Chapter Text
Emily Charlton did not need anything.
She was the first assistant to Miranda Priestly, editor-in-chief of Runway. She’d survived a year of being her second assistant and now she manages Miranda’s schedule, appointments, expenses, and never ending demands flawlessly. She was good at her job, and that meant she was on track to attend Paris Fashion Week in the fall. She didn’t need anything else, she didn’t have time for that.
She certainly didn’t need people.
But no amount of telling herself that she wasn’t lonely was enough to ease the ache of walking into her cold and empty apartment every night. There wasn’t time for friendships that breached the walls of Runway, definitely no time for relationships, and her family all lived back in England.
She laughed bitterly as she threw her keys into the bowl by the door. They wouldn’t even visit me now if they lived next door. She’d made it clear from a young age that she wanted to go into fashion and they’d tried so hard to steer her away from it, calling it a “frivolous waste of time” and telling her that she was wasting her very expensive private education. Her parents didn’t understand at all, fine. That was fine. Over time she talked about it less and less until she refused to talk to them about it at all. She loved fashion and they weren’t going to take that from her.
They’d made it clear over and over again how disappointed they were that Emily had ended up working in fashion after all. It stung, most parents would be happy that their child was succeeding in their dream career. Not hers. It didn’t matter to them that she’d landed a job as Miranda Priestly’s assistant. It didn’t matter that she would be moving to New York City to do what she’d always dreamed of. Her father gruffly wished her luck the day she left, while her mother just shook her head with a mix of disappointment and pity. Fine.
So no, Emily didn’t really miss them, but she did miss living in a house that at the very least had people in it. People talking, a TV softly playing in the background, creaky floorboards, just little signs that people were there. Anything to distract her from her own thoughts and make her feel like she was actually part of civilization and not just on the outskirts. She missed having people nearby who were at least somewhat obligated to care about her, she definitely didn’t have that at Runway. She didn’t have it anywhere else in the city either, and that was fine too.
She tried to brush the thought away as she locked her apartment door behind her, hung up her coat, and let out a sigh of relief as she kicked off the heels that had been killing her feet all day. Her apartment was immaculate, all elegant furniture, perfectly tasteful decor and nothing out of place. It wasn’t really lived in, Emily was at work most of the time after all so it was mostly a place to eat when she remembered and sleep when she could. There weren’t any pictures anywhere, not of old friends, not of family, not even of her. Nothing, but that was okay, she had her dream job and she was damn good at it. That was what was most important.
She let out a long tired sigh as she wandered to the bathroom and soaked a cotton pad with makeup remover, scrubbing slowly at her face.
Emily Charlton didn’t need anything but as she stared at herself in the mirror, as her freckles slowly became visible under a layer of foundation and her eyes became softer with the lack of dark eyeshadow, she saw a younger version of herself, the version of her who had needed anyway.
The Charlton family were not affectionate. Not with their words and certainly not physically. But Emily had been curious. She’d seen the way the other kids at her school would hug and reach for each other like it was something completely ordinary. She liked when her friends would high five her or pat her shoulder to say hello, she didn’t have the words to explain exactly how it made her feel, but she knew it made her happy. She’d seen it in films too, mothers who would scoop up their children and hold them close. It looked nice and she wanted to know what that felt like.
The first time she’d ever tried to initiate something like that was when she was seven years old. She’d tripped in her garden and her knees hit the concrete path. She hadn’t scraped them hard enough to draw blood but she’d gotten a fright. She immediately ran inside to her mum, with tears in her eyes, mud on her dress, and bruises forming where her knees had met concrete. She lifted her arms, hoping for the kind of comfort she’d slowly been learning about from films and friends. Her mum looked up from the paper she was reading at the dining room table to see Emily’s outstretched arms.
“Emily! What are you doing? You’re much too old for that nonsense! You don’t need silly things like that, you need to go and get cleaned up! Go! You’re getting mud all over the carpet!”
Emily froze, arms still outstretched for a second, body not quite catching up to the fact that her mum had denied her. Emily didn’t understand. What about the movies? Her friends’ mums all hugged them every day. Why was she not allow-
“Now Emily!”
Emily carefully lowered her arms before dropping them to her sides as she tried to swallow the lump in her throat.
