Fissure

  I didn’t want to look up. I was sure I’d perform hari kari on myself with the scissors sitting on her desk if I found her looking down on me with pity, or disappointment, or disgust. Although I knew I deserved it all. “So that’s why I lost it. There’s the boiled down truth. I saw the red door and wanted to paint it black because I had no rights to demand you be treated with respect, no rights to protect you.”

  Her hand found mine, weaving its fingers through mine. Warmth flooded me, the kind that made it impossible to remember what cold felt like. “You’re my friend, Patrick,” she said, squeezing my hand. “That gives you every right.”

  This whole conversation was beautiful, as intimate as I’d ever had with a woman, and, despite her assurances threatening to make a joke of my real-men-don’t-cry policy, I realized I’d skirted the real issue by not admitting that I didn’t only want the right to stand up for her, I wanted all of her.

  These were two somewhat similar and very different things.

  “I’ll remember that the next time Ty tries to throw you on your derriere again,” I said, reverting to lightheartedness when I felt anything but. “Wait, what am I talking about? There better not ever be a next time,” I growled, trying to block the image of Emma falling shock faced to the ground.

  “There won’t be,” she whispered to herself.

  “Wait,” I said, too good at interpreting the unsaid for my proverbial blood pressure’s sake. “He hasn’t done this before has he? Pushed you around?” I didn’t want to ask it because I knew if she confirmed he had, I’d be facing murder charges in about half an hour, but that was a secondary concern.

  When she didn’t give me an immediate answer, I tilted her chin up with my hand until she was forced to look at me. “Emma?”

  “No, never,” she answered. Her eyes didn’t dart to the side, she didn’t bite her lip, she didn’t run her fingers through her hair; nothing said she wasn’t telling the truth, and I would know. Being a strength instructor the better part of forever, I’d taught “Truth Detection and Lie Evasion” only about one thousand times to about ten thousand students. It was ingrained. “He was just so drunk Saturday night, drunker than I’ve ever seen him. He wasn’t acting like himself.”

  “All due respect, Em,” I said, moving my hand from her chin because it was what I was supposed to do, not what I wanted to do. “But in my experience, alcohol doesn’t create a monster out of nothing. It only lets it off the chain.”

  She sighed, folding herself around the pillow deeper. “Listen, could we not talk about Ty anymore? And by anymore, I mean never again. He’s my boyfriend and you’re my friend, but the two of you can’t tolerate each other, even in conversation, so I’m officially invoking my right to not discuss either of you in the other’s company because I refuse to forfeit either of you.”

  The cell phone on her nightstand vibrated, earning a nervous glance from her before she turned it off without sparing a closer look at the caller ID. Chances are she already knew who it was and chances were the same I did too, but only seconds following her Ty-talk-off-limits ultimatum, I wasn’t going to say anything. “I want to keep you both,” she finished, a corner of her mouth lifting like she was guilty for wanting this.

  I was nothing short of elated that she wanted to keep me in any way, so I tried not to agonize over her wanting to keep Ty too. A loser like that would dig his own grave eventually—he didn’t need any help from me. And from the look of his girlfriend’s face, he was one misstep away from hanging himself. And guess where I’d be? Right here, waiting for her. For as long as it took because, as hard as Emma tried to front that she didn’t feel it, the link tying us together was as undeniable as it was inescapable.

  That might have been a cocky thing to assume, that this supreme specimen of a woman who was “officially” off the market had a gravitational pull towards me, but I knew few things better than women, and moments like this, when her eyes flitted away from me as quickly as they flickered to me, like she didn’t know where to look without giving herself away, told me what I needed to know.

  Friends didn’t have a problem looking into each other’s eyes.

