His words pierce through me like a sword.
“They were teenagers,” I say. “In high school. She couldn’t have been.”
“Yeah, they were still in high school when they met, but she’d graduated by the time she had you. According to my mom, they were very much in love. So much that after your mom had you, she had an engagement ring on her finger and she moved into Olivia’s.”
I lift my arms to push Oz away, but he releases me before I have the chance. I sway as if I’m being tossed around in waves. “She was in love with him?”
“I’m not telling you anything you don’t already know. You saw how Eli and your mom hugged. You saw your mom’s initials on the tree. You held a picture of you and Olivia. You’re smart. You know the truth. You haven’t been looking for someone to prove it. You’ve been searching to disprove it.”
“Then why lie to me?” I snap. “Why does everyone want to keep it a secret?”
Oz lowers his head and my gut twists. He knows and he won’t tell me.
“Oh my God.” I stand and Oz simultaneously bolts to his feet. “You know why this is a huge secret and you’ve seen me beat myself up over it and you won’t tell me because you want to belong to a boys’ club?”
“Because I’m a part of a family and I’ve been entrusted with a secret that I swore I wouldn’t tell. You accuse me of having no integrity, but integrity doesn’t mean breaking a promise. It means keeping it.”
“It sounds like pretty words to cover up the truth. Take me back to Olivia’s.”
“Emily—” Oz starts.
“Take me back to Olivia’s!” I yell and start for the door. I yank it open and Oz stalks up behind me and slams it shut.
“This is your family, too. If you want the truth, then you have to keep doing what you’re doing. Stick with us. Become one of us and I promise that you’ll find out. If you run away, you’ll be like your mom and you’ll remain an outsider.”
I pivot on my toes in a flash and I’m in Oz’s face. “I’m already an outsider. My mom may have run away, but Eli left me, too. He was the one that abandoned us. He signed the custody papers. He’s the one that gave me up for adoption!”
I can’t take in air fast enough and a lump forms in my throat. I shove a hand through my hair, trying to understand the heartache because it shouldn’t matter that Eli abandoned me. I have my dad and I love my dad and that’s what matters. It’s all that should matter.
But there’s this pain ripping through me. This agony tearing at my soul and a sound leaves my mouth that only begins to describe the misery inside me. “Don’t tell me that he wanted me because if he did, he would have never signed those papers.”
Oz swears under his breath then engulfs me into his body. I press back, pushing for release, but Oz wraps his arms tighter around me. The stronger his embrace, the more the tears threaten to escape from my eyes.
This is too much. It’s all too much. Eli. Olivia. My mom.
“Will you stop fighting?” Oz whispers. “For once, lean on one of us.”
Exhausted, tired, emotionally drained, I bury my face in his chest and large, warm drops slide down my cheeks. I’m not crying. Not at all. Because I wouldn’t do something like that over a man who has never shed a tear over me.
Oz
EMILY SITS ON my bed with her back against the wall and her knees drawn to her chest. It’s almost four in the morning and I led her here after she stopped crying. I’m paralyzed by crying girls. Not sure what to do with one in complete meltdown mode, I relied on what helps me. When I’m upset, a change of location can create a change in perspective.
Eli texted a few minutes ago to check on Emily and told me that Mom and Dad are staying the night there so Mom can watch Olivia and so Dad can discuss the Riot situation at a late night session of Church. He also informed me that Olivia is alert and fine.
Fine.
Dying of cancer is not fine.
I rest at the end of the bed and pluck an old guitar I bought when I was thirteen and dreamed of being a rock star. Emily rolls her head and glances at me with barely cracked eyes. “Can you play anything else besides the opening to ‘Smoke on the Water’?”
I cock an eyebrow as I switch up and strum the first few chords of the “Mexican Hand-Clapping Song.” Emily laughs and the sound dances along my skin.
“How’s Olivia?” she asks.
“Fine.” I spit Eli’s answer.
“I asked her what type of cancer she has and she didn’t answer.”
I say nothing. The pain of discovering that we’re out of options and running short on time is still too fresh. There’s a beat, then another, and Emily talks again. “Are you okay?”
Am I okay? The woman I’m closest to in the world is on the countdown clock. No, I’m not okay. “I don’t want to talk about Olivia.”
“Maybe you should.”
“Day in and day out for the past year I’ve watched Olivia deteriorate. I don’t need to talk about it when it constantly stares me in the face. I’d give everything if I could forget that Olivia is dying for at least thirty seconds, so excuse the fuck out of me if I don’t want to talk about it with you.”
Emily tugs her hair over her shoulder so I can’t see her face. Good job, Oz. Make Emily feel like shit. She’ll forever remember you as a grade-A asshole. It’s better that way. At least she’ll go home with the truth.
I grab the beer I had placed on the window ledge and Emily yanks it out of my hand. I open my mouth to tell her to give it back, but she shocks me speechless when she tilts the bottle up. Emily lowers it and her face puckers as if she tasted a lemon.
I chuckle and Emily glares at me like she wishes she had a knife.
“Never had alcohol before?”
“I’m not that naive.” She hands the beer to me. “We have parties in Florida.”
