“What is it this time, Emma Kinsley?” the officer asked.

“Emma Kinsley…” I sounded out, confused.

Was that Emma’s last name?

For some reason, it felt familiar. Why did the name Kinsley sound familiar? And how did the cop know my name?

The officer sighed.

It was then that I remembered what he had just told me.

“Wait. What do you mean by this time?”

“Here we go… Why must you waste a police officer's time?" the officer said. "This is not the first time you have come here lying to the police about someone hitting you or something."

“… what?” that had me pause for a moment.

‘I’ve been here before?’

No. It was Emma who had been here before. And that meant…

Hold on. Emma had been here before? She had been to the police? Was it possible that James's recent treatment of Emma was not the first time it had occurred? Was she forced to seek help from the police? 

I was surprised that 'Emma' had been here before. But then, why was she not helped?

The officer rolled his eyes in annoyance.

“Don’t act like you don’t know. You’ve come here twice before to report a bunch of teenagers bullying you or something, and then you’ve been here to talk about your parents...”

“Wait--”

“And with each time you’ve been here, you were proven to be a liar. Simply wasting the time and efforts of police officers who could be working on more important cases."

I remained quiet after that, taking the time to process what he had said. 

‘What was that about teenagers that he said?’ Wait. Not the thing to be focusing on right now. The guy just basically confirmed ‘Emma’ had been to the precinct to report her father.

"It is not false this time, and I do not believe it ever was," I insisted.

“You believe?” the officer repeated with a doubtful look.

"I am telling you the truth, in case I have lied before. Don't you see my cheeks? Can’t you see what that person did to me? This all just happened this morning. Don’t you have eyes? How are you going to look at me and say I’ve made this up?”

“Who was it this time?” the man repeated.

I started to get annoyed with his attitude.

“As I’ve told you before, my father.”

The police nodded for a moment. 

“You deserved it,” he soon said.

For a brief moment, I thought I misheard him. 

“Excuse me?”

I had thought he was beginning to take me seriously.

“We both know how much of an attention-seeking whore you are. Running around coming here whenever things don’t go your way--”

“What are you talking about?”

Something felt off about the direction the conversation we were having was taking.

The officer chuckled. 

“I know about you. I’ve heard about you. Emma Kinsley, the slut of that elite high school everyone’s so gung ho about enrolling their children in.”

I unconsciously flinched as he spoke.

“I know you go to that school just to snatch some rich boy so you won’t have to work a day in your life. And if anyone were to ask me, I’d say it’s girls like you who are more dangerous than the rapists and murderers out there.”

‘Where the hell was all that coming from? And how is that at all related to my case?’

I couldn’t believe I was listening to such drivel.

“So who did you fuck and piss off this time, huh? Tell me, Emma. Maybe I can help you out this time.”

For a moment, I could have sworn my brain had short-circuited.

“Who did you piss off to the point they decided to hurt you? Was it one of the Graysons? Huh? Did you piss off Maddox or one of his friends this time?”

And that was another thing that sounded familiar. Another name that did not seem as foreign as it should have at the time. Maddox Grayson. 

“Even if you were to file a report, you would just be doing nobody any good--”

I drowned out the narcissistic ass of a police officer as a massive headache came out of nowhere. I was starting to realize why the names I had heard sounded familiar.

Rollinsville. Emma Kinsley. Grayson. Maddox Grayson. It was all coming back to me. 

I realized where I was, and even that didn’t stop the headache that had ensued.

“Emma Kinsley? Hello? Are you going to get out of here or am I going to have to force you to leave?”

I didn’t say a word. I was a bit speechless from what I had just realized at that moment.

‘Oh fuck. Oh fuck, oh fuck, oh fuck…’

Stressed wasn’t even half the emotion that I was feeling.

I just had to have that realization then. Why couldn’t it have come earlier or when I was in a place I could feel relaxed?

But then again, I hadn’t found such a place ever since I became Emma.

‘Am I dreaming? This has to be a dream. Am I seriously in that book? That... book?’