I kiss her back fully, cupping the back of her head and pulling her closer.
Suddenly the door creaks open. “I’m coming in in exactly one minute. If anyone needs to get dressed, better make it quick,” Stale calls out, shattering the moment into pieces.
Emery and I spring from the bed and scramble to put on our clothes. By the time Stale walks in, Emery is ruffling her hair into place and I’m doing up my belt.
Stale’s gaze dances back and forth between us before landing on me. “It’s time to go.” He looks at Emery. “You too. There’s a car waiting for you outside that’s going to drive you to the airport.”
Emery sucks her bottom lip between her teeth and stares at me helplessly. I give her hand a squeeze before turning to Stale.
“We want to go together,” I sign to him. The movement of my hands and arms are firm despite how fast my heart is racing.
Stale immediately shakes his head. “It’s too risky for the two of you to go together. It’ll make it easier for someone to identify you or track you down.”
I nervous pop my knuckles, hesitating with what to say next. He could be right. It could be more dangerous if Emery and I go together. Do I want to put her at risk like that?
“I want to go with him,” Emery chimes in. “I don’t care if it’s more risky.” When she looks at me, her confidences sinks along with her shoulders. “Unless you’ve changed your mind.”
“I just don’t want to put you in danger,” I sign, feeling like an asshole. “That’s it, Emery. I want to go with you more than anything. I promise.”
“Then do it.” The plea in her voice rips my heart in two. “I don’t care if it’s more risky. I’ve lived my whole life doing what I thought I was supposed to, following orders, doing what everyone else wanted. For once I just want to live my life how I want it and be with the people I want to.” She crosses her arm, frowning. “But I get it. It’s a big risk. One you shouldn’t have to take.”
I want to take it.
God, do I.
Say to hell with everything
and soar away.
start a life
that I can finally live
without feeling as though I’m half dead.
“No, I want to… I want you… " My unsteady hands move in front of me.
She reaches for me and takes hold of my hands. “Then let’s do this.”
A breath eases from my lips as I bob my head up and down. Then I slip my hands from hers and turn to Stale, who looks madder than hell. “We’re going together.”
He shakes his head. “I can’t allow that. It’s too risky.”
“Then I guess we’ll start over on our own.” I’m not being serious. I know for a fact we can’t start over under these circumstances without help. I just need him to believe that we will if he doesn’t help us.
“Don’t be stupid, Ryler,” Stale stresses. “This is what you’ve always wanted—a new life. It’s the reason you got into this in the first place.”
Emery’s brows furrow, and I realize there’s still so much she doesn’t know about me.
I’ll explain later, I mouth to her.
“I’m just glad there’s going to be a later,” she replies, looking more excited than I’ve ever seen her.
Stale huffs an aggravated breath and folds his arms, staring us down like he’s a parent scolding his children. “You two have got to be kidding me. This is absurd. And we need to go before you don’t have a chance of getting out of here undetected.”
I don’t respond. I simply take Emery’s hand and interlock our fingers. My heart skips a beat when she grips on for dear life.
A minute of silence ticks by before Stale throws his hands in the air. “Fine. Do whatever you want. See if I care.” He storms for the door and jerks it open. At first I think he’s really going to leave and let us do this on our own, but then he shoots us an impatient look. “Are you two coming?”
I suppress a grin as I nod then Emery and I walk to the door. We don’t take anything with us, except the clothes on our backs and each other. It makes me feel weightless and in the strangest way, happy.
As I step over the threshold, I smile to myself because I can almost feel myself entering a new life, the one I’ve always wanted.
I’m finally, finally free.
Chapter 19
I Finally Found My Wings
Eight months later…
Emery
“So, you’re saying you think the reason why I forgot so many things about my life is because of the medication I was on?” I ask my therapist, a middle-aged woman with wild red hair. “That it was a side effect?”
She crosses her arms on top of her cluttered desk. “It could be because of a side effect. Although, if the right person knew a lot about the drug, they might administer it in an attempt to give a person temporary amnesia.”
I sigh heavily. “It’s probably the latter.”
She hesitates, chewing on the end of her pen. “I know you’ve said that you don’t want to tell me who was giving you the drugs all those years, but I want to remind you that you can trust me.” She motions at the closed door. “Everything that gets said in here is strictly confidential, Em.”
She calls me Em and believes my name is Emelia, just like everyone else I meet does. It’s the name I was given eight months ago when I was relocated to Florida under witness protection.
I thrum my fingers on the armrests. I would love to tell her everything, but doing so would be risking my new identity, and right now, it’s not worth the risk.