  “Em, I’m yours to keep. I’m not going anywhere,” I said, contemplating rolling the last few inches to her bed. “So this is the last I’ll say about your soon-to-be ex,”—her eyes did a half roll—“I was in the wrong Saturday night, but so was he. One of the gazillion lessons my mother pounded into my brain was that it’s never okay to lay your hands on a woman in an angry way, so I’ll do my darndest not to badmouth him in front of you anymore, but fair warning that I won’t be able to control myself if he lays his hands on you again. I don’t care if it’s a rumor I hear in passing, I’ll throttle him.” I was giving the fanatic a little too much leash, so I reined him in, softening my threat with a smile. “Those are my terms. If those are acceptable, please make your mark here,” I said, tapping my cheek while flashing her a wicked grin. “With your lips.”

  “My lips are off duty,” she said, wielding her pillow as a weapon. “This will just have to do.” The pillow grazed my face like she could hurt me with a feather stuffed rectangle of fabric. She could have cold-cocked me over the head with a duffel bag full of bricks and I wouldn’t have been phased.

  “Did you just throw the opening swing in what is surely to become a world war of pillow fights?” I challenged, playfully grinding my fist into my other hand. “I’m not the kind of man to retreat from an attack, you know.” Shoving the chair back towards the desk, I grabbed the black satin pillow off Julia’s bed.

  “Don’t. You. Dare,” Emma warned, pushing back into the corner of her bed.

  “Nothing can save you now,” I said, wielding the pillow like it was Excalibur. “Any last words?” I asked, already mid-swing.

  “Yeah,” she said as I suddenly found myself half-spread over her bed with her straddling me in the most chaste way I’d ever been straddled. Emma was wicked fast. And strong. “You shouldn’t mess with girls who grew up with four older brothers who served wet willies for breakfast.” Her brows popped twice as she grazed me again over the face with her pillow. I didn’t even make an attempt to stop her. Immortal instincts aside, I don’t think I could have.

  Having her hovering above me, smiling the one only Emma could, pinned to the bed by her knees, the scent of her sheets—and these were only a few of the sensations that were intoxicating me—I laid beneath her like an old man on his death bed, happy to go out with his boots on.

  But as soon as Emma moved to position herself off of me, my state of frozen drunkenness evaporated. Before she could right herself, I had her pinned back to the bed, although I took the chaste high road and only trapped her with my hands over her shoulders, despite my chest aching to pin her a few other ways too. She looked as surprised as I had moments ago, but managed to laugh through it, rolling side to side, trying to free herself.

  “And you shouldn’t mess with the boy who weighed twenty pounds less than his three brothers who liked to use whatever limb they could to take out their internalized jealousy at me for being the good looking one in the family,” I said as sternly as a man could as he was being prodded in the sides. My laughter mixed with hers, until I was certain nothing could ruin this moment.

  That was, until a thunderous rapping sounded at the door. “Emma!” an equally loud voice shouted through it. “Let me in! If that little girl who’s got a hard on for you is in there, he’s going to catch a beating.”

  Emma went stone stiff, her face blanching. I wasn’t sure what she was so terrified of, but it seemed her boyfriend almost catching her playing around with her, eh-hmm, friend didn’t warrant a quarter of the emotion flashing over her face.

  “What do you want me to do?” I whispered, hoping she’d tell me to open the door, deck the loser in his face, and then get back to what we were doing.

  “Just pretend we’re not here,” she whispered back, her eyes darting back at the door.

  “Emma, dammit. Open the doo
r. I know you’re in there.” Ty was in the boiling over stage—I didn’t need to see his red face to ascertain this. The door took another beating as he attacked it with both fists. “You’ve got ten seconds to open this door or else I’m taking it down.”

  “Like hell he is,” I said, shoving to a stand, my fists balled as I headed towards the door, ready to show this redneck how to show a woman some respect.

  “No,” Emma hissed, grabbing me by the hand and whipping me around. “Please, you promised you’d behave.”

  I closed my eyes, focusing on unclenching my jaw. “I promised I’d try to behave myself. This”—I tilted my head back at the door where Ty continued his assault on it—“is making good behavior impossible.”

