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Feeling no closer to convincing Emmett the photo was fake, I reluctantly climb into my car and drive home. Lily’s voice and face haunt me for the rest of the night. I’m beginning to question my ability to judge the character of a person. To think she was so desperately in love with Emmett the entire time, and I had no idea! Even when she paired off with Vivian, even after what she did to me, I never would have thought she’d be capable of something like what she did to Coach Granger’s son.
After everything I have been through, I am grateful that I still have so much to come home to, which is more than I can say for everyone else. Emmett seems to have lost his entire family. Lily has been arrested. Malcolm’s been forced into hiding. The rest of the Elites are under investigation. I almost feel sorry for them, no matter how awful they all have been. They were raised to believe they could do whatever they wanted. That people like them never faced consequences for their actions. And now all at once, their worlds are crumbling down around them.
My world may feel like it’s crumbling without Emmett, but I still have the warmth of my loving family to come home to. I give my mom and Brendan extra-long hugs after dinner that night, and think of Coach Granger and his poor family as I fall asleep. I hope that maybe he can find some peace now that he knows who sabotaged his son’s recovery and ended his life.
21
Chapter Twenty-One
I am dreaming about being on a sinking ship. Alarms begin to sound when the water levels grow dangerously high, but I ignore them. I carry on with ordinary things while the ocean rushes in. People around me rush past in a panic, heeding the warning of the alarms, but I refuse to move. My dream self has decided to go down with the ship. It’s a strange moment when real life and dream life bleed together. The alarm of my phone leaks into my dreams as the alarm on the ship, and I choose to ignore it and stay asleep.
The Elites taught me about pain. I thought I knew all about it from running—pushing past the burning ache of my muscles to get in another mile and then another. But I didn’t know anything about pain until I met them. Until I saw what Emmett was capable of. To still desire a person even as they are scaring you and physically harming you—that is a pain running could have never prepared me for. Just like this seizing feeling in my chest is something I have never felt before. I’ve seen what Emmett is capable of in both good and bad ways now, and the thought of losing him is still paralyzing.
I sit up in bed feeling a new kind of emptiness. A big, wide, gaping hole where Emmett used to be. At least when I asked him to give me space, it was a choice, one that I felt like I could take back at any time. Now the choice is his, and any attempt to chase after him will just look desperate. And before I asked for space, there were times when I wanted him, but the reality of him was so awful that I prayed that he would just leave me alone. And yet he invaded my life anyway. Always there when I wished he wouldn’t be. Never in the way I wanted him.
I tell myself this is my way out. This is my chance at freedom. I should take it and run. In fact, I really should run. I should go out and run until I can’t anymore, shedding away everything about this whole nightmare with Emmett. And maybe, by the time I’m done, I won’t want him to text or call me anymore. I won’t want him at all.
I imagine I can feel him next to me, lying in my bed, smiling at me from the pillow next to me. It may not be something I’ve had much here in this room, but I’ve experienced it enough in his motel room that I can picture it so vividly.
There’s no telling where Malcolm is, or if he’ll be back now that he’s wanted by the police. I let out a scoffing smirk to myself as I stretch out in bed. Malcolm will probably find some way or another for his dad to fix all of this for them. They have enough money and power to do that sort of thing. Either way, there’s no hope of Malcolm helping me prove the photo of us together is fake. If Emmett won’t come to believe me on his own, then it’s hopeless.
A frightening reality sets in. What if I never do convince Emmett of the truth? What if he never believes me, and everything we’ve shared is lost because of whoever made that photo and sent it out? I try to picture life without Emmett. Now he has become so ingrained in me that it’s hard to imagine. Even when he was still acting under the influence of his father and the Elites, he was still devouring my thoughts for better or worse.
I think of his warm, tan skin and how the touch of it sets me on fire. It feels like home. I try to imagine never feeling that again, or seeing the spark in his icy gray eyes. My chest tightens. Feeling like it all might be lost forever only makes me want him more, even if just for a few minutes. Just to feel him against me one last time, to see his grinning face or to hear his laugh. Even his screaming fits—I’d take those at this point, too! Any part of him is better than none of him at all. But maybe that’s the exact same kind of longing that drove Vivian and Lily to where they ended up.
During fourth period, a terrible noise blares through the classrooms and halls, jerking me out of my anxious daze. The fire alarm bellows relentlessly as the teachers quickly shuffle us out into the school yard. There are whispers and murmurs through the crowd that someone has pulled it as a prank. There are no signs of smoke or fire. As everyone gathers out front, I still can’t see Emmett or Malcolm anywhere. As I’m looking around for them, something catches the corner of my eye. I turn, and swear I see someone who looks like Bernadette walking off to the side of the school.
“Bernadette!” I scream out instinctively, as
everyone backs away and looks at me like I’m crazy. I take off running in her direction, ignoring the teachers around me who yell for me to stop and stay with everyone else.
By the time I reach the edge of the building, she is nowhere to be seen. I don’t see anyone at all, not even someone who looks like her. Just like that, she’s gone again. Like a ghost that’s vanished.
The sighting leaves an uneasy feeling in the pit of my stomach. I try to call Emmett, wanting to tell him about it, but of course he doesn’t answer. The rest of the school day feels strangely calm. I don’t know if any rumors are circulating yet about what Malcolm and Lily did, but things seem to be back to normal. At least as normal as it ever gets around here. But I am still feeling distracted and out of it, and find myself racing through empty halls to catch one of my classes when I hear crying coming from behind the stairs.
I know I should keep going, but something makes me stop. I peek around the railing and see Vivian standing in a corner with her head tilted back. Her eyes are closed as she sobs quietly, hiding away by herself. At first, I feel nothing, thinking she deserves whatever tears she has to shed and then some. But for some reason, I can’t bring myself to just leave her there like that, even though I know I should.
“Hey…you okay?” I ask from around the corner. My tone is apathetic, and I’m hoping she’ll just say something rude, giving me permission to carry on.
“No,” she laments.
Shit. Now I have to talk to her. Actually, I don’t have to—she deserves nothing from me, but no matter how hard she tried to paint me as a monster to Emmett, I do have empathy. Even some left for her it seems.
“Wow…no biting remarks,” I shoot back as I crouch to join her behind the stairs. “Now I know something must be wrong. Is this about Lily being arrested?”
“No.” She rolls her eyes. “I knew all about what she and Malcolm did.”
I want to hound her for that fact and make her feel as guilty as possible, but I try to push past that. “Is it Emmett?”
“My parents,” she sobs. “The investigation into the sex trafficking ring is coming to a close. Trey and Vincent’s parents are being sent away. Our lawyers say my dad is going to go away for a long time, and my mom will, too, because she knew about everything and helped him. There’s going to be a trial.” Her breath catches through sniffles. “Our family name will be completely ruined. The lawyers say there’s nothing they can do for them and that they should just plead guilty. And then there’s the sentencing.”
I knew things had to be hard for her because of what’s been happening to her parents, but I am still taken aback. I guess it just never occurred to me that Vivian would even care. That’s how heartless she seemed to me. “I’m sorry, Vivian.”
“I didn’t know about what they were doing,” she assures me, looking at me with deadened eyes, blotted with runny makeup.
“Really?” I reply, sounding too shocked.
“Don’t act so surprised,” she snips. “I know I’ve done some fucked up things. Made your life hell. But I’m not a monster, Ophelia. Neither is Emmett. Our families are just so fucked up.”