I’m sure they do, but my idea of party and her idea of party live in different zip codes. “The type where bras come off and end up on the wall?”
Emily spits out a strange sound that involves sticking out her tongue. “No one should be at that type of party.”
“Don’t knock it until you try it.” I drink, thinking of how her lips had touched the rim. “Do you go crazy with pouring vodka in your slushies?”
Emily giggles and my spirits lift. “No. I’ve had a wine cooler before.”
“One?”
“Yeah.” Emily slides her mouth to the side as she morphs into shy. “I totally got light-headed and laughed at my toes for an hour.” She raises her feet for effect.
I bet Emily is a cute drunk. Not the damn sloppy ones I have a habit of ending up with. The ones that cry when they get wasted and drop every damn problem they have or think they have on me. Emily would be the dancing-in-the-sand type and I regret that I’ll never know.
“Beer sucks,” she says.
I shrug. “It’s an acquired taste.”
“So’s caviar, but I’m not eating fish eggs.” She yawns and I check my phone for the time. It’s too late or too early. Either way, Emily should be tucked safely in bed.
“I’m sorry,” she says out of the blue. “I’m sorry that I pushed you about Olivia and...I’m just sorry.”
I press the beer to my lips again and keep drinking until it’s gone. If Emily doesn’t believe I’m bad news, she will now. “It’s not your fault. I’m sorry for biting your head off.”
“It’s okay. I...” She inhales deeply and wraps her arms around her knees. “I don’t know what it’s like to lose someone, but I understand being messed up and confused and not wanting to discuss things.”
One month. Emily’s survived over one month in my world and she’s hardly batted an eye. Granted, she’s lived in the tamer version Eli and Cyrus created, but the girl’s been away from home while she’s being stalked by some jacked-up peop
le. I know girls who cry when they chip a damn nail. Not Emily. She’s a strong one that rolls with the punches.
“I lied to you,” I admit.
She levels her shocked eyes on me. “What?”
“At the pond, when I said that I liked you...” I rub my thumb over my eyebrow as my brain tingles with the slight beer buzz. “I more than like you. Being with you over the past month...”
I could blame my declaration on the beer, but what I’m experiencing is nothing more than a head rush and I didn’t drink nearly enough to claim stupidity. All the emotions within me collide and I choose a safer path. “You’ve been good to Olivia. And how you were with during her seiz—”
I choke up and my teeth click together in an effort to erase the image of Olivia helpless and shaking on her bed. Soft fingers cover mine and a part of me hates when I grab on to Emily’s hand and hold tight.
“I like her,” says Emily, so softly that her voice is like a caress on my skin. “Olivia is definitely crazy, but I like her. And I also like you—maybe more than like, too.”
Emily craves the truth and I’ve admitted to keeping some of it from her. I won’t betray the club, but I can give Emily more. I tip my chin, indicating the top drawer of my nightstand.
“There’re some pictures in there. They used to be on the fridge, but Mom took them down when you arrived at Olivia’s. The one with the two babies?” I turn my head to look straight in her eyes. She won’t be calling me out on integrity issues with this. “It’s me and you.”
Emily
THERE’S A FLASH in his blue eyes—an unspoken challenge to call him a liar, but I don’t have to push for the truth. It’s written all over his face. Nervous adrenaline floods my system as I wipe my palms against my jeans.
I open the drawer, grab for the stack of pictures and my entire world freezes. A small toddler. Chubby cheeks and fingers. Black hair. Big blue eyes. An infectious grin. He’s settled into a patch of tall green grass and he’s extending a dandelion to a baby girl old enough to sit. Long brown hair. My eyes. Pink Elephant James is by my side. I’m smiling as I accept the gift.
I twine my fingers in my hair and pull tightly enough to cause pain at the roots. Another picture from another time with another person who should not be a part of my past.
My back hits the wall and I lightly rap my head. “I don’t understand.”
Oz extends his leg so that it touches me, then he gently bumps his knee to mine as if offering comfort. “As I said before, I’m not telling you anything you don’t already know. You lived here. Farther down the road, that’s your family. Me and you, Emily? This isn’t the first time we’ve met.”
My body goes numb and I sort of enjoy the feeling. Numb’s better than confusion and hurt and anger. All of which I should be experiencing, but I’m embracing numb. Numb chases away the terrifying, nausea-inducing memories of Olivia’s twitching body.
Even though I’m welcoming numb, even though I’m trying desperately to dive headfirst into it and lose myself in the blackness, an overwhelming wave of sadness hammers into me like a tanker truck and I flinch with the impact.
Olivia’s dying and if she was supposed to be in my life, but wasn’t because my mom ran... “What did I miss? With Olivia? What did I miss not being around her?”
Oz
EMILY’S KILLING ME. Tears pool at the bottom of those dark eyes and I watch helplessly as she bleeds. What did Emily miss by not living here? What will she miss if Olivia dies? Everything worth living for.
“Olivia took care of me,” I say and my own voice tastes foreign. My heart rate increases because this sharing shit, it sure as hell isn’t me. “When I was younger, my parents weren’t ready for...” Me. “A kid, so Olivia took care of me until they could. Don’t get me wrong. They love me and I love them, but Mom was working her way through nursing school and Dad had a job with jacked-up night hours. A kid made things complicated.”
