“thought it through ? ” coraline huffs, arms folding over her chest defensively. “yeah, i’m sure i would have loved that fucking luxury if iHAD it. but dad came back to camp and said you were DEAD.” she jabs her finger into his shoulder HARD, hoping it matches the hurt echoing around in her rib cage. “and then he fucking dropped gracie in my lap. we were just getting by and they cut his fucking arm off! and now it’s just me in the middle of this shitshow and all i’ve got is a dead dad, one that’s pretty fucking close, and a baby to top it all off. i had to grow up pretty fucking fast.”
she knows it’s a low blow, using aaron’s injury against him, but she can’t help it. she can’t help but feel like it wouldn’t have happened if he’d still been around. NONE of this would’ve. “so, NO. i didn’t get the chance to think this clusterfuck of a life through and NO i’m not okay. but i HAVE to be. i have people who are depending on me.” she can feel her voice crack, feel the emotion betray her, feel her eyes begin to burn with telltale tears. “but HE has been the only one who has even offered a hand in my direction – and i’mnot about to get rid of the only person who has HONESTLY cared about me because my dad’s back from the DEAD.”
coraline was entitled to her anger . it hadn’t been eric’s choice to leave , it hadn’t been aaron’s choice to get hurt , it certainly hadn’t been the baby’s ( gracie ? ) choice to be dragged into any of their mess but none of it had been coraline’s choice , either , && clearly it had effected her the most . while eric had the luck to be not quite with it , && aaron had too much on his plate to really feel much at all , cory had been left to deal with it all on her own . it was unfair .
eric wanted to be UNDERSTANDING . but as a painful p o k e landed on his shoulder && coraline had THE NERVE to drop even an ounce of blame on aaron’s shoulders , sympathy was becoming harder to come by .
❝ coraline , you can be as angry at me as you want to you have every right to be , but YOU KNOW your dad NEVER would have d u m p e d anything on you , even if that’s how it felt . you know damn well that he cares about you , he LOVES you , more than anything . ❞ who she was or wasn’t … dating , was no longer important . eric had no right to waltz in && start having opinions on something he knew nothing about but what he DID know , without a shadow of a doubt , was that aaron never would have purposefully done anything to hurt coraline . that man didn’t deserve to be blamed for things he couldn’t control .
