Adam moved in and while Mom seems happy, I can’t ignore the way Dad isn’t in any of the pictures on the walls now. Every picture is of my new “family.” Adam, Mom, and me. It’s like he’s been erased, and I feel bad talking about him because I remember how devastated Mom was when he died.
She smiles now, and I don’t want to see her cry again.
I can’t tell her the reason I need to play baseball is because I miss Dad, and when I’m on the field, it’s like he’s still with me. It’s the only place I can still hear his voice in my head.
Instead of arguing with my mom more, I signed her name on the paper and turned it in. Even though I felt guilty about it at the time, I had to do it. I had to play. I’ve managed to keep her in the dark through tryouts and our first few practices. Our first game of the season is Friday and Coach has me as the starting pitcher.
I clear my throat. “She doesn’t know.”
He raises a brow. “Really? Wow. Hasn’t she noticed you’re always gone?”
I shrug. “I think she’s too distracted by Adam—”
“You murderer!” an unmistakable shrieking voice pierces through the air. A voice I haven’t heard in years. A shiver runs down my spine and my heart goes into overdrive immediately.
Emma.
My heart plummets to the ground and my lungs deflate the second she fills my mind. I’ve tried so hard to block her out, to forget what she did to me.
Sam jumps behind me like I’m supposed to protect him. “What in the world?”
My back stiffens, and I pause. I turn my head enough to see her racing towards me, but it’s like I’m seeing it in slow motion because she hasn’t acknowledged me in forever. Her wild hair is in her face, and her socks are falling down with every step. She’s just as untamed as she’s always been with her war-cry face. Maybe that’s why I can’t move even though Sam is trying to pull me out of her trajectory.
She hits me full force, tackling me to the ground. My head slams into the gravel, scraping my cheek against the rocks and knocking me into reality.
She kicks me in the side as she towers over me. “You monster! You killed my sister!”
I cover my face, scrambling to get out of the way, unable to register what she’s talking about. Emma is like a volcano. Once she erupts you can’t stop her. You can’t reason with her, and in the end I found keeping my distance was the only way to break free from her. She lives life without caring about how others feel. She doesn’t even take two seconds to think about how her actions affect someone else, and she definitely doesn’t take responsibility when she hurts them.
“Emma, are you high?” I yell, using my arms as a shield. “Your sister is literally in Calculus right now!”
“Tell me how you got out of prison!”
Prison? What in the world is she going on about? And killer? Does she know who she’s talking to or does she have me mixed up with someone else? The worst thing I’ve done in my life is sign my mother’s name on my baseball consent form. I wouldn’t exactly call myself a criminal.
Sam grabs on to her from behind, trying to hold her back. “Emma, look up! Mallory is right there!”
She freezes, eyes wide like she’s a deer caught in headlights, with her fist up and ready to fight. Her dark bangs fall into her face, eyes barely poking through the strands. “What?”
“Your sister is right there!” Sam points to the second floor.
She sucks in a breath, frantically looking around like she’s taking in the whole world for the first time. She locks on to her sister in the window. Mallory is clearly visible with her dark hair pulled back with a red ribbon, sitting at her desk, completely oblivious to the fiasco below her.
Sam lets her go.
“But how? She can’t—” Emma covers her mouth, muffling her words. She staggers back, digging her feet into the gravel. Her body wavers, stepping side to side like someone who’s seasick and just stepped on dry land for the first time in days.
She breathes in, practically eating air like she’s starving, and takes a step forward.
Her eyes start to roll back and she sways seconds before her legs buckle.
Sam jumps forward and catches her like a limp fish in hisarms. His jaw drops and his eyebrows fly up, tightening his grip so she doesn’t fall. “What’s wrong with her?”
I roll my eyes. “A lot.”
I scurry to my feet and brush off the dirt from my pants. They’re covered in brown filth and dust. I should make her clean them, but I don’t want to have a reason to talk to her again. I’ll pretend this never happened because I’ve spent too much time redirecting my life to let her take the reins again.
Emma’s hair is sprawled out over her face, and when I look at her, all I can think is she’s overdramatic. She’s probably faking, trying to get out of trouble since she did just beat me up. It’s not like this is the first time she’s done something like this. One time when we were little, she broke one of her mother’s vases so she pretended to have a stomach ache to get out of being grounded.
