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Emilia has recently noticed that Bodie has been very upset as of late, even going far enough to walk out of their scheduled crew practice after he made a small mistake in the choreography. Usually he was the type to just laugh it off with a random swear, but now he had just been slowly losing his patience with himself it seemed.That is when Emilia really knew when something was wrong. Emilia had never really never even seen him angry. Sure, she had seen him a few times after a couple tough shifts at the beach, but he always seemed to be more tired and sad than angry.
They were right in the middle of dancing to “Woman” by Doja Cat in their private practice room at DCI, when Bodie made a slight misstep and accidentally started to do a part of the choreography that was later in the song. Emilia could tell that all throughout practice he had been a bit quieter than usual and even a bit snappy at some points. He tried to quickly catch back up to Emilia who was doing the choreography correctly, but he just couldn’t get back into the rhythm of the song. Emilia saw that he had been struggling with this song in particular. The first few times that they tried to learn the choreography she had noticed he would get in his head about certain moves, but after a week and a half they both could usually do the choreography almost flawlessly with only minor mistakes.
But this time Bodie just seemed to break. His usual goofy smile was replaced with a frown. His eyes were looking down at his feet trying to catch up and his eyes looked watery. He didn’t look like himself at all. He mumbled to himself for a few seconds while he stopped and stared at the large mirror on the wall they were both facing. His face looked a bit pale while he quickly walked over to his bag and picked it and his water bottle up, and walked out of the large room and slammed the heavy soundproof door behind him without a word to Emilia.
By the time Bodie was picking up his bag Emilia had stopped dancing and went over to turn off the music that was blasting through the speakers from her phone. She paused the loud music and was about to ask him what happened when he slammed the door on her.
‘’Wait , B you almost had it that time-‘’
Emilia stood in front of the door shocked that he even did that. She felt a bit of anger well up in her mind, but she knew that he wouldn’t do that for no reason. She quickly went back over to her phone and unplugged it and sped walked out of the practice studio. She walked past Lush crew, Flash Forward, and Hi-Def crews practice studios to hopefully catch Bodie before he left DCI headcourters.
At the end of the long hallway, Emilia saw that Angel and Aubrey were talking to each other. They were both wearing their crew clothes so Emilia thought that they were getting ready to leave for Lush crew Yeaht. When she got closer to them, she heard an “ I wonder what his deal is” from Aubrey with her usual tone.
“Hey, did you guys see where B went?” Emilia asked quickly.
“Oh, he just passed us, he almost knocked us over cause he ran into me and mi Princessa, he seemed upset.” Angel said while he straightened up his navy blue jacket.
“Yeah, he ran into me and almost stepped on my new shoes.” Aubrey said with a healthy pinch of annoyance in her voice. Probably from Bodie running into her and Angel's use of the nickname he had given her.
“But also, is he okay? Did you both get into a fight or something? I saw that his eyes were watering a bit when he said sorry to us. Angel said as he finally got his jacket back to its usual place.
“Oh, no we didn’t get into a fight or anything, he just kinda ran off after he messed up a move. But did you see where he went?” Emilia quickly questioned.
“Oh yeah, it looked like he was runnin’ to the main room I think.” Angel said.
“Okay thanks.” Emilia quickly said as she started towards the main room of the headcourters.
Rasa and Lima were not in their usual places in front of the large computer screens that were displaying schedules, plans for meetings, and other things that related to the business side of DCI. Both Lima and Rasa had a slight look of confusion on their faces as they looked over to Emilia who was now in front of them.
“Hey, did B leave the headcourters?” Emilia questioned as she scanned the room for any sign of the other half of Riptide.
“Yeah, he sprinted past us to the elevators. It was quite odd, he didn’t even say goodbye to the both of us like he usually does.” Lima said with a slight frown as Rasa nodded in agreement.
Emilia frowned as she looked at the closed elevator doors. Bodie was usually the most friendly and talkative person in all of DCI, only beaten by McCoy or Dare when they were in the main area with the rest or the agents. What had got into him all of the sudden?
“Well maybe you can catch him in the parking lot before he leaves,” Rasa said as he also now looked at the elevators.
“You can get your stuff tomorrow, I’ll go gather it up so you won't have to worry about it. Go talk to him.” Rasa said after he looked back at Emilia.
“Okay thanks Rasa.” Emilia said before she speed walked over to the the elevator and clicked the open button that was highlighted by the purple light around it. She pushed it a few times before the doors finally slid open smoothly. She went in, and quickly clicked the button to get to the surface.
After what felt like forever, the doors slid open again to reveal the front of DCI headcourters and the parking lot. Bodie who was now in his truck leaning his head up against his steering wheel with his arms crossed over it to cushion his forehead. He was breathing heavily enough that Emilia could tell that he seemed to be crying.
She got to the passenger side of his truck and opened the door, which startled Bodie. She got in and closed the door behind her again. Now that she was closer to him she could see how his eyes were puffy and bloodshot, and that he had tear marks going down his flushed face.
