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“Her oxygen levels dropped.” He descended a couple of steps, his hands in the pockets of his coat. “I called the ambulance when I came home for a meal break. Get inside.”
“No, we need to follow her.”
“She won’t wake up tonight,” he told me, “and she’s in good hands. We’ll go in the morning before school.”
The engine revved behind me, and I twisted around as the driver shifted into gear.
No.
“She’s fine, Emmy.”
I didn’t like his tone. Why was he so calm?
“Thank you, Janice,” he called out to the driver as she turned off her lights and waved to us. “Tell Ben thank you.”
They drove off, and I started after them.
“Move another muscle,” he warned, “and she’s never coming back.”
I stopped, swallowing the lump in my throat.
“Get inside now,” he ordered.
I stood there, hearing his footsteps and the front door swing open, and I shook my head, wanting to run after her, but he’d find me.
I closed my eyes, the weariness of all the years and the past several days weighing heavy, because Will showing me how happy I could be if things were a little different made all this so much harder to bear.
I was tired.
I almost swayed on my feet. I was so tired.
A curtain slowly fell between my eyes and my brain as I went through the same rage, anger, hurt, pain, sadness, and despair I’d felt a thousand times before.
But now I understood something I never did.
Nothing made sense.
Martin, my home, the terror… It just was, and sometimes you were just that person whom things happened to.
I walked into the house and closed the door, not tensing or clenching or bracing, because it didn’t help.
“That was for last night,” he said as I entered the kitchen and watched him take off his jacket. “Just a warning.”
I blinked once, staring at him. “You did that to her.”
It wasn’t a question. I knew the answer.
His hand curled around the chair back, and his knuckles turned white as he squeezed.
“She’s the only control you have over me,” I told him. “If she dies, there’s nothing keeping me here.”
“And without me, she’d be in hospice or some state home, neglected and in agony.”
We stood on opposite sides of the table, locked in the challenge. What did he want?
Was this really all he had? He acted like he hated me, but would he suddenly be happy if I were no longer here?
Was he going to try to stop me when it was time for me to leave?
