Hearing Phoebe be so sweet and tender with her once again threw the dancer for a loop. A part of her craved it and wanted to fall back into it. Since the ball, she hadn’t had much time to really sit with her thoughts. Between her brother being killed, the mayor losing his shit, and so many people being upset with her, the dancer’s mind was occupied. Since being released from jail though, she’d had nothing to do but get lost in her head. Everything hit her at once, and she just felt so lost. Still, she stopped herself from hoping that things could be okay. Hoping lead to heartbreak, and she didn’t think she’d successfully be able to handle anymore. Instead of answering, Remi just sadly nodded and moved to sit down.
The dancer ran her hand through her hair as her knee subconsciously bounced while she waited for Phoebe to be done. The question was so much more loaded than she thought the bakery owner even realized. “It’s not your responsibility to worry about me,” she started as she pulled her legs up to her chest and squished herself onto the chair. Squeezing herself into small spaces helped with the trembling. “And I don’t mean that in a mean way because I do want you. I haven’t stopped wanting to be with you, but I know I don’t deserve to be. Hell, I might not even have a place which I knew and should have protected myself better for.” Honestly, she’d known about Ava and how everything could explode when things were exposed. She should have walked away, but she couldn’t.
“Still I promised you an explanation, and you deserve that.” Remi could feel her emotions getting a little out of control. A part of her knew she should have taken Deacon up on his offer to get out of Icaria, but she couldn’t. The reason she couldn’t was literally standing in her apartment. The dancer couldn’t take Phoebe thinking she wasn’t worth staying for, or that she didn’t want to figure things out. “Nyx saved my life. I didn’t kidnap people because I’m that loyal to my mother or support her cause. I did it because I literally owed her, and I hate owing anyone. I pay my debts.” That mentality was the biggest part of her that still remained from the streets. Owing people anything never settled well with her. “My dad was — he was a mess. Drug addict who couldn’t support his family. By eight I was on the streets in a local crew. We stole, sold cocaine, and did anything we could to bring home cash. I was addicted to the merchandise before my tenth birthday,” she said solemnly. It definitely wasn’t something she was proud of. People tended to look at her differently
If Remi closed her eyes, she could still remember how it felt back then. The skimpy clothing she’d wear, the clubs she’d hit, and the fights she’d scarcely dodge. She remembered being so high and strung out that she wouldn’t sleep for days. It was then that her mother walked in acting like the saving grace she always appeared to be to her children. “Nyx found me right before I was fifteen. I was a step away from beginning to work corners because I was maturing nicely for my age, so I guess I should thank her timing. Still, the day I left with her was the day I walked into my apartment to see my dad dead next to lines of cocaine. I was so fucked up, I did a line before calling the cops. What kid does that?” Talking about it was making her squeeze her legs tighter, but she needed to get it out. The faster she did, the quicker she could try shoving the memories back down. “She took me to the Bennett’s. Deacon and Weston saw me through my withdrawals. I’m not stupid. I wasn’t dying, but people where I came from rarely saw their twenty first birthday. I was living on borrowed time back there. When she got me out I got an education, I was put in dance, and I was able to actually remake myself.” Remi couldn’t help but scoff at the end of her words. Some redemption project she turned out to me. “Into a kidnapper who hurts everyone she cares about, but still, I’m alive, so I guess that’s an accomplishment. So, to answer your question, no, I’m not doing too great, but I don’t — I can’t have you feeling like you have to worry about me relapsing because I haven’t earned being someone worth you caring about again yet. Deacon is trying to get me to leave Icaria, but I — I turned him down because of you. I just — I needed to make sure you didn’t still see me the way you did that night. It’s all I see when I think about you.”
Stuck on the words ‘I do want you’, though she would never admit it aloud, Phoebe took her time cleaning up the mess and making sure to take care of putting the leftovers away before she joined Remi. Something told her that this conversation was not going to be over quickly and she didn’t think it was a bad thing. There were a lot of things that they needed to discuss, including the reasons Phoebe had been angry with the woman to begin with. It had never been about kidnapping people, it’s not as if Phoebe had been completely innocent in her life, but the mistrust she now felt with the woman. Still, she owed it to Remi to hear her out.
Sitting down next to her, Phoebe turned her attention towards Remi and allowed the woman to begin her tale. It was exactly what Phoebe feared in the back of her mind: that Remi felt zero control over the way her life had been led until now. That was something she could understand probably better than most on the island. Living on the streets, being a child with no guidance from adults, rarely made fully formed people. The idea of being addicted to drugs, to seeing her father after he overdosed, all the things that Remi had been through until now broke her heart for the woman. No one should have to live a life like that and considering the hell Phoebe had gone through herself as a child of the system that was the last thing she ever wanted for someone else.
“If I hated you or didn’t want to fix this, I wouldn’t be here,” Phoebe spoke quietly for the first time since sitting down. As much as she wanted to hate Remi, part of her cared about the child of Nyx more than she’d ever let on to anyone. Now she felt more connected to her than she ever thought possible. “I understand that you felt that you had no choice in the matter, that Nyx took advantage of her children to do her dirty work. Let’s be real here, do any of parents truly care for us? You went through hell and she showed up not out of love but out of control for your life because any mother who loves her children would never ask them to do what she did of you.” Now, Phoebe was angry for Remi. At least Phoebe knew her parents never loved or cared for her. That was not something she could say for the other woman.
“I wanted to be angry with you, I was angry with you. The reason I refused to speak further with you that night was because I hurt for you. No one deserved to go through what you and your siblings did at that masquerade, no matter what might have done,” she continued on as she let her eyes fall from Remi’s face to her own hands. “I was even more upset at the fact that despite everything all I wanted to do was comfort you. Even if you didn’t deserve it. I’m not going to let you relapse because I care about you, Remi. More than I’ve cared about most people in life. It may not be much, I can’t fully comprehend what you are going through but I’m going to try. As much as you deserve my anger I can’t do it any longer.”