  Making another attempt at the door, she stalled me again, coming into the area that was all personal space. Her warmth crept across the sheet of air separating us, making its way against my skin. Looking up at me, she rested a trembling hand on my cheek.

  “Be the man I know you are,” she whispered, her eyes begging me to find whatever restraint she was sure I had, although I was anything but. Restraint wouldn’t be something I’d say I had in vast amounts, or any amounts for that matter.

  Feeling like it was going against every natural fiber in my body, I sighed. “Does that window open?” I glanced at the window above the desk.

  She nodded her head, giving me a look like she couldn’t understand what that had to do with anything.

  Rushing in the opposite direction of where I wanted to go, I lifted the lock and whooshed the window open.

  “We’re three floors up!” Emma whisper shouted. “Don’t you dare.”

  Crouching over her desk, I sent a playful smile her way before launching myself out the window.

  At least most of the way. My fingers still curled over the sill, not able to resist the expression on her face when she rushed to the window. Raw terror was probably the best way to describe the flattened planes of her face.

  “What the heck do you think you’re doing?” she gasped, glancing from the hard ground below us back to me.

  Managing to shrug in my hanging position, I answered her, “Being the man you believe I am.”

  Shaking her head, a tiny smile formed. “Of course. You’ve finally become him two seconds before you break your neck.”

  “Three floors? I got this,” I assured her, the entire world gone again when she looked at me the way she was now. “I’ve leapt out of many a maiden’s chambers floors higher I’ll have you know.”

  She shook her head like she couldn’t believe I was making jokes at a time like this. “I do have to say, if it wasn’t for the extenuating circumstances,” she said, her head tilting back at the door, “I’d probably find this whole hanging out of my window, making sweet little looks at me thing rather romantic.” She ran her fingers over mine. “It’s got Shakespeare written all over it.” Taking another look at the ground, she cast an anxious look my way. “Are you sure you’ll be all right? That’s a long ways down.”

  “I promise.”

  She gave me a look I didn’t need clarified.

  “That’s a promise I can keep,” I said, answering her silent question. “See you in class Wednesday?”

  She nodded, looking like she wanted to say something more, but she leaned back, already resolved to moving on from us to soothe Ty’s delicate sensibilities.

  “Hey, Em,” I called out right before dropping. “He hurts you, I’ll kill him. Maybe those should be the first words out of your mouth when you open what’s left of your door.”

  “Thanks for the tip,” she said, looking away before I jumped. Like she couldn’t stand by helpless while I fell.

  I got it, though. I’d never been one to be able to stand by and watch someone else crash to the ground without a net in place.

  CHAPTER TEN

  I’d had two tireless days and two sleepless nights by the time I stepped into class Wednesday afternoon. I’d waited to run into her on campus yesterday, expected I’d at least catch a glimpse of her, and hoped for a call letting me know she was all right.

  I received none. Three strikes—I’m out.

  I could have teleported into her room last night, but that seemed like cheating. I couldn’t carry on a one sided relationship by using supernatural gifts that she wasn’t aware of. Of course I could have knocked on her door at anytime to check on her too, and I almost did a hundred different times, but some egging thing that felt a lot like instinct told me showing up unannounced at her door could make things worse. I’d never gone against my instincts yet, and for my acquiescence, they’d rewarded me by saving my butt on at least a semi-annual basis for a couple centuries.

  Maybe she needed time, maybe she was crazy busy catching up from her day of playing hooky, or maybe she didn’t feel like there was any need to check in with me, but whatever it was, if my gut was telling me to lay low, that’s just what I was going to do.

  It was the single most difficult thing for me to follow through on.

  Diving into my front and center seat in Psych, it felt like I was breaking through the finish line at the end of a marathon. I’d obeyed my internal compass, did my time, and now it was time to reap the reward of seeing Emma.