“Okay mum.”
Emily was more careful after that. She stopped reaching for her friends, stopped giving them playful shoves, stopped leaning on them during boring assemblies. She would keep her distance and keep perfect posture and seem composed at all times, then nobody would reach out to her again, and that was fine. That was fine because having it only made her want it more, and she was much too old for that.
The second and last time she’d ever tried to ask was when she was sixteen in her school cafeteria. She was horribly anxious about a maths test she had coming up, and the breathing techniques she’d taught herself to manage it hadn’t helped. Nothing helped. Tears streamed down her cheeks, hot and shameful because Emily Charlton didn’t fall apart like this, and especially not in public. Her friend, Melissa, sat down in the seat next to her and when she caught sight of Emily’s face, she turned her body to face her fully.
“Damn Emily, who died?” She asked with as much tact as Emily expected, none.
Emily just shook her head, her throat tight as she tried to hold back a sob. After a shaky breath she managed “Maths test later.” If she went home with anything less than an A, her parents were going to give her hell and she just couldn’t cope with that today.
“Oh I’m sure it’ll be fine, you’re always fine Emily for goodness sake.” She had already turned away to face her attention on her lunch, as if Emily was just a silly inconvenience.
Melissa didn’t understand. Emily didn’t blame her, she hadn’t exactly ever tried to explain. She couldn’t very well explain now, and if she wanted to avoid having a full blown panic attack where everybody could see her she was going to have to swallow her pride as well as her sobs. She took a deep breath and attempted to just say it.
“Could I have a hug?” Her voice cracked around the words.
She hadn’t felt this vulnerable before in her life. Melissa looked at her like she’d grown a second head and Emily felt her heart drop in humiliation. “A hug? God Emily what are you, five? Just take a few breaths and read your notes.”
Now Emily had to spend energy she didn’t have on looking composed until she could get out of Melissa’s sight. She forced out a wet laugh and wiped her eyes. “You’re right, I should go and get them.”
She stood up with perfect posture, straightened her blazer and turned towards the cafeteria exit. As she walked she noticed countless people leaning on each other, hugging, brushing shoulders, and just absentmindedly touching each other in ways she hadn’t experienced in ten years. She couldn’t remember what it felt like. She had to blink back tears again because touch was apparently a language everybody else spoke fluently, and one she hadn’t ever been allowed to learn. Why couldn’t it be for her too when she wanted it so badly. So badly she had to beg, and that still wasn’t enough. She had to resist the urge to scream.
She made it to the bathroom, locked herself in a stall, and sobbed so hard she threw up. She still got an A that afternoon. It was fine.
The cool gel of her moisturiser on her fingertips brought her back to the present. Looking in the mirror she could see her eyes getting a little watery and she blinked hard once, then rolled her eyes at herself. “Bloody hell get a grip.”
Working in fashion helped a little bit. It was a touchy business after all, stylists adjusted collars and made sure clothes sat the way they were supposed to, makeup artists tilted chins to get better angles, and Emily was always squeezing past other people in the crowded Runway hallways. None of it meant anything, but it wasn’t nothing.
It made Emily feel, for fleeting moments, like she was actually solid. She actually existed and wasn’t just a ghost haunting the halls of Runway. She existed. She existed at her dream job and she was fine.
She repeated that thought to herself as she slipped into her silk pyjamas. With extreme lethargy, she picked up her alarm clock. She groaned as she remembered the ungodly hour she’d have to wake up tomorrow, she was supposed to be interviewing a girl to be Miranda’s new second assistant. Annabel? Annie? Ugh, something like that. If this one was as hopeless as the last two, it was going to be a very long day.
She set the alarm clock back on her bedside drawers and let out a weary sigh that she felt like she might have borrowed from tomorrow’s exhaustion. She rubbed one hand down her face before snapping herself out of her preemptive despair. It would be fine, she’d manage, she always did.
Pulling her duvet back, she crawled into her cold silk sheets and turned off the lamp next to her bed. Getting herself comfortable, she reached over to grab the spare pillow on the other side of the bed that nobody ever slept on. She pulled it flush against her chest, wrapped both of her arms around it and squeezed.
Emily Charlton did not need anything, but bloody hell she wanted.