Emilia did not really know what to say to him at this point, Bodie was usually the one comforting her whenever she was not feeling good. A thousand thoughts were going through her head at this moment, but she finally settled on just trying the things that he did whenever she was crying.
She reached over the center console of his car and hugged him tightly. He slowly also started to hug her back.His shaking hands slowly wrapped around her torso as he stuffed his face into her shoulder. He started to squeeze her even tighter than he already was as his crying seemed to get even worse. Emilia could feel how each sob would make his hands shake more than they already were. She could also feel his tears making her white tank top slightly damp. He moved his chin over her shoulder as his sobs seemed to calm down. Emilia just kept on hugging him until he finally pulled away and started to wipe his face off with his hands.
“What’s wrong B? You know you can tell me anything you know.” Emilia said with a soft voice.
“I-I just,” He started. She could tell that he was trying his best to form a sentence but his now low crying was stopping him. Emilia gave him a minute to gather himself a little.
“I just don’t know what to do anymore Em, nothing I do seems to be good enough.My Dad keeps on pressuring me to get a girlfriend, but I don’t want a girlfriend,”He sniffled as he continued on.
“I don’t want a girlfriend because I don’t even know if I even like women, Emilia. It’s so confusing, I don't feel any attraction to women at all, I only feel attraction to men. I've tried so hard to be attracted to women, I’ve tried everything but nothing is working.” He burst back into tears after he said that. He crumbled into the steering wheel and folded his arms over the top of the wheel and rested his head on them.Emilia leaned over the center console and put her arms over his shoulders and hugged him the best she could in the position they were in.
“B, its okay if you are gay you know. Everyone here wont judge you or make fun of you or anything. You're safe here”
‘I know, but i just don’t want my father to disown me. He’s said so many times that if any of his children were gay he would not count them as his children anymore. He would leave us in a second. I don’t want to break up my family because of this.” He said as he started to calm his crying down a bit again.
Emilia was honestly speechless. They had talked about his parents before, and he had said that he and his Dad had always had a bit of a rocky relationship, but she never knew about the homophobia and about the disowning section.
“Ever since the beginning of High School I’ve been going on dates with girls, but my thoughts always drift to men whenever I’m on a date with them. Like how much better it would be if I were on a date with another man. I feel like I’m lying to them. I feel so guilty for even going on those dates. He had let go of Emilia by this point, and he was now looking at his hands that were in his lap. He looked ashamed of himself. It was killing Emilia inside to see him like this. But what he said next would make her heart plummet into her stomach.
“I've relapsed back into cutting myself because of how stressed I am. I don't want to be hurting like this anymore. I just don’t know what to do by this point.“ He started to roll up the leg of his jean shorts. Emilia could see the thin scar lines that seemed to get more and more frequent the more he rolled up his pant leg. He lightly grazed his fingers over the lines that littered his thigh. Emilia could see his hands trembling when he traced some of the deeper ones slowly.
“Bodie…,” Emilia felt her eyes start to water. There were so many emotions swirling around inside her mind right now. She honestly couldn't believe it. How could she not have noticed? How could she not have seen the signs? Before she totally lost herself to her emotions she tried to muster up a response.
“It’s okay to hurt and to cry sometimes, but please don't hurt yourself anymore. I don't even want to imagine a world where you aren’t here with me. I don't want to lose you, you're my best friend. You deserve to be here with us all. I don't want you to leave me.” She said as she finally broke down with him. There were just too many emotions for her to take anymore. She felt like she was also slowly breaking seeing him like this. He never seemed to show any signs of being sad or depressed. She would’ve noticed if he did right? Would she? Emilia didn’t even know by this point.
He slowly started to hug her again, and this time she was the one to put her face into his shoulder. They sat in his truck quietly crying with each other for a few more minutes before Bodie spoke up again.
“I’m sorry that I’ve been doing this Emilia, I just didn’t know what to do anymore.”
“No, B, it's okay, don’t apologize. It’s okay that you are feeling this way, you have a right to. But please, for me, don't hurt yourself anymore. You deserve to be here with us. I want to keep on being in DCI with you. I want to keep on being your friend.” Emilia said as she looked at him from her side of the car she went to hold his hand gently. He gave her hand a squeeze, and went back into the warm hug that they had shared many times over this conversation.
As Bodie’s hands stopped shaking and his breathing slowed back down again, he slipped out of Emilia’s embrace and reached over to the glove box on the passenger side and got some tissues and wiped his eyes and gave one to Emilia so she could do the same. She chuckled and accepted the tissue from him.
‘’B, would you want to go over to my place and watch a movie and eat some snacks? We both definitely need some rest right now,’’ She said as she sniffled and dabbed the tissue under her eyes while trying not to smear her mascara and eyeliner more than it already was by now. ‘’Maybe we could talk more about your dad after we both calm down a bit more? Only if you want to of course though, I don’t wanna pressure you into talking about it more if you don’t want to.’’
‘’I think that would be nice. But maybe after a few movies though.’’ He looked off into the street next to the parking lot as some cars had gone by as a small smile appeared on his face.