  My stomach did a twist when I realized she might pull a repeat of Monday’s no-show. If that was the case, guts be damned, I was going find her and harass her until I got my Emma fix.

  Professor Camp was already a few snide comments into his lecture when the auditorium door screeched open. I didn’t need to look to know it was her—I felt her an instant before the door opened, and while I probably didn’t have to look to see if Ty was leeched to her side, I did.

  They were sliding into the last two seats of the back row when I turned in my seat to steal a glimpse. Emma was dressed like she was ready for winter in Montana instead of a cloudless Indian summer day in California. If that wasn’t cause enough for concern, her face was a tomb. It wasn’t just expressionless, it was dead. Like an emotion would never play over it again.

  Sagging a meat-hook arm around her shoulders, Ty’s eyes shifted my way. His face was so lined with smugness it might get stuck that way. Well, stuck that way more than it was most of the time, at least.

  I knew he was waiting for me to be the first to look away, but I didn’t want it on my permanent record that I’d been the first to tap out to Ty Steel in anything. I returned his stare, holding it long enough several of the other students took notice.

  The attention increasing, Ty flipped me his favorite finger as his stare left mine to settle over Emma. Giving her a head to toe, he managed to convey ownership, supremacy, and downright creepiness with one once over.

  Emma stayed zombie-fied, ignorant of the guy molesting her with his eyes next to her and the guy down in front staring at her like she was everything he wanted and could never have. The poor girl didn’t deserve either stare.

  I turned forward in my seat to relieve her of one.

  Class was hell. A solid fifty minutes of gibberish of which I didn’t process a lick.

  Every student in class would have a strong opinions that I had a serious tick after today’s class. I tried to keep my head forward, eyes locked on some arbitrary point, but as soon as I’d find it, they’d head off target and boomerang to the back corner of the room.

  My eye seizures were bad, but Emma’s state of stone nothingness was far worse. I was half convinced Ty had arrived with a mannequin look alike until I detected her pencil moving across that ratty spiral notebook she loved so much.

  She never once looked my way.

  “All right, everyone. Time to wake up now that class is almost over,” Camp hollered, clapping his hands like a cymbal monkey. “As there are no classes this Friday, I want to remind everyone that the big second date for the Love Project is scheduled for this weekend. I don’t care what day or time you choose, but as last week was guy’s pick, this week it’s girl’s choice. Choose well, ladies, but make sure you make him pay.”

/>   The soprano grade laughter was drowned out by the baritone wave of groaning.

  “Have a groovy long weekend. Work easy and play hard,” he continued on, but the roar of laptops snapping shut and backpacks zipping close muffled his closing comments.

  Shouldering my bag, I took quite possibly the thousandth glance towards the back of the room, not sure what I was going to say or do. Just knowing I had to say or do something.

  Turns out, I wouldn’t be able to do anything because the formerly occupied seats in the back corner were empty.

  He was clever, I had to give him that, but that was about all I would give him. However, his grand scheme of arriving late and skipping out early would only keep me away from Emma for so long. About another ten minutes, I figured, or however long it took me to walk across campus to her dorm where I was banking on the theory that Ty hadn’t moved her to some undisclosed location.

  I didn’t put it past him to do just that.

  I jogged my way across campus, not able to shake the feeling that I’d find myself knocking on the door of an empty dorm room. Shuffling through a stream of bodies bounding down the stairs off to their next classes, I took the stairs by twos as I headed to the third floor.

  Halfway down the hall and I had my answer. I didn’t need to knock on the door to know it wouldn’t open.

  But I did anyways.

  No answer. Big surprise. Like the good stalker in love I was, I’d memorized her schedule days ago, so I knew she didn’t have another class after Psych and volleyball practice didn’t start for another couple hours, which led to one conclusion.

  Ty was making sure he kept her away from me or, I guess the truer way of putting it, is he was trying to keep me away from her. I didn’t want to admit that, after a half-day of Patrick dodging, Ty had unsettled me, but he had.