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“You know him, Emmett,” I press. “I can’t give him that kind of power, right? He’ll find some way to ruin everything for me. I just know it.”
“Maybe if he could just give you one lump sum of money and be done with it,” he suggests. “So you’re not forced to run to him for every little thing you need.”
“Then he’ll still have something to hang over my head. No, I just can’t do it, Emmett. I know my mom and Brendan are stressed, but the eas
y way out isn’t always what it seems,” I explain. “He’s just trying to prey on their biggest fears about providing for me. It’s their weak spot and he’s using it to weasel his way back into our lives.”
He’s quiet for a moment longer. “What do you think he wants? Why try so hard to get to everyone?”
It’s a reasonable question, but not the one I want right now. Because it leaves open the possibility that I am just being paranoid and that all Theo really wants is a chance to be the father he should have been all along. As much as he knows how to be.
“I don’t know,” I mutter. “I just know things never end well with him.”
“I’m sorry, Ophelia,” Emmett says slowly. “I feel…guilty…or responsible in some way.”
“What do you mean?” I ask, assuming he thinks his little deal with Theo might be part of the reason he’s still lingering around.
“If my family hadn’t cut me off from everything,” he continues, sounding pained. “I could fix all of this. I would have more than enough money to take care of both of us through college.”
I try to be open and appreciative to his words, but it just makes me want to scream into a pillow. I feel like some helpless damsel from the 18th century. No one seems to think I’m capable of working and keeping up with track and school enough to take care of myself. But the guilt of knowing everyone I care about is stressing so much over their ability to take care of me just makes me feel stuck. It’s too much pressure on me to do whatever it is they think I’m going to accomplish. And now I’m falling deeper into this rabbit hole of worrying so much about how everyone else feels, my own desires and dreams seem to be falling to the backburner.
“It’s not your responsibility to pay my way through college,” I tell him curtly. “It’s nice that you would, but even if you had the money…I couldn’t have accepted that kind of help from you.”
“Sure you could have,” he insists. “We’re a team, Ophelia. Partners. Your problems are my problems.”
Part of me wants to melt. The idea is so sweet and tempting, but something about it makes me feel like a big hand is closing around my neck.
“I know,” I reply half-heartedly. “Listen, I’m exhausted. I’m going to go to bed. Goodnight. I love you.”
“I love you, Ophelia. So much. Goodnight.”
I crash down on my bed, laughing at myself. Now I look like some corseted damsel too, fainting across my bed like this. Poking out from under my bed where I stashed it last, Marissa’s diary calls to me. I pick it up and flip through the next few entries. She talks about a feeling of having no say or control over her own life, but all of that fades away when she officially meets Thomas. He’s good-looking, charming, and the kind of guy she would want to be with even if she had a choice.
It’s frighteningly relatable. Being surrounded by pressure on all sides, everyone telling you what to do and how to do it. Then the charming knight sweeps in and makes you forget you ever wanted anything different.
10
Chapter Ten
I knew it was going to be a bad day when I woke up to the ding from my phone. It’s a special notification that only sounds off when the dreaded Elites app of shame has been used. It’s a special thing they designed and use to torment blacklisted students or anyone else that’s crossed them in some way. I myself have been a victim of the app more than once, which texts every single student at WJ Prep.
But this morning Emmett is the victim. I open the message to see Emmett’s drooping face looking incredibly sad. There’s a caption that reads: What a poor rich boy looks like when he loses all of his daddy’s money.
I look at the photo closer and realize it was taken the night that we cornered his mom, sister, and the Hendersons. For weeks, we thought Bernadette was missing, but she had been hiding out at the Hendersons’ manor the entire time. Their mom soon joined her there. It was all a ploy to drive Emmett mad so they could set it up to look like he had lost his mind after his father’s death. Then they held me at gunpoint and forced him to sign all of Jameson Automobiles over to them. His family cut him off and took every penny left to his name.
The sting of this mass text and the words along with it is, of course, that Emmett wasn’t hurt because he lost all that money. He was hurt by the principle of it. That his mom and sister were so cold, ruthless, and greedy that they would squander his inheritance just because they could. It was a power play. They could have taken the company and left him his trust fund and he would have had enough to live off of. He would have surrendered everything else and let them carry on with their corrupt little business deals while he lived in peace.
But no. His mom and sister cared so little for him, and even hatefully resented him in a way, that they would rather leave him with absolutely nothing. Completely cut off and cast out from the only family he has simply because Emmett had something they didn’t. Empathy. And an inability to prioritize money and power over human lives.
For me, it was a good experience. I thought it was better for Emmett to be left to make his own way without any ties to his evil family. It also proved to me that Emmett was different from his family. That he had a heart and the ability to be good.
I’m thinking it all over as I get ready for school. Even with my own car, Emmett still picks me up some mornings and this is one of those days. I peak anxiously out the window every few minutes to see if he’s pulled up, wondering how he’ll feel about the latest blow from the Elites. Whether it can be seen as good or bad in the long run, that night was when Emmett lost what was left of his family. Even if they weren’t good people, it was hard for him. And now the Elites are using it against him to try and humiliate him. Definitely not a great start to the day.
Just as I’m sliding into a hoodie and throwing my shoes in a gym bag for practice, I hear the gentle honk of his car as he pulls in to park. Even though Emmett seems like a changed man these days, many parts of me aren’t over the trauma of how he was before. I know he has a temper and I’m not looking forward to seeing how he behaves with the Elites adding insult to injury.
It’s cold enough outside that I don’t even bother hesitating to read how he’s feeling before I jump right in and begin blowing on my hands, warming them against the heated vents. But within seconds I notice the tight, blank expression on his face. He’s stern and silent as he jerks the car into reverse. He handles turns with a sense of agitation, but he drives slowly down the streets. As if he’s putting off arriving at school as long as possible.
“So…I guess you saw it?” I ask gently after a long and heavy silence. He nods with nothing but a grunt, obviously not wanting to talk about it. But everything in his expression and body language tells me it’s eating away at him.
