And before I left, I double-checked that I’d flipped off the circuit breaker for the oven and that the gas to the stove was shut off. No more 3:00 a.m. breakfasts. No more piano. No more equations…
I jumped in the car, exchanging my concern for my father for a pang of dread for Emery. She’d been working on bringing her vision to life for months. Prom was her dream, and that bastard of a father was somehow stealing that from her too.
I screeched into the country club parking lot a little after nine in the morning and climbed out just in time to see Emery coming out of the front door. She wore jeans and a T-shirt, and her hair was pulled in a messy ponytail. Her eyes were red-rimmed and widened in fear when she saw me.
“Xander?” She glanced around quickly. “What are you doing here?”
“You haven’t answered my calls or texts, and Harper says you’re not going to the prom tonight?”
Emery stiffened. “No, I’m not.”
“Were you going to tell me?”
“Yes…I…I’m sorry. But I have to go. If he sees you here…”
I gritted my teeth. “What happened? What did he do now? What did he tell you?”
“It doesn’t matter,” she said, her eyes filling. “You need to leave.”
“No,” I said. “He can’t do this to you. Whatever it is he told you, it’s a lie.”
“You don’t know him, Xander,” she said brokenly. “You don’t know who he knows and what he can do. Please, just go home.” Emery glanced around fearfully, then lowered her voice. “But your dad, Xander. Get him somewhere safe, okay? I have to go.”
She started past me and I followed, walking with her as she hurried to her car.
“Wait, what about you? Look, I’m sorry I’ve been distant. I’ve been so fucking sad about Dean and stupid with old hurt from my mother leaving. I’ve been thinking in binary, as if there is only you in California and me here because I didn’t think I could survive another hit. But I—”
“I’m not going to California,” she said. “I ruined my teacher’s life. I’m not going to ruin yours too.”
“What? I-I don’t understand. What did he say to you? Emery…what did he say?”
“It’s too late, Xander!” she cried suddenly, then heaved a breath. “It’s too late,” she repeated, calmer now. Resigned. “I can’t do this anymore.”
I can’t do this anymore.My mother’s parting words.
“So that’s it?” I demanded, a hot, ugly feeling unspooling in my gut. “You’re just going to give in? Walk away? You’re not going to fight for us?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because I’m tired of fighting. I’m so tired of…not being enough. For anyone. You, him, myself…”
“I don’t know what that means,” I said, something like panic rising in me. “Did I do something wrong? I thought you had a plan—”
“Plans change,” she said. “Don’t look at me like that. I can’t, Xander.” She straightened, jutted out her chin. “This is what I want.”
“No, it’s not. I don’t believe that.”
Her eyes flashed. “So now you’re going to tell me how I feel too? Like I don’t have enough of that already?”
“No, that’s not what I meant.” I ran a hand through my hair. “Em…what about us?”
“It just got too difficult,” Emery said, her lip quivering. She glanced around a final time, then threw her arms around me. “I’m sorry,” she breathed into my neck, her tears hot on my skin. “But he’s going to win. He always does.”
Then she got into her car and drove away.
I stood in the parking for a good while, Emery’s absence another black hole opening under my feet. A different version of the same rejection that had wounded me since I was ten years old, compounded by loss and death, until I was numb with it.