Emily’s waiting for me to continue and I don’t want to continue. I’d prefer to return to the kitchen and suck down a few more bottles of beer.
Olivia had a seizure tonight.
A seizure.
She’s had them before. It’s not new, but the cancer has spread to her blood. It’s over. It’s all fucking over.
“Olivia...” My voice breaks and I clear my throat. “She raised me. The room across from the one you’ve been sleeping in? That was mine. Slept in it every night until my mom switched shifts when I was eight.”
Emily’s too damn pale and those eyes are too damn wide. Who the hell can process so much shit in such a short period of time, but because Emily’s quick on the draw, she does. “So Olivia is like your mom?”
My throat goes raw and I can only nod. Screw this. “I don’t want to play this fucked-up history game anymore. You can go to sleep if you want. I’ll take the couch.”
“Oz,” she says.
I strum the guitar again. “Can we let this go?”
She sighs and I accept the sound as her moving on from the conversation.
“Want me to head to the living room?” I ask.
Emily yawns while she shakes her head no. She’s fighting sleep and I don’t understand why. “Tell me why you’re scared of the dark.”
“If you could do anything other than work for the security company, what would you do?” she counters.
“Nothing. The security company is what I want to do.”
“Yeah, but what do you like to do? You know, in your down time, and please don’t tell me play guitar.”
“Don’t think I’m rock-star material? I took two months of lessons for this.” I play one more chorus of “Smoke on the Water.” “Why are you scared of the dark?”
“I’ll tell you if you tell me what you would do if the security company didn’t exist.”
In the soft lamplight, Emily looks like a dream. White cotton shirt that hugs her perfectly, those skintight jeans and her silky chestnut hair tumbling around her shoulders. Normally, I wouldn’t answer this type of question, but Emily’s breaking down her walls and I’ll be damned if I give her an opportunity to build them back up.
“Deal.”
“First off,” she says. “I’m not scared of the dark.”
I raise both of my eyebrows in disbelief and she has enough of a sense of humor to smirk. “Technically, I’m scared of the combination of the dark and woods.”
“Thanks for clearing that up.” I pick at the strings as if I’m on the verge of playing something brilliant, but I’ve already run through my entire music catalog. Those two months of lessons were all I cared to take. “Mind telling me the story now?”
“You know how on the six o’clock news they report when a dead body was found?”
Not liking where this is headed, I lay my hand over the strings and they vibrate beneath my skin. “Yeah.”
“Have you ever considered how the body’s found?”
“Can’t say I have.” Until now.
Emily shrugs her shoulders like what she’s about to divulge isn’t a big deal. “Neither did I until I was eight, got separated from my Girl Scout troop in the woods, got turned around, fell into a hole covered with sticks and leaves, and spent the night with the next headlining story on the six o’clock news.”
I can’t breathe. “You’re shitting me.”
“Wish I was. By the way, I will totally accept your apology for making fun of me for freaking out at Olivia’s wake whenever you’re ready to give it. Your turn.”
I prop the guitar against the wall. “Fuck, no. You don’t drop that type of news then switch subjects.”
“Well.” Emily lifts the ends of her hair and twists her fingers into it. “There’s not much to tell and, to be honest with you, I enjoy talking about hanging with a dead guy as much as you enjoy talking about Olivia dying.”
Touché.
“As I said, your turn.”
Guess it is, but it feels wrong to switch the conversation to me after Emily declared something so huge. “Does Eli know?”
“No. Only a few people do. The media and the police never released how the body was found, just that it was. You don’t have to look at me like that.”
“Like what?”
“As if I’m going to go spastic like I did at the funeral home. That was a special circumstance. I hate the dark and the woods so the worst that will happen is that I’ll stay up until the sun rises.”
My world narrows in on Emily. “How many nights have you slept through since you’ve been here?”
She rubs eyes that are plagued by dark circles and exhaustion. “Probably as many as you have sleeping outside my window.”
Fuck this. I stretch past her and pull down the blanket. “Lie down and get some sleep.”
“It’s been a crazy night.” She draws her knees in closer to keep from touching me, but it’s a twin bed and I fill the entire mattress on my own. “I thought I was watching Olivia die and the woods are practically covering us and it’s after four so the sun will rise soon. I’ll be okay. If you’re tired, it won’t bother me if you go to sleep.”
“I’ll stay with you while you sleep.” I prop myself onto my elbow on my side to watch her reaction. “Will that help?”
She fixates on her thumbnail. “It doesn’t work that way. It’s as if there’s a monster under my bed and as long as I keep my eyes open, then it won’t escape and attack me.”
“I’ll take on your monsters,” I tease, but I’m dead serious.
Paint that was on her nails before is stripped away as she mulls over my offer. “When I was trapped, I screamed for hours and nobody came. Eventually, I curled myself into a ball next to the feet and stared at the body. If I watched it then it couldn’t hurt me so I stayed up and stared. Even when it was pitch black.”
Emily goes silent and I feel like an asshole for every bad comment I made.
“Do you know why I joined the Girl Scouts?” she asks.