”Th-that’s not why I said anything. I’m not looking for help, I know you’ve got far too much to deal with and I am just…too much of a burden to you on my own much less....” she said quietly, stopping short of repeating the news and shaking her head a little. ”But…but you deserved to know. You deserved to hear it from me, and not through gossip or be taken by surprise. That’s all. I don’t want to make anything more difficult for you so…so I will work through this. It’s okay.“

I gotta find my place
I wanna hear my sound
Don't care about all the pain in front of me
'Cause I'm just trying to be happy