“I’ll keep that in mind,” I finally say.
“All right then.” She sifts through a file on the desk, moving on. “So, how are the hallucinations coming along? Have you had any?”
I shake my head. “Not for quite a few months.”
“That’s good.” She jots something down on a legal pad. “That makes me believe even more that they were stemming from the medication you were on. Although, I do believe that you saw your brother as a coping mechanism over the guilt you felt because of his death.”
I nod, almost agreeing with her this time. In the beginning, I was so caught up in the madness, that it was hard for me to believe the drugs were causing my mind to slip away.
I haven’t seen Ellis since the day I remembered his death, so I’m hoping she’s right. Still, life hasn’t been easy. I do have nightmares at least once a week and my panic attacks can get intense. But that’s part of life. Even Ryler has stuff he’s dealing with, like missing Violet and Luke and sometimes he can sink into a funk. But we’re always there to help each other out.
“What about your anxiety?” she asks.
I shrug. “It comes and goes.”
She scrawls down something else. “Good. You’re doing really well. You’ve made great progress over the last several months.” She sets down the pen and paper. “I’m proud of you.”
I offer her a small smile. “Thanks.” My attention drifts to the clock on the wall. “Oh shit, I’m going to be late.” I spring from the chair and reach for my bag on the floor.
She pushes back from her desk. “Late for what? I thought you didn’t have class today.”
“I don’t.” I walk backward toward the door. “I’m meeting someone, though.”
She smiles as she walks back to the filing cabinet and puts my folder away. “Have fun with Reece. I’ll see you next Tuesday.”
“How do you know I’m meeting Ryl—Reece?” I ask as I turn the doorknob, cringing when I almost call Ryler by his real name.
Sometimes it happens, and it probably doesn’t help that when we’re behind closed doors, we still call each other Emery and Ryler. He’ll always be Ryler to me, the first guy I ever trusted and felt love for.
“Because you only ever smile like that when you’re meeting him.” She shuts the filing cabinet drawer. “Go have fun, Em. You deserve it.”
Throwing a wave over my shoulder, I hurry down the hallway of the University of Florida where my therapy
sessions take place and where I attend school. It’s the end of fall semester, and the hall is buzzing with energy as finals wrap up. Soon, the holidays will be here and everyone will clear out to go home.
Ryler and I have other plans that involve simply cuddling up at home, and I’m okay with that. More than okay, actually. Simple is good. Simple is perfection.
The hot Florida sun glistens down on me as I race across the campus lawn toward the parking lot like a mad woman, ignoring the alarmed stares thrown in my direction. After everything I’ve been through, getting looked at like I’m crazy doesn’t matter as much anymore.
Sure, it gets to me sometimes. It was really hard when my therapist put me on a mood stabilizer, not because I have psychosis, but to help with the trauma I endured.
“Sorry, sorry, sorry,” I apologize as I approach Ryler’s beat up Dodge Challenger. He had to leave his old one behind, but he managed to save up and buy a junker. “Izzy and I got caught up in our session today.”
Ryler is lying on the hood of his car, writing down something in his journal, looking as sexy as ever, even in faded grey shorts and a black t-shirt. “I love how you call your therapist by her first name.” He closes his journal, sits up, and stretches his arms above his head.
My heart pitter-patters inside my chest as his shirt rides up. “She told me I should.”
He grins when he notices me checking him out and lifts his shirt up to tease me a little. “Like what you see?” he signs, tucking his journal under his arm.
I roll my eyes, but grin as I round the car to the passenger side. “So, where are we going today?” I tug my short brown and purple hair into a ponytail and secure it with an elastic.
He slides off the hood and rakes his hands over his short black hair, a look we’re still getting used to. “I was thinking we could drive down to the beach and build a sand castle. You haven’t done that before. And I was thinking that we could maybe do that memorial for your brother while we’re there. I mean, if you’re ready. You don’t have to, though. No pressure.”
My brother’s body is buried back in Wyoming, in a cemetery near the foothills. My mother and father were in jail, but from what I understand, no one attended the funeral. I wanted to, but Detective Stale warned that going back to Laramie would be risking my new life. Even though I still feel horrible over it, I decided it was best not to go.
But I’ve been meaning to do something in his memory and Ryler suggested I write a letter to him that we can stick in a bottle and send out to sea. That way it lives on for as long as the water will carry it.
I suck in a deep breath. “No, I’m ready to do it. It’s time to say goodbye I think.”
