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I look back one more time before I open the door. Emmett is staring straight ahead again with dark, haunted eyes. He looks troubled, and it brings back the knots in my stomach. I don’t know if it’s guilt over what happened with Malcolm, but I can’t help but feel some of his discontentment is definitely directed towards me right now.
“Goodnight,” I say grimly, knowing I have to go inside, hoping something in him will change for just a moment before I have to walk away.
“Goodnight, Ophelia.” He smiles sweetly, just enough to restore a little hope in me. “I’ll call you tomorrow.”
I can’t hide the grin on my face as I walk back inside, still smelling him on my clothes. Our relationship may have had a twisted start, but things are starting to feel good. Normal, even. And if everything else has to be such a mess all the time, at least for now I have him. I just wish it didn’t feel like something was always popping up and getting in our way.
I tell myself that the thing with Malcolm was no big deal and that Emmett will be over it by tomorrow. But as I lay down to go to sleep, the words of my father come back to me, causing me to toss and turn all night.
12
Chapter Twelve
The next morning, I wake up to my mom knocking on my door saying she wants to talk. I’m panicked as I climb out of bed to let her in. So many things have happened this week that she could have somehow found out about. All the sex in Emmett’s motel room, the drug incident at school, the fight at Lily and Vivian’s, skipping school, the visit with my dad. My defenses for all of it are racing through my mind as she comes in making small talk about work.
“So…things have been going well at work,” she says with an awkward and heavy smile.
“Oh, yeah?” I perk up nervously. “Well…that’s…good.”
“Yeah.” She nods earnestly. “Hard work as always. But I really like the medical center here. Even better than the one back in Oklahoma, I think.”
She looks at me expectantly, but I am too on edge and clueless to what to say.
“Well…what about school?” she asks finally.
“What about it?” I snap back defensively, my eyes wide.
“Just…how is it going?” she prods. “We haven’t really been able to talk about it much since we got here, you know? And I felt so bad when everything happened with Emmett’s dad. I felt like I knew nothing about your life or what had been going on with you.”
“Oh…you know…That was a crazy time.” I laugh nervously, but quickly realize how inappropriate it sounds. “But, um…things are good at school. You know, better now…Sort of.”
“Better how?” she shoots back brightly.
My mind races. How is it better? I’m not getting the shit beaten out of me anymore, but I have beat up Vivian again. And asked Emmett to torture her the way he used to torture me, and realized both Vivian and I seem to get off on it in a weird way. Yeah, Ophelia. Start telling Mom all about that.
“It’s just boring,” I offer finally. “I don’t really know what else to say about it.”
“Oh, okay,” she recoils in disappointment.
She tries to ask me questions about school, but I only give her brief answers. Then her expression changes, and I brace myself for whatever is coming. I know she came in here for a reason, and I can only guess what it might be.
“How are things going with Emmett?” she asks gingerly.
“Oh!” I blurt. “Emmett? Good…You wanted to talk about Emmett?”
Truthfully, I want more than anything to be able to talk to my mom about Emmett. I want to ask if this is what it was like when she met my father. I know it’s nothing like how it is with Brendan. He’s calm and strong enough to keep his emotions under control. He’s never threatened or hurt my mom in any way. I know I want what they share together. And I’m afraid that with Emmett, I am getting what she had with my father. That’s more believable.
I want to ask her if she felt this way about my dad—if she had this hard of a time walking away from him, too. When did she know it was time to give up on him? The story is that he hit her once and she left. Emmett has done worse than that to me—more than once. And I’m still here. If I told her that, as my mother, she would be obligated to lock me up and never let me see him again. But I need her to help make me understand the way my heart feels about him.
I don’t want to blame him for the way he is. I know no one ever taught him how to love someone. How to really love them. I don’t know what his mother is like, but she was absent enough to let his father be a monster. I want to tell him it doesn’t matter that he’s so fucked up, as long as he loves me the best way he knows how. Maybe I can teach him. Maybe I can fix him.
“You’ve just been spending so much time with him lately,” she says lightly. “Things must be getting pretty serious.”
“I’m not going to run off with him again, if that’s what you’re worried about,” I reply confidently, thinking in my head that what I really mean to say is, ‘He’s not going to kidnap me again.’
“No, I wasn’t worried about that, Ophelia,” she answers crossly. “I just want to know what’s going on in your life. Be a part of it all. Since you are spending so much time with Emmett, maybe you could invite him over to dinner tonight? I mean, if he’s important to you, then we’d like to get to know him.”
I’m quiet for a moment, thinking through her suggestion. She has no idea just how important Emmett is to me, or how much we’ve been through together—how much we’re still going through together. I want to deny the invitation, but I feel guilty that we’ve sat down with my dad and not my mom and stepdad…the parents who have actually been supporting me and involved in my life.
