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“They really keep everything from you, don’t they?”
He taps the screen with his thumbs and then hands it back to me.
“Just tap the numbers like a keyboard,” he says.
When I hand him back his phone, he taps on it again and my own phone in my pocket vibrates.
I pull it out and see a new text message that says, ‘Dream of me.’
I don’t reply and I don’t save his number. I simply tuck the phone back into my pocket.
Emmett wraps me in a hug when we get on the ground at the bottom of the tower. His embrace seems to go on for hours, but when he releases me it feels like it was far too short. I watch him, hidden in the tree line, as he gets into his car and drives away.
I don’t know if it was a gut instinct, or the glow of every light being on in the house that tipped me off, but I’m stuck in place. I don’t move from the spot at the end of the gravel driveway. When I see the front door fly open and my parents marching out of it toward me, my brain starts functioning again. I quickly pull my phone out of my pocket and stare at the text message Emmett sent me. I repeat his phone number in my head over and over, as many times as I can, then quickly delete the message before the phone is ripped from my hand and I feel a burning across my cheek.
The next hour is a blur. I feel like I’m underwater for most of it. My parents' voices, even at the high pitch of my mother’s screams and the booming bellows of my father’s reprimands, sound far away. The first thing I notice when my mother drags me into the house by my arm is that everything I had been hiding under my mattress is strewn across the kitchen table. I watch as she throws each book and item of contraband in the trash can, one by one. As she thrusts each item into the trash, she points out what sin I’ve committed by having each forbidden item.
I can only imagine how much it’s going to cost me in library fees to replace the books. Silver lining; I was smart enough to put my savings in a bank account so that’s one less thing they couldn’t find under my bed.
When my parents are satisfied with how much yelling they’ve done, they send me to my room. Not before informing me I’m not to leave the house, with the exception of church on Sunday and for the ceremony on Tuesday.
For theweddingceremony.
Formywedding ceremony.
The moment they found everything, they moved the timeline up. I’m not sure if they did it as punishment or as an effort to try to save me from myself and the wicked world that’s influenced me.
Locked away in my bedroom, I look in the mirror above my dresser and see that my cheek is still bright red. My mother hit me. She actually slapped me across the face. The skin stings when I run my fingertips across the mark and it stings when the first tears hit it.
The following morning, I don’t leave my bedroom until I’m forced to for Bible study. I imagine I only got about a half hour of sleep last night and as my father reads a pointed passage–something about sinning and disobeying–I struggle to keep my eyes open. The snap of his Bible closing causes me to jerk and I look over at him.
Rather than say anything else, he stands and heads down the hall to his study. Mother sits staring at me for a while longer before reminding me I’m not allowed to leave the house. She leaves without much more comment. I guess Bible study is over.
I drag myself and my Bible back to my bedroom and flop onto my bed. When my eyes catch the clock on the wall, a tear escapes my right eye. In just over 72 hours, I’m expected to don a white dress and be married to a boy I don’t even know. If I let this move forward, I’ll be trapped within the church and the rules forever. There will be legal documents tying me to it.
It should be easy to leave, to walk out the front door and never come back.
It should be easy, but it’s anything but.
A million questions and fears run through my mind every time I even think about leaving.
Where will I go? Where will I sleep? Will they come after me? Will they come after Bea or Emmett? Will Bea fire me if they go to her and cause trouble? If I lose my job and what little income I have—. I guess if I don’t show up for my shift on Monday I would be fired, anyway.
The worry and fear of all the unknown goes on like this for ages, incapacitating me and any decision-making along with it. That’s one thing the church is good at. Indoctrinating its members to the point that they don’t even know how to make their own choices anymore. The church makes all the important choices in life for you.
Chapter seventeen
Emmett
Ittakesmorewillpowerthan I care to admit to not text Aubrey again before I fall asleep. But willpower isn’t even in my vocabulary within an hour of waking up the next morning.
Me: Good Morning Gorgeous.
Me: How did you sleep?
When I don’t get a response within five minutes, I pull on my running shoes, needing a distraction. If Jesse and Ender knew how pathetic I am right now, checking my phone every two seconds for a response and panicking when one still hasn’t come after ten minutes, they’d never let me hear the end of it.
I wanted so badly to tell her last night how strong my feelings for her have become. How I can’t stop thinking about her and about how every time she’s not near me, I long for her in ways I didn’t even know I could. But, when she broke down and told me about that Thomas punk and the bullshit plan her family and that predator of a pastor have for her, I knew I couldn’t do that to her. I couldn’t add one more thing to the bucket of worry she’s already carrying around.