He nods then his lips tug into a devious grin. “And I brought Jäger for afterward, so we can spend the rest of the night calling each other pretty.”
Even after eight months, I still get the slightest bit embarrassed over my drunken words. I shake my head, my cheeks warming, but then I laugh. “Good. Can’t wait.”
A long time ago, when Ryler and I first met, he promised to give me a lot of firsts. He’s been making good on that promise since we got here. Every free day we get from our classes and jobs, we spend time doing stuff. He started with all the intimate stuff first; teaching me things about sex, my body, and myself that I didn’t know could even exist. Then came the everyday stuff, like driving a stick shift, trying new food, watching movies I’d never seen before, seeing the ocean for the first time. I even got my very first tattoo; an intricate tree that weaves up my shoulders blades, the branches shifting into birds at the base of my neck. With each prick of the needle, I felt freer and freer from my old life and Ryler was there to hold my hand.
I’m so different from the girl who grew up in Ralingford, and I’d like to believe that if anyone from my old life every saw me, they wouldn’t recognize who I am. I hope that’s the case.
Even though Donny Elderman, my father, my mother, and a lot of others were arrested when Ralingford was brought down, some managed to escape. While I’m not positive my father won’t have someone track me down, all I can do is live my life. All I can do is keep breathing and be grateful that I have the freedom to breathe.
“And thank you,” I tell him. “I really mean it. Thank you for everything. For being there for me when no one else ever has been.”
He smiles warmly. “I’ll always be there for you, Em. You should know that by now.”
“I do.” Smiling, I climb in the car.
He opens the driver’s side door, slides into the seat, and turns on the engine. “You look happy,” he signs with a thoughtful look on his face, then tugs at a loose strand of my hair.
“I am happy,” I reply, buckling my seatbelt.
“Good. I want you to be happy.”
“I want you to be happy, too.”
I am, he mouths. Then just to prove his point, he leans over the console and kisses me with so much passion I damn near melt into a puddle on his seat. When he pulls away, he flashes me a lopsided grin and backs the car out of the parking spot.
I pick up the iPod, turn on “The Drug In Me Is You” by Falling In Reverse, and hum along to the lyrics.
As Ryler drives out onto the road, he laces our fingers together, and I grip on tight. My heart flutters with excitement like it does every time I’m with him. I love that it’s able to react that way. Love that my past didn’t ruin me completely.
During the beginning of our move, I worried I was broken. That I’d never be normal. And while I don’t believe that I completely fit the definition now, I’m content with where I am. Normal is overrated anyway. Being yourself is what’s most important. And I finally found who that is—who I am.
We hold hands for most of the drive. By the time we make it to the shoreline, the sun is descending and the sky above the water shimmers with hues of pink and gold.
Ryler and I get out of the car with a bottle with the letter I wrote and hike down the beach to where the ocean kisses the shore.
I stand in the sand, staring out at the lulling water, the wind blowing through my hair. “Ellis never got to see the ocean,” I say softly, my heart fluttering in my chest.
This is harder than I thought.
But saying goodbye is always difficult.
Ryler squeezes my hand and the contact gives me the strength I need.
I give one final glance at the paper, skimming over the words I wrote to Ellis.
You were the best brother I never really got to know.
The brother who came to me after death
and forgave me for forgetting
things that should have never been forgotten.
I wish I could have given you more.
Saved you before the dirt took you.
Saved you from being smothered
by the man who gave us air.
Saved you from everything.
I wish you could have seen
how great the world could be,
if you soared high above the life we knew
and flew away into the clouds.
I wish that you could have found your wings.
I’m sorry you never did.
I’ll try my best to fly high for the both of us.
Live the life we should have always had.
Goodbye Ellis.
I hope one day I’ll see you again.
With a deep breath, I roll up the paper and stuff it into the bottle. Then I put the cork into the top and walk forward until the water rolls over my feet.
“Goodbye,” I whisper then chuck the bottle toward the waves, watching it fly away.
I keep my eyes on it as it bobs up and down, finally disappearing out of my sight.
Ryler joins me, twining our fingers together. He leans forward and mouths, Are you okay?
I nod, grip onto him tight, and stand on my tiptoes to kiss him. “You know what? I really think I am,” I tell him when I move back.
And it’s the truth.
Because for the first time ever, it fee
ls like I’ve finally found my wings.
About the Author
Jessica Sorensen is a New York Times and USA Today bestselling author that lives in the snowy mountains of Wyoming. When she's not writing, she spends her time reading and hanging out with